My fictional premise, as it were, is supposed that the affair with the 19-year-old intern is a cover for the back channel negotiations. We also know that during the Cuban missile crisis, in addition to the official negotiations, there were secret negotiations hidden even from most of Kennedy's closest advisers, known as the back channel. But go ahead.ĬARTER: (Laughing) Well, you know, we know now that while he was in the White House, President Kennedy really did have an affair with a 19-year-old intern. I think that's the last incredulity I'd express. They say, come on, how could a 19-year-old even have an affair with the president? When I talk to people about this story, a lot of people are immediately skeptical. SIMON: The story opens - your protagonist, Margo Jensen, brilliant 19-year-old Cornell student from family of means that happens to be African-American, enlisted in a covert operation to accompany Bobby Fischer.ĬARTER: You know, it's interesting. Thanks so much for being with us, Professor.ĬARTER: It is really my pleasure as always. His new novel is 'Back Channel,' and it tells a story that involves the Kennedy brothers, Bobby Fischer, late-night rendezvous and saving the world from nuclear destruction. SIMON: Stephen Carter joins us from Yale University where he's the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law and a busy author of both nonfiction and best-selling fiction. Now she was skulking around Washington, D.C., worried about being caught by someone who knew her or worse - by the people who would very much like her dead. It was October 1962, and a month ago she had been nobody. She could still not quite grasp that any of this was happening. It wasn't as though she could tell anybody. And so given that the plan required him to see Margo daily in any case, he had chosen her as his foil. It occurred to Margo that in the midst of a crisis that could lead to nuclear war, the president had advisers galore but nobody to whom he could simply vent without backtalk.

STEPHEN CARTER: (Reading) Kennedy groaned. Did I say this was a novel? We'll let Professor Carter pick up his narrative.

When Stephen Carter's new novel opens, President Kennedy is alone in a bedroom with the beautiful intern.

Back channel stephen carter