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John Kennedy's final days
肯尼迪最后的日子

When America wept
整个美国为之哭泣

JFK's Last Hundred Days: The Transformation of a Man and the Emergence of a Great President.
肯尼迪的最后百天：一个男人的转变，一位伟大总统的诞生

FOR Americans of a certain age, memories of November 22nd 1963 remain painful.
对于那个年代的美国人来说，1963年11月22日的记忆是沉痛的。

Their dashing young president, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, was assassinated in Dallas.
他们年轻而又风度翩翩的总统，约翰杰茨弗拉德?肯尼迪在达拉斯市遭到暗杀。

Shock and mourning ensued.
这个消息让人为之一震，人们纷纷悲恸哀悼。

The loss may have been all the harder because Kennedy had been growing steadily on the job.
肯尼迪在工作上的表现蒸蒸日上，因此他的逝去让人们感到惋惜。

His first year in office was marked by the ignominious Bay of Pigs, his failed effort to eject Fidel Castro from Cuba.
他执政的第一年因“猪湾事件”将菲德尔?卡斯特罗驱逐出古巴的失败尝试而蒙羞。

A year and a half later, the Cuban missile crisis brought America and the Soviet Union to the terrifying brink of nuclear war.
一年半之后，古巴导弹危机将美国和苏联推向核战争的边缘。

But by the autumn of 1963, Thurston Clarke argues in this study of the president's final days, Kennedy had begun to “realise his potential as a man and a president".
瑟斯顿克拉克在他《肯尼迪最后的时光》这本书里谈论道，1963年的秋天，肯尼迪已经开始“意识到他作为一个男人和一位总统的责任”。

His confidence was rising.
他的自信心倍增。

Having narrowly avoided nuclear war, he was determined to have peace.
微妙地避开了核战争的爆发，他希望和平。

Finding like-mindedness in Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet leader, he secured a treaty that banned nuclear tests in the atmosphere, in space and underwater.
在这一点上他和苏联领导人尼基塔?赫鲁晓夫的观点并无二致。他确立了一项“部分禁止核试验条约”，条约中禁止在太空和水下进行核试验。

It was, Kennedy told the nation, “a step away from war”.
肯尼迪向美国民众宣称，这个条约的签署“离战争又远了一步”。

Vietnam also dominated his final months.
在最后的几个月里，越南也是他的心头之忧。

Even while half-heartedly encouraging a coup that toppled and killed Ngo Dinh Diem, the South Vietnamese leader, Kennedy seemed determined to draw down the American presence and avoid a future quagmire there.
尽管他并无决心支持发动一场政变，颠覆南越政权并杀死领导人吴廷琰，但是肯尼迪似乎意在减少美国在越南投入的兵力，避免泥足深陷。

He spent time, too, on civil rights and the space race.
另外，他在公民权利和太空竞赛方面也投入了精力。

He began planning his re-election and even laid the groundwork for secret talks with Mr Castro.
他开始筹划连任，甚至为与卡斯特罗的密谈做了准备工作。

His relationship with his glamorous wife, Jacqueline, also improved.
他同他漂亮迷人的妻子，杰奎琳的关系也有所改善。

In August 1963 their second son, Patrick, was born prematurely and died within days.
1963年8月他们的第二个儿子，帕特里克早产并在几天后夭折。

After that, Mr Clarke shows, Kennedy was more solicitous towards his wife.
克拉克觉得从那以后，肯尼迪对妻子多了些关怀。

Evidently he cut back on his reckless womanising, though whether this would have lasted will never be known.
很明显的是他没有再流连于女色，虽然这个做法有没有持久下去我们不得而知。

“I think we're going to make it.
“我觉得我们都在努力。

I think we're going to be a couple,” the first lady told a friend not long before the fateful trip to Dallas.
使我们逐渐回到原来那种亲密的关系，”这是那次命运攸关的达拉斯之行前，第一夫人这样对她朋友说道。

Kennedy's lifelong health problems also diminished.
困扰肯尼迪终生的健康问题也有所好转。

Mr Clarke is a good storyteller, and his account—one of many JFK books timed for the 50th anniversary of the assassination—offers an enjoyable snapshot of the day-to-day workings of the presidency.
克拉克是一位优秀的作者，他的著作—众多纪念肯尼迪遇刺50周年书籍中的一本——生动地介绍了总统的日常工作。

One moment sees Kennedy holding a meeting on poverty in Kentucky; the next finds him romping with his children, Caroline and John.
在某个时刻，肯尼迪在肯塔基州召开关于贫困问题的会议，下一幕你会发现他同女儿凯若琳，儿子小约翰在一起玩耍。

The format also affords passing glimpses into Kennedy's views on issues such as the space race and getting out of South-East Asia.
书中还有肯尼迪对诸如太空竞赛此类问题的看法。并且逐渐撤出东南亚。

The book's core argument—that Kennedy came into his own during his final 100 days—is not entirely persuasive.
这本书的核心内容是—在他最后的100天里，肯尼迪活出了自我—这一点并不完全具有说服力。

His biggest triumph had come when he averted a nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis.
他最大的功绩是在处理古巴导弹危机时，避免了核战争的爆发。

The nuclear test-ban treaty was significant, and it gave hope to cold war-weary Americans.
“禁止核试验条约”意义重大，它给冷战时期厌战的美国人带来了希望。

But whether Kennedy could have sustained improvements to his marriage and his health, and got a strong civil-rights bill past Southern segregationists in Congress, is less clear-cut.
但肯尼迪的婚姻和健康状况是否有了持久的改善，是否在国会通过了反对南方种族隔离的民权法案，就不得而知了。

Ultimately, finishing the job fell to a man Kennedy despised.
最后，重任落在了为肯尼迪所不齿的一个身上。

Vice-President Lyndon Johnson, a former majority leader of the Senate, was disparaged by the Kennedy White House as “Old Lyin' Down” and “Uncle Cornpone”.
副总统林登?约翰逊，曾经的参议院多数党领袖，肯尼迪政府戏称他为“Old Lyin' Down”，和“玉米饼大叔”。

But after Kennedy was shot, the ambitious and often ruthless Texan took the reins and pushed through a host of Kennedy initiatives, including an important bill that banned discrimination in schools and other public places.
但在肯尼迪遇刺后，这个胸怀大志，并且冷酷无情的德州人执掌大权，推动了肯尼迪定下的议程，包括一项在学校及其他公共场合反对种族歧视的法案，约翰逊还将美国势力更加深入越南。

Johnson also led the nation further into Vietnam. Had Kennedy lived—had his last 100 days in office come in 1968-69, not 1963—things would have been different.
如果肯尼迪还活着，他在任的最后100天是在1968和1969年间，不是在1963年，事情将会变得大相径庭。