Get Ready to Ride the Kennedy Clan Book Wave

Michael Korda, the novelist and editor-in-chief of Simon & Schuster, says that if Shakespeare had seen a good biography of the Kennedys, he would have written a play about them in 48 hours. “The family’s story is the one Shakespearean and Greek tragedy that we’ve had in 200 years of American history,” he says. “It has everything--greed, murder, dynasty and power.”

It may be no wonder then that a wave of new books about members of the Massachusetts clan, coinciding with the 30th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, includes no fewer than three from Simon & Schuster and its Fireside paperback division.

S & S has scheduled an October release of “President Kennedy: Profile of Power,” columnist Richard Reeves’ review of the Kennedy Administration. The book is said to present an especially detailed chronology of Kennedy’s thousand days in office.

Among books about the assassination will be Bob Callahan’s “Who Killed JFK?” (Fireside), a guide to 20 major conspiracy theories floated since the killing in Dallas.

In “Case Closed,” scheduled for September from Random House, author Gerald L. Posner will make the case that Lee Harvey Oswald was a lone gunman. In an unusual letter to book review editors, Random House publisher Harold M. Evans praises Posner and says he “answers every reasonable doubt . . . by an astonishing accumulation of coherent reporting on the character and actions of Oswald, and by new evidence.”

Disagreeing with Posner is “The Killing of a President,” an ambitious $30 volume from Viking Studio with an announced print run of 100,000 copies. Author Robert J. Groden, a former photo consultant to the House Select Committee on Assassinations, will lay out undoctored transcripts of witness interviews and several hundred photographs, including ghastly shots taken at the President’s autopsy and pictures that were previously suppressed, to support allegations of a murder conspiracy and cover-up. The November release will present Jacqueline Kennedy’s unedited testimony before the Warren Commission in which she chillingly recalled that the shots that hit her husband had come from the front as well as behind.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who has suffered unflattering media attention through the years, now may enjoy something of a reprieve in print. In “Chappaquiddick: The Real Story,” published in June by St. Martin’s Press, lawyer James Lange and co-author Katherine DeWitt Jr. dismiss the allegations of drunkenness and a cover-up long associated with the 1969 incident that resulted in the death of Mary Jo Kopechne. Instead, they argue that Kennedy was guilty of panic and poor judgment.

Simon & Schuster had scheduled Joe McGinniss’ “The Last Brother” for publication in October, but brought the 640-page biography of Ted Kennedy out early, surrounded by controversy including accusations from William Manchester that McGinniss used material from his previous Kennedy biography and a curious note in the McGinniss book--later removed--that stated some thoughts and dialogue in the book “were created by the author.”

Curiously, the 25th anniversary of Robert F. Kennedy’s slaying passed in June with minimal attention from publishers. Two exceptions: In the new “When I Think of Bobby” (HarperCollins), Washington columnist Warren Rogers affectionately remembers Kennedy the family man. The book also contains a firsthand recollection of helping to subdue Sirhan Sirhan after the Jordanian shot the senator in a Los Angeles hotel kitchen.

In the new “Heroes of My Time” (Walker), the New York Timesman Harrison E. Salisbury, who died last month, chronicles how his view of Robert Kennedy changed over two decades--the man he regarded as a cold-blooded opportunist when he encountered him in 1956 became a wise man ready to be a fine President. The shooting in Los Angeles drew Salisbury back to the Times newsroom in the wee hours of June 5, 1968. “Twice the telephone rang,” Salisbury recalls. “It was Jackie Kennedy calling to ask if there was any more news. Her voice seemed to float over the wire from some distant vale.”

Perhaps the surest sign that the Kennedys will continue to interest publishers for years to come is the release of books about the younger members of the clan, including Rep. Joseph Kennedy III (D-Mass.) and NBC newswoman Maria Shriver.

In November, Thunder’s Mouth Press plans a 50,000-copy printing of “The Kennedys: The Third Generation” by Ted Schwarz and Barbara Gibson, a former secretary to Rose Kennedy. Also in November, “Prince Charming: The John F. Kennedy Jr. Story” will be published by Dutton. The author, Wendy Leigh, last sized up Kennedy’s cousin-in-law, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Although Dutton is keeping quiet about “Prince Charming,” the publisher’s fall catalogue says that Leigh has tapped “hitherto unreleased government files and previously unavailable material from the Kennedy Library” in crafting a portrait of “the most desirable man of our time.” And seeking to exploit interest in JFK Jr. as hunk, Dutton has settled on a wordless book cover that will show only the heartthrob.