I took three pages of notes while reading Doris Kearns Goodwin’s An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s. Why? I’m not writing a book report, and this is the only review I’m writing. But, the story of the 1960s, as seen by Dick and Doris Kearns Goodwin is fascinating, and I just felt as if I needed the notes.

The historians were married for forty-two years. But, their experiences in their twenties and thirties, before they even met, set the map for the rest of their lives. To tell the story of their careers, particularly Dick’s, the couple opened three hundred boxes of letters, documents, and memorabilia. Dick was in his eighties, and Doris in her mid-seventies when they started their project.

Dick Goodwin was one of the “brilliant young men of John F. Kennedy’s New Frontier”. He was one of Kennedy’s primary speechwriters. Kennedy was his idol. In his thirties, Dick wrote about and helped design LBJ’s Great Society. He was always idealistic, and wanted the best for the country. When he wanted to move on with his life, he had to fight to leave LBJ’s White House. Dick’s speeches helped Eugene McCarthy, and Robert Kennedy. While he idolized JFK, Dick was closer to RFK. He loved him, and saw him as the future of the country. In Dick’s memories are stories of these men, along with their interactions with Martin Luther King, Jr., and others, the important movers of the 1960s.

Doris Kearns Goodwin’s memories of her time with LBJ starts just before she was selected as a White House Fellow, despite the article in The New Republic, “How to Remove LBJ in 1968”. She was in her twenties, idealistic as well, and went to work at the Department of Labor, advocating for Johnson’s Great Society programs, and helping them to move ahead. Eventually, she was transferred to the White House where she often worked directly with the President. Although she turned him down when he was retiring and wanted her to help write his memoirs, she eventually found a way to work part-time for him, while teaching at Harvard.

Goodwin’s book is the story of the tumultuous 1960s, and the tragedies of 1968. But, it’s also the story of two people who loved each other, but were conflicted for years over their opinions of the men they worked for. While Dick’s loyalties were with the Kennedys, Doris appreciated and loved Johnson. As they worked on this project together, though, she acknowledged that their debates over the years were about the “respective investments of our youth, questions of loyalty and love”.

In the end, there was no question about the loyalty and love the Goodwins had for each other.

If you’re fascinated by the 1960s, and what happened in those years, you’ll want to pick up this book, told from the viewpoints of two people who were in the midst of the history, in “The Room Where it Happens”. An Unfinished Love Story is a memoir and history.

Doris Kearns Goodwin’s website is https://doriskearnsgoodwin.com/

An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Simon & Schuster, 2024. ISBN 9781982108663 (hardcover), 480p.

FTC Full Disclosure – I read a galley through NetGalley, with no promise of a positive review.