Common Good

An illuminating account of the history-making friendship between RFK and the chief of staff to JFK—a bond built on shared ideals, but severed by tragedy. When they first met at Harvard in 1946, young Bobby Kennedy and Kenny O’Donnell could not have imagined where their lives would take them. Teammates on both the football and debate teams, they formed a partnership that would sustain them through the years, from Robert Kennedy’s tenure as attorney general to O’Donnell’s years as John F. Kennedy’s chief of staff. Together they lived, worked, and struggled through some of the most pivotal moments of the twentieth century, including the assassination of JFK in Dallas. Their harmonious relationship was cut short only by Bobby’s own tragic death.   With full access to the Kennedy family archives, Helen O’Donnell brings an inspiring personal and political alliance to life. With A Common Good, she amply fulfills the promise she made to her late father to honor and preserve his memories of Robert F. Kennedy for future generations.  Kirkus Reviews hails A Common Good as “a moving and intimate study of a unique friendship but also of the time and place, now long ago, in which this friendship formed and blossomed.” O’Donnell “set out to write ‘a good book about two good men.’ In this she has succeeded.”