The Trap of Political Dynasties

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

The Troubled Lives of Political Families

By Noemie Emery

Wiley. 246 pp. $25.95

What if from the minute you were born, you were trained to be president? What if you were a cousin or a brother of someone who was being polished fo r the presidency, but you were the one who wanted the job? Even worse, what if you craved that lofty office more than life itself and came to think you were cheated out of it? Or what if you ran and lost?

In "Great Expectations," Noemie Emery takes a look at five presidential dynastic families (including one family that -- so far -- hasn't gotten past the first generation) and shows, compassionately and insightfully, how these terrible yearnings and expectations play out. She shuns politics as such; her interests are human and personal. Her book is as heartbreaking as it is fascinating.

The families here are:

· The Adamses, starting with John Adams and ending limply, generations later, with Henry Adams, who wrote books and profoundly wanted to avoid the vulgar, partisan fray.

· The Roosevelts, who produced Teddy, the great president, and Franklin, an even greater one and a distant nephew who drove Teddy's own son crazy with rage and grief by somehow establishing himself as Teddy's symbolic son, if not his actual blood descendant.

· The Kennedys, beginning with Joseph P. Kennedy, who, once he realized how socially hamstrung he was by being Irish, devoted himself to making money and grooming his eldest son, Joe Jr., to become president. But Joe died in World War II, leaving his sickly younger brother John to take office. And then there was grief-stricken Robert and, finally Edward, who settled for being a "great senator," as well as "a figure of disrepute or even of ridicule, a regular feature on tabloid front pages, a constant target of late-night talk show comedians."

· The Bushes, whom we know all about -- or at least we think we do. "George H.W. Bush was a transitional figure," the author writes, "who moved from New England to Texas and seemed more of a diplomat even while president; Jeb and George W. are pure politicians, and products of the South and the West."

· Al Gore, God help him, a senator's son, expected from childhood to be president, but that doesn't look as if it's going to happen.