BOOKS BY THEODORE C. SORENSEN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-01089R000100040001-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 111
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 29, 2005
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: June 17, 1961
• Content Type: LIST

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Decision: John Kennedy and the Cuban Missile crisis. Milwaukee?
Raintree Publishers, 1976. (on order)
Decision-making in the White House; the olive branch or the arrows.
New York, Columbia University Press, 1963. 94p. JK516.S7
Kennedy. New York, Harper and Row, 1965. 783p. E842.S7
The Kennedy legacy. New York, Macmillan, 1969. 414p. E843.S7 HIC
Watchmen in the night: Presidential accountability after Watergate.
Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press, 1975. 178p.
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SNOW, C. Ii_-Con:i'irsrd
Nodded novelist; and the hard-ell technique
of a successful businessman . is a
iolly persisnality who takes a schooll:,o}ish
delight in his plans for presetting a new
pol'tiro-scientific hurndinger which is going to
rattle the Establishment more than somewhat."
,Rf f rrc,ites -
Authors & Writers i1h+o's Who (1960)
lntematit nal %N'ho's \Vbci, 1y51
Twentieth Century Authors (First Sup-
plement. 1955)
tt ho's Who, 1961
SNOW. SIR CHARLES PERCY See
Snow, C. P.
In 1945 Ted Sorensen graduated from I_in:oln
High S.hoo,, where he had bey-, active in dr. ma
and debate, is the band, and in the, 1-MCA.
That ial'. he entered the niversitv of ?' el'raska
on a Resents scholarship, studs-ing the arts and
sciences in a preiaw curr imlum, In 1419 he
was. granted a B.S.L. degree with e:e:ticnt to
Phi Leta Kap'a_ As an undergo iuate. S?ren-
sm had served as chairman of the ca*npus
eosasutvtional convention and of the mock
Urtited Nations conventior_ Ht had als:-, 1*_~en
president of the =-iiversit} YMCA and a meti-
her of the debating team., the d: arm clul., and
the band.
tt-ith the help of a Donald Miller scholarship,
Sorensen entered the College of Law at the
University of Nebraska in 1949. He became
editor in chief of the !t-ebrari?a L w Reww
and was awarded the Order c,: Coif. In his
spare time he served as a chief. lobbyist in the
state le -nature for the groups that favored a
Fair Empio}ment Practices Cosnrnittee law. In
1951 Ted Sorensen stood first in his graduating
:lass when he received his LI_$- degree. His
father wanted him to practise '.law in Lincoln,
but feeling that his home town was too
restrictive, Sorensen headed for Washington,
D.C., where he would be relativeh trnilmowzi
In 19:1 Sorensen became an attorney for the
Federal Security Agency, later the Department
of Health. Education and Welfare Through a
law-ver wixim he had met at a convention of
Americans for Democratic Action, Sorensen
became a staff researcher for the joint Con-
gre sional subcommittee on railroad retirement,
which had been set up to study revision of the
Railway Retirement S-.-Stern. When the sub-
committee hushed its work, Senator Paul
Douglas of Illinois was so impressed with
Sorer-en's performance that he recoirmended
him fora job as administrative assistant to the
newly Flected Senator from _%Wsachusetts,
John F. Kennedy.
Repoitediv, John F. Kennedy gave Sorensen
two five-minute interviews a ,day or two apart
before he hired him. In the first session Ken-
nedy interviewed Sorensen; in the second
session Sorensen questioned Kennedy. 'Draw-n
together by their -mutual love of tioAks and
politics, the two men worked together t'1 yaeratiy
and harmoniously- With his remarkable anal -
tical ability, Sorensen soon showed 2 special
knack for studying Trills, tL-afting "quick study"
ctetnoranda, and conducting research for
speeches and magazine articles. That first year,
in 1953. Sorensen was mainly ccn;im a with
the probletnns of New England. In 19-54 he
became secretary to the New Erglarid Se-?.tors'
Conference and held the post through 19=9.
!While John F. Kennedy was recovering frown
a back injun? in 1935. Sorensen did the research
for Kennedy's Profii'rt in Coxrape (Harper,
1956), a collection of biographical sketches
about American legislators who exercised inde-
pendent judgeinen: in the face of pressures
from their coma-ments- At firs; Drew Pears.or.
attributed the Pulitzer Prize-winning book to
Sorensen as its ghost-writer, but the drx-umen-
tan- evidence of S,:-emen's r -arrb notes.
Kennedy's drafts in his own handwrite g, and
SORENSENTHEODOR CHAIR
Slav - ntted States goaz unseat
official; lawyer
Address: b. The White House Office, '3t'ash-
ington. D.C., h. 3000 Spout Run Parks a3?,
Arlington, Va.
Few officials in the new administration are
more concerned with the policies and programs
of John F. Kennedy than Theodore Sorensen,
the Special Counsel to the President of the
United States. The youngest official in the
Kennedy administration, he is the President's
chief writer of speeches, b aimtruster, silitical
confidant, and, along with Lawrence F. O'Brien;
one of his chief legislative aides. Although he
bears a modest title, Sorensen, who has been
called 'chief of staff for ideas," is one of the
most important and influential men in Washt-
ington.
Theodore Chaikin Sorensen was born on May
$. 1928 in Lincoln, Nebraska to Christian
Abraham and Antis (Cbaikin) Sorensen He
has three brothers : Thomas, Robert, and Philip
Sorensen, and a sister, Mrs. Ruth Singer. Born
of Danish parents in a prairie sod hounq his
father rose to become state attorney general of
Nebraska and a Republican in the traditioes: of
Senator George Norris' liberalism. He went to
Europe on Henry Ford's peace ship, sencd as
counsel to the women's suffrage movement in
Nebraska, and wrote the law that ertabledFublic-
bodies to acquire private utility companies. His
mother, of Russian-Jewish background, was an
ardent feminist and pacifist who gave her
maiden name as a middle name to all the five
Sorensen children.
Christian Sorensen often took his son Ted to
meetings on public utilities, and he sometimes
had the child address the audience with a "Jew
words" from the platform- Cluttered with
liberal magazines and books, the Sorensen
hot-ehold was a congregating place for pro-
gressive friends who debated current issues,
particularly those of the --New Deal of Fratildur
D. Roosevelt's administration. Another influ-
ence upon the boy was the family's Unitarian-
ism.
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the help of Clark Clifford, a \Va^,hington
lawvcr, later led' I'earu,n to retract the charges.
A friend ha; said dic t from the l,4irining of
Ilse to men's assoc:iaxivn, Sorensen had set
liinilirical campaigns ever waged in the Unned
states. Sorensen acid Kennedy traveled through
every state, courting politicians, making esti-
r":aces of We real sources of power, and lining
uip delegates for the 1960 Democratic :tiati sal
Cotivention in Los Angeles. Sorensen built up
:c card file of about 30.000 names of people
active in Democratic politics, one of the most
extensive in the hands of any man.
lust before the primaries, Sorensen' relin-
--..tnished his organizational duties to the Sena-
or's brother, Robert F. Kennedy. But through-
ct the primaries, the whistle stops, and the
"ievision debates, Sorensen remained as John
Kennedy's chief strategist and policy maker.
'vhile the Senator was giving one speech,
nrensen would be writing another. Journalists
., Bring the strenuous campaign reported that
r. cnsen seemed to, thrive on the pressure.
tong others, he prepared those speeches that
Mended Kennedy's Roman Catholicism from
tslaughts by Protestant fundamentalists. Ken-
dy said: "I want to keep Ted with me
ierever I go in this campaign. You need
icbodv whore you can trust implicitly."
Bow- that John F. Kennedy is in office, a
jar preoccupation of Theodore Sorensen is
ruake him remembered as one of the greatest
r;ioents. V hen Kennedy was President-elect,
helped to draft thel inaugural address. Since
ruing Special Counsel to the President of
United States, he has spent much of his
in drafting and writing Presidential mes-
> and speeches. He was Kennedy's major
_. in writing his first State of the Union
age, and he ltclped in the preparation of
nedy's speech to the nation on the Berlin
is or. July 25, 1961. Perhaps no one has so
ly approximated the speech rhythms of
u F. Kennedy as Theodore Sorensen.
crsen now stands in the White House
;Lion of Colonel House, Harry Hopkins,
Sherman Adams. He handles situations
.cut across government departments. Re-
-dly, he will be given more responsibilities
field of foreign relations; previously, he
oncentrated on domestic affairs. Like other
.tors of this tradition, In has already be-
embroiled in controversy.
Wide wond
THEODORE SORE\SEN
In the autumn of 1961 Senator Barrv Gold-
water, the conservative Republican Senator
from Arizona, read into the Congressional Rec-
ord a story by Walter Trohan, chief of the
Washington bureau of the Chicago Tribune.
Trohan asserted that "the man behind President
Kennedy's rocking chair in a world with war
tensions, escaped military service as a conscien-
tious objector and Korean War service as a
father."
According to Sorensen's draft board in Lin-
coln, Nebraska, at the end of 1948 Sorensen
was classified 1-AO. He had, in other words,
agreed to serve in the armed forces as a non-
combatant (as in the medical department).
Reclassified to 3-A in August 1950 because
he had married, Sorenson was reclassified
to 1-AO in January 1952 because he had no
children. After an operation for a tumor be-
hind the ear, he was classified 4-F. In April
1934 he was reclassified 3-A, since he had be-
come a father.
Theodore Sorensen married Camilla Palmer
on September 8, 1949, just before he entered
law school. They live in Arlington, Virginia
with their three boys : Eric Kristen, Stephen
Edgar, and Philip- Jon. Sorensen once won a
silver dollar from his parents for having
reached maturity without having smoked or
taken a drink. Although he indulges in an
occasional sherry before dinner or in a daiquiri
(to which he was introduced by John F. Ken-
nedy), he still avoids tobacco and never drinks
coif ee.
Sorensen's frugality, abstemiousness, and
Puritanism result from his rearing, not from
financial necessity. This asceticism extends to
his appearance. He is a sparely built man, six
feet and one-half inch in height and 175
pounds in weight, with brown hair and brown
eyes and a square and determined face that
usually wears a sol-wr expression. Strangers
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CURRENT BIOGRAPHY 1961
SORENSEN? THEODORE-CL-,r:r;uc2.
r:ten mistake his glaaa; re:.erve fo:- co'.:mss
i _ cad 6 reco_niz,n: the i.n,;eriyin
r.zv be its cause V'.-11(l] not under pressure,
hF casbe charming To reia.x, he plas softball
` el>~ tsl a
3, ith his sons- He is a mrnrber of the*
Isar Association and a Un.tarian.
Max Freedman, the \\?ashirzion corr. ?xid-
en of the ?t`.a.,-t,ster G,t% r., gas x ten
that "?tifr. Sorenser., in dolor aforlec's I,'rrase.
has the glom- of words But he is much more
titan, a i;.e.ar cra-i ~sran; he if also a raster
of p ohiical philosophy and political strategy. It
is not the language of euio but a r:crron-
strs'.le truth to say tl;at he combines the pYoliti-
cai. sagacity of dames Farley with the literary
graces of Judge Samuel Rosenman"
Referrnccs
Democratic Digest p3i 1a-1 '61 per
:e N Y Pos: Mag p1 0 3 'i0 pod
Time 76:16 N 21 '60 pod
SPORBORG, MRS. WILLIAM, DICK
July 11, 1879-dal. 2. 1961 Civic leave: and
ciu'`,~iorian; headed New York City and State
Fn erations of \\ ome i s Clubs, National Co ,_m-
6! of Jewish Women, and \\-omen's Voluntary
Participation Defense Council ; consultant with
United State-,; delegation to the United Nations
at San Francisco in 1945. See Current Biog-
raphy (November) 1947.
Obituary
A Y Times p29 Ja 3 '61
STACE, W(ALTER) T(FRENCE) Nov.
17, 1,x86- Philosopher; author
Address: 996 East Ave-, Mantoloking, N.J.
One of the leading philosophers of the Eng-
lish-s,king Korld is \\-. T. Stace, a naturalist
-A-ho nevertheless admits the talidit} of religious
experience. A British subject, State served is
the British colonial ranks in Ceylon for
twenty-two years, same of them. as mayor of
Colombo and as chairman of the Colombo
municipal council In 1932 Stave accepted a
teaching position at Princeton University, wl.ere
he taught until his retirement in 1935. -
Stace has written ten books on philosophical
questions. His Destiny of Western Man," an
attempt to defend the "rightness" of dclnocracy
against totalitarian svsterr.s, won the Reynal
Hitchcock Prize in 1441 as the lest nonnctioo
lyxnk for the general reader ?s ritten by a mero-
ler of an American college or university stag.
In 1959 he was one of ten scholars who re-
ce-is-ed $10.000 prizes for distinguished scholar-
ship in the humanities from the American
Council of Learned Societies.
Walter Terence Stace was burn on November
17, ISS6 in London, England to Edward Vincent
State and Aniv Mary (Watson) State- He is
the great-grandson of General William Stam
whc, fought at the Battle of Waterloo. His
father was a lieutenant colonel in t2he British
Army; and one of hit brra},ers, Rs; E ,r'
Stace, is a -r t.1 ' lira ant of L 't
Royal F~:ciae.rs It is t :s ami'y b _ k rc:::(d
of Army air; cvi service that ina-red
Stave to en'er t;.e I ' tis coin:a a ra-
tiyt ranks in Ceylon. Szee's other br ,t ,
c-
Iienry \\ anon, is !er_e ed. lit aisu, hat a
sister, Hilda (M's _Ma,:ri.e S:x'a ey).
Stare x-as ed,r:atei at Lath Co' e .mnd
Ed;nl: : a unnd tot to of
Fette: Collei:e in
tht century. Ile t,'een at'ender_' 7ri .i:,. ( . cr
at Dutar. l .i.ersac u:-sere he in
p ila Q~hy a fr? s+_tich he re- ci.r i F _A.
dr.:-nee in 19`8 Tyco 'e~-.rs later, it he
j,,,fined the Eritisl; Civi'. Service in Cey;on. lie
rerriairted there for ttxi t y.two }ears, serving
at i.-ariotts times as district judge, private sec-
retary to the Go erno.-, land settle:nen' o'hcer,
rirsnber of the }ezs:a ye council of CeviQ.,
r _criber of We cov(:nc= s executive co:r,r', and,
finally, as mayor of col-Y n')Q and cr;ariran of
the Coiombu municipal council, In 191 f_, while
Stace was serving as police rnapStrate of
Kandy, serious riots look place 't e:wren the
Buddhists and Moharnrnedaris in Cevi:'n. On
one Occasion, Stave, who s-as res;.ponsib'e for
suppressing the disturbances, refused 10 le: the
police fire into an unarmed crowd, an action
unusual enough to cause much controversy at the
time
In 1932, as a result of government changes
in Ceylon, many civil servants were c?nerec
retirement, and Stave decided to leave the cour-
try-. He sent a resume of his published writings
to several British and American universities
and accepted the best offer-a three-year lec-
tureship at Princeton University. He was Stuart
Professor of Philosophy from 1935 until his
retirement in 1955.
Stace had never done any formal graduate
work but in 1929 he received a Litt.D. degree
from Duh1'rn university is recognition of the
scholarly contribution he made in his book The
Phi,osophy of Heoel (Macmillan., 1921; r)Qver,
1935). "The primary obiect of this L.ak'
Stare zeroed in his preface, "is to place in the
hands of the p`_ilo-- ;, ,cal student a com?-lete
exw'sttinn of the system of Hegel in a single
volume. Xci book with a similar pure, , so
far as I taros, exists in our language.... The
difficulty of Hegel's writings is no'onous. -
Therefore, I have aimed especially at lucidity.
The student . will find: here. I hope, all
Hegel's essential thoughts stated as easily and
simply as is possible." This effort to contey
philosophical essentials in tin:ierstaniable terms
marks the bull. of Sta e's work
Since the publication of his first book A
Critical History of Greek Philosophy (Mac-
milian, 1920), Stave has written on seven]
major areas of philosophical thought. In The
Afeaning of Beauty (Richards & Toulmin,
1929), he advances a theory of aesthetics. The
Nature of the World (Oxford, 1940) its an
essay in phenomenalist metaphysics: (philo-
sophical phenomenalism holds that phenomena
are the only objects of knowledge). The
Theory of Kna.s;cdpt cud Existence (Oxford,
1933) was praised by New Stet:sma.. chat A'a-
tion reviewers for showing "car exposition
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