John F. Kennedy may be remembered as the charming, confident 35th president — but a new book claims his early life was anything but easy.
In Becoming JFK: John F. Kennedy’s Early Path to Leadership, author Scott Badler uncovers the surprising, often messy journey that shaped America’s future leader — from frail health and failed flirting to lessons learned behind bars.
At just 18, young “Jack” Kennedy landed in a Martha’s Vineyard jail cell after a regatta party with his brother Joe Jr. got out of hand. According to Badler, furniture was destroyed, police were called, and Joe Sr. refused to bail them out — leaving his sons to spend the night in a grimy cell “with a dead rat in the corner.”
That humiliating night, Badler says, forced Jack to grow up fast — realizing he couldn’t rely on his older brother forever.
Kennedy’s lifelong battle with health issues started early. At six feet tall but barely 150 pounds, he was described as “wiry and frail,” often confined to the school infirmary at Choate.
By college, he’d grown so thin that when reporters wanted photos of the Harvard swim team, he refused — embarrassed by his ribs “sticking out.” After World War II, his sister Kick was alarmed to see him weighing an estimated 125 pounds.
Badler says these struggles fueled his resilience — and his empathy for others.
In 1936, his father sent him to Arizona for a “real job” — earning just $1 a day making adobe bricks under the desert sun. Later, worried about “getting soft” at a desk job, Kennedy ordered the famous Charles Atlas workout program advertised in comic books.
He wrote to a friend that he’d already “thrown his back out on exercise one, lesson four” — proving that even presidents can fail fitness plans.
Kennedy’s chronic back pain was so severe he often slept on a plank of wood instead of a bed. Whether in his Stanford cottage or at naval training camp, he preferred plywood to mattresses.
Badler writes that the habit “speaks volumes about his ability to endure constant pain without complaint.”
Even America’s most charismatic president knew rejection. In 1945, JFK reportedly fell hard for Gone With the Wind star Olivia de Havilland — but when he asked her to dinner, she turned him down. Later, he spotted her dining with author Ludwig Bemelmans instead.
According to Badler, “It was an early lesson that charm alone wasn’t enough — power was the real currency.”
Despite his later reputation as a natural politician, Kennedy’s early days were awkward. Badler says his speeches came out in a “high-pitched monotone,” and one voter said he looked “like a little boy dressed in his father’s clothes.” When a woman offered her baby for a kiss, JFK reportedly held it away in panic.
That discomfort, Badler argues, forced him to develop a more thoughtful, serious public persona — one that would eventually win over America.
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