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Archive on 4: JFK, Bobby and Dad

Factual: History

JFK, Bobby and Dad

03/09/2011

BBC Radio 4 - Archive on 4, JFK, Bobby and Dad

JFK aide Kenneth O'Donnell's daughter Helen presents her father's interview tapes.

In 1965, Kenneth O'Donnell taped interviews about his time as Special Assistant to President John F Kennedy. O'Donnell's daughter Helen shares these tapes for the very first time.

In 1965, two years after the assassination of John F Kennedy, and three years before the murder of Senator Bobby Kennedy, a man named Kenneth O'Donnell taped around 200 hours of audio interviews at various locations with a journalist named Sander Vanocur. 

Vanocur was White House correspondent for NBC News in the 1960s, and O'Donnell was no ordinary raconteur. He spent years at the heart of the Kennedy administration as JFK's Special Assistant and was best friend to Bobby Kennedy from Harvard until Bobby's tragic death. 

He was also the father of Helen O'Donnell, who in this Archive on Four takes the listener on a journey through these tapes, which have never before been broadcast. They are full of insight into the Kennedy story, and for Helen, full of insight into the father she lost when just a teenager. 


Producer: Isobel Williams
A Bite Yer Legs production for BBC Radio 4.

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