Brought Up to Be a Good Man

How far might he have gone? There has always been a tendency to see John F. Kennedy Jr. as John-John, the sobriquet the press bestowed on him when he was a little boy in the White House. Those bewitched by the John-John idea saw the grown man as a frivolous young fellow floating carelessly on the pleasures of life. In fact, J.F.K. Jr. detested the nickname and was not a man fulfilled by pleasure-floating. But he cherished his privacy and disdained defensive self-publicity.

Jacqueline Kennedy was a wonderful single mother. She was determined to maintain her children's privacy in order to...