Vanity Fair

This is not the first time Vanity Fair has featured the Kennedy clan in its long history.

Published on November 21, 2007

Vanity Fair

However, many of the portraits by late photographer Richard Avedon are being published for the first time and that alone makes this issue worth buying.

The distinguished photo portraitist and fashion photographer captured John F Kennedy and his wife Jacqueline, Caroline (then three years old), and their infant son John junior just before JFK took the oath of office in January 1961. The photos aimed to send the nation a message of youth, vitality and confidence. The photographer had worked with Jacqueline before but not with the president-elect who apparently tended to freeze in front of the cameras. Historian and presidential biographer Robert Dallek explains how this set of photos helped position an American dynasty.

Then fast-forward to recent American politics with a fascinating feature on a little-known civil war in the White House - between the Clintons and vice-president Al Gore. The excerpt from Sally Bedell Smith's forthcoming book describes how conflicting agendas sapped Gore's 2000 campaign and how Hillary and Al competed for the position of Bill's "right-hand man".

On a lighter note, Judith Newman takes a look at the mothers of tabloid girls Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears and asks if they are really part of the problem. Seems as if Kathy Hilton may well bear at least part of the responsibility for her daughter's naughty bedroom video and recent stint in jail - it all started when she told a very young Paris that she'd be bigger than Marilyn Monroe and Princess Di.

Experts say the mother-and-child relationship is always hard and we learn it's even harder when your child is in the entertainment business.

by worm boy

The Nation