Books: The Chronicles of a Dynasty in the Making

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His granddaughter's portrait-by-accumulation (a sort of fractured Polaroid, slowly developing) interweaves Joe Kennedy's documents with family letters, diaries and other material that supplies context and depth and a sort of jocular devotion that reflects handsomely upon the old man. From Antibes, 21-year-old Teddy cables: "Happy Father's Day having barrels of fun send money for more barrels Love Ted." From his honeymoon in Acapulco in September 1953, Jack wires: "At last I know true meaning of rapture Jackie is enshrined forever in my heart thanks Mom and Dad for making me worthy of her your loving son Jack." But the mystery of Joe Kennedy remains pretty much intact. He was a shrewdly concealed man who said, "Never write anything down that you wouldn't want published on the front page of the New York Times." His notes to his children are loving, stern, minutely involved. His messages to his wife Rose express tenderness and devotion. To judge by these papers, one might think the Hollywood mogul's longtime relationship with the actress Gloria Swanson was strictly business. And of his other free-lance sexual buccaneering, there is not a trace. Old Joe is the one who taught his son Jack how to keep secrets.

In her introduction, Smith writes of the Kennedy family with a sometimes rueful eloquence: "As I've grown older, I have begun to marvel...at how much of my life I have spent among ghosts. These are no malevolent presences...Rather, they are such restless spirits as only the strange twentieth-century cocktail of celebrity, technology and collective memory could produce."

The book ends with an entry from Rose Kennedy describing Thanksgiving 1961 at Hyannis Port--an essentially triumphal occasion, with Jack in the White House. Dallas was almost exactly two years in the future. Rose wrote: "Jack gets great kick out of seeing Ted dance as Ted has great sense of rhythm but he is so big & has such a big derriere it is funny to see him throw himself around--Lots of discussion about 'the Twist'--the new dance which has great vogue at the moment throw your hips around--NO one knew much about it but Jackie at end in a Schiaparelli pink slack suit gave a three-minute performance..." Then Rose observed: "Joe Sr...is not at all himself but quiet...For first time--I have noticed he has grown old." A month later, Joe Kennedy had the stroke that incapacitated him for the rest of his life.