Daniel R. Hart is a historian, writer, and editor based in Boston.
A note from the author:
The idea for Politica Dynastica began with a desire to understand the origin story of US involvement in Vietnam. I understood the broader implications of the Cold War and the American policy of containing communism. But history is made by people, and I found it odd that Henry Cabot Lodge would be in Saigon in 1963. He had been a US Senator, a member of Eisenhower's cabinet, and Nixon's running mate in 1960. As US Ambassador to the UN, he gained fame as America's foremost spokesman against the Soviets.
But the more I researched Lodge, the more difficult it became to separate his story from that of John F. Kennedy.
A lot of ink has been spilled on Kennedy. Alongside Franklin D. Roosevelt and the men on Mount Rushmore, Kennedy stands among the most extensively studied and written-about figures in American political history.
But the story of the two men, their striking similarities and heavy burdens, and their combined role in Vietnam, was too compelling a story not to tell.
Their relationship also raised a larger question: how much do individuals matter in history?
The research eventually led me back to Boston—the city that shaped both men, their families, their politics, and their understanding of one another.
What began as a study of US involvement in Vietnam became a story about two political dynasties, two Bostonians, and the consequences of a relationship that reached from Massachusetts to Saigon.