Robert A. Dallek (born May 16, 1934)[1] is an American historian specializing in the presidents of the United States, including Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard Nixon.
He won the Bancroft Prize for his 1979 book Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945, as well as other awards for scholarship and teaching.
Based on archival resources and unprecedented access to his medical records, especially those stored at JFK Presidential Library, it revealed his secret struggle with major health problems as well as his love affairs, the backstage role of his father, his appointment of his brother Robert F. Kennedy to the office of United States Attorney General, and speculations about what the President would have done about the Vietnam War if he had lived.
One unintended consequence of the book is due to direct citation of Barbara Gamarekian's oral history interview, [2] one of the former White House interns, Mimi Alford, was eventually tracked down by New York Daily News and compelled to release a statement confirming the relationship between her and JFK.
In 2007 Dallek published Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power, which claims that they were visionaries and cynics at the same time, in an attempt to explain the ups and down of their diplomatic careers.