The No.1 New York Times Bestseller In January 1961, as the cold war escalates, John F. Kennedy struggles to contain the growth of communism while he learns the hardships, solitude and temptations of what it means to be president of the United States. At the same time, JFK acquires a number of formidable enemies, among them Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and Allen Dulles, director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Then, in the midst of a 1963 campaign trip to Texas, a sequence of gunshots kills a beloved president and sends America into the cataclysmic division of the Vietnam War and its culture-changing aftermath. A page-turner from beginning to end, Killing Kennedy chronicles both the heroism and deceit of Camelot, bringing history to life fifty years after the most notorious crime of the twentieth century. 'Immersively written . . . A powerful historical précis' Janet Maslin, The New York Times