A QUESTION OF CHARACTER: A Life of John F. Kennedy, by Thomas C. Reeves, Free Press, Macmillan, 510 pages, $24.95.

In a 1988 American Heritage poll of 75 prominent historians and journalists, John F. Kennedy ranked as the most overrated public figure in American history, according to this hard-to-put-down biography of the man whom many Americans continue to regard as an icon. He was also our wealthiest president, as a result of having received from his father a personal fortune that by his 45th birthday in 1962 was estimated at $12.5 million. Still, he was penurious, seldom carried much cash, and grumbled constantly over his wife’s extravagances. These, however, are mere minutiae peculiar to the boyish charmer with the irrestible smile whose assassination in Dallas, Texas, on Nov. 23, 1963, shocked and grieved the country and the world.

What manner of man was the controversial Jack Kennedy, and how did he become commander-in-chief of the world’s most powerful country? Professor Thomas Reeves, specialist in 20th century American politics, has painstakingly studied the constellation of causes in JFK’s background — particularly the influence of his father, Joe Kennedy — and concludes that while JFK possessed courage and at times considerable prudence, “he was deficient in integrity, compassion and temperance.” This question of character is the dominant theme in Reeves’ chronicle of Kennedy’s life.

Born May 29, 1917, the second son of nine children of Rose and Joe Kennedy, John Fitzgerald Kennedy grew up in an environment that was steeped in luxury. Joe, his father, a forceful and successful entrepreneur, was the son of an East Boston saloon keeper who preached the gospel of winning at all costs. The advice fell on fertile soil. By the time son Joe was 35 he had amassed millions by dint of spreading financial tentacles over such prey as real estate, the stock market, motion picture industry, and liquor franchises. (“Decades later, just before his own death, mob leader Frank Costello told a reporter that he and Kennedy had been partners in the liquor-smuggling business throughout the 1920s and 1930s.”) Joe constantly admonished his own children: “We want winners. We don’t want losers here.” He drilled it into his four sons (Joe Jr., Jack, Bobby, and Teddy) that “real men were profane, aggressive and ruthless; they took what they wanted and broke the rules when necessary.”

In the Kennedy firmament sibling Joe Jr. was acknowledged to be the brightest star. Ambitious and charismatic, Joe Jr. was selected by his father as the most suitable Kennedy candidate for president of the United States. Jack, two years younger than his brother, despaired of competing against him. Victim of every childhood disease, Jack — frail and sickly — wore glasses and suffered a back ailment so painful he was forced to wear a specially made corset all his life. Still more serious was a mysterious malady that in 1947 was finally diagnosed as Addison’s disease (failure of the adrenal glands, causing general weakness, weight loss, and a brownish pigmentation of the skin). Nonetheless, his father (who served as American ambassador to the Court of St. James’s from 1937 to 1940) unhesitatingly wielded all his power and to aid and abet not only Jack but all his children, using whatever means he deemed necessary.

In 1944, when Joe Jr. was killed in a bomber explosion, his heartbroken father rallied and transferred his political ambitions to Jack. With the aid of his father’s money and manipulation, Jack won a seat in Congress in 1949, at the young age of 29. Fourteen years later, on Jan. 21, 1961, his father saw the blossoming of his dearest dream when 43-year-old son John F. Kennedy was sworn in as the nation’s 35th president. Also present was Jack’s wife, Jackie, a dark-eyed, smiling enigma who once had remarked to a cousin, “The Kennedys are terribly bourgeois.” But they were also rich and Jackie, who had no source of wealth in her own right, followed the lure of their gold, despite warnings from friends about the raffish Jack’s vulgarities and promiscuity. “Essentially,” the book quotes journalist Nancy Dickerson, “she was motivated by a desire for money.” Reeves quotes a Look magazine photographer who knew Jackie well as saying, “She was a very strong-minded girl and very tough … I think this is one thing that old Joe Kennedy liked about her …”

With meticulous evenhandedness, Professor Reeves subjects every aspect of Jack’s life and career to the litmus test for truth. Hewing strictly to documentary evidence, he probes the influence of Joe Kennedy Sr. over the lives of his sons; the shadows enveloping Jack’s Pulitizer Prize “Profiles in Courage”; his flawed performance as commander of PT boat 109; the story behind the Mafia funds disbursed in the nick of time during Jack’s pivotal campaign for the presidential primary in the 1960 West Virginia battle; Bay of Pigs diaster, and Operation Mongoose (“Kennedy vendetta”) whose objective was to overthrow the Cuban government and to assassinate Fidel Castro.

Other historical events covered fully are the Cuban Missile Crisis (“By the spring of 1962 Fidel Castro was convinced that the U.S. was preparing to invade Cuba”), burgeoning civil rights explosion, and the Vietnam calamity (“At the time he left for Dallas, the president had apparently not made up his mind about Vietnam. … Still, Jack had significantly expanded America’s role and commitment in Vietnam”).

Although Reeves concedes that by 1963 JFK gave evidence of developing maturity as president, he concludes that Jack’s covert actions continued to demean him and the high office he held. “The real Kennedy — as opposed to the celebrated hero espoused by the Kennedy family, the media, and the Camelot School — lacked greatness in large part because he lacked the qualities inherent in good character,” Reeves believes. He closes on the sober note that Americans must be alert to the question of character in their choice of a president. “The United States — and now the world — cannot settle for less,” he warns.

Bea Goodrich’s reviews are a regular feature in the monthly Books in Review section. Goodrich also writes a review column and is the author of the award-winning nature story series, “Happy Hollow Stories by Judge Tortoise.”