PUBLIC, PRIVATE, SECRET
New JFK Tell-All Says President Was Ready to ‘Confront His Demons’ When He Died
The new book details JFK's life rise up the political ranks, his public persona and his marriage to Jackie Onassis
By Tim Chan
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July 21, 2025
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A new JFK book is making headlines for promising to unearth previously-unheard details about the enigmatic president’s life both in public and private.
The appropriately titled JFK: Public, Private, Secret, is a new book from author J. Randy Taraborrelli and publisher St. Martin’s Press, and is billed as a “definitive portrait” of John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s time in the White House. Released July 15, the 592-page hardcover has already landed on Amazon’s political biographies bestsellers list.
Amazon
NEW RELEASE
JFK: Public, Private, Secret
$29.12 $35.00 17% off
Taraborrelli has long-covered the Kennedy dynasty, and the author released the book, Jackie: Public, Private, Secret in 2023. The new release focuses on Kennedy’s life, including his rise up the political ranks, his public persona, and his marriage to Jackie Onassis, which was often riddled with rumors about infidelity and divorce. As Taraborrelli writes, Kennedy’s “character was always in flux,” even at the time of his death in 1963.
While this is an unauthorized biography, it never the less draws on hundreds of interviews conducted over the years, including recordings and oral histories from the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Presidential Library, as well as new interviews with people like Marilyn Monroe’s longtime publicist, Pat Newcomb, and Joseph P. Kennedy Sr.’s personal secretary, Janet DesRosiers Fontaine. Taraborrelli also had access to a manuscript of Joseph Kennedy’s unpublished memoir, in addition to manuscripts from unpublished interviews that Jackie’s mother’s Janet Lee Bouvier gave in the Seventies.
The resulting tell-all promises revelations into everything from JFK’s romances with Inga Arvad (a suspected Nazi spy), flight attendant Joan Lundberg, and Monroe, to his rumored affiliation with the mafia, and how they helped him rise to power. The book also details how JFK felt “undermined by his own cabinet” at times, ultimately taking control of his administration during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
As the publisher notes state, “The JFK presented in Taraborrelli’s definitive biography is a complex and endlessly fascinating historical figure―despite, and perhaps even because of, his many flaws. More than the story of a presidency, this is an intimate study of a man whose public triumphs were shaped―and at times overshadowed―by the complex realities of his private life, from his legendary family to his marriage to Jacqueline Kennedy.”
Amazon
AUDIOBOOK VERSION
JFK: Public, Private, Secret
$21.65 $24.74 12% off
Of course, while many remember the late President has someone who “struggled to find his way,” Taraborrelli notes that his research ultimately revealed a man who was ready to “come face-to-face with and confront his demons,” adding that JFK was about to experience a “full evolution of character” had he not died at such a young age.
Pick up JFK: Public, Private, Secret on hardcover here and download the audiobook (narrated by the author) using the link above. You can also listen to the JFK biography online with a current Audible offer that gets you three months of streaming for under $1 a month. See full details here.
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