COMING NOVEMBER 2026
ABOUT THE BOOK
John F. Kennedy and Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. spent much of their political lives as rivals.
They represented different parties and different political traditions. Yet their lives followed surprisingly parallel paths.
Both were sons of political dynasties. Both had complicated relationships with their fathers. Both were educated at elite New England prep schools before attending Harvard. Both spent time as newspaper reporters and wrote books on military preparedness. Both served with distinction during World War II. Both preferred the competition of political races over the tedium of governing. And though it manifested itself in different ways, both possessed a fatalism that fueled their ambitions.
And both were shaped by Boston.
When Kennedy became president, his relationship with Lodge took an unexpected turn. In 1963, Kennedy appointed his former political rival as ambassador to South Vietnam.
Lodge arrived in Saigon at a critical moment.
Within months, the regime of President Ngo Dinh Diem would be overthrown and America's commitment to South Vietnam would enter a new and more dangerous phase.
Politica Dynastica examines this history through the relationship between two men who knew one another unusually well.
It is a story about political dynasties, fathers and sons, ambition, personal loyalty, foreign policy, and the unintended consequences of human decisions.