Richard Goodwin was born in Boston on December 7th, 1931. He graduated from Tufts University in 1953. He then went on to study law at Harvard University. Goodwin joined the Massachusetts State bar in 1958. He worked for Felix Frankfurter before being appointed as special counsel to the Legislative Oversight Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1959 John F. Kennedy appointed Goodwin as a member of his speech writing staff. The following year he became Kennedy's assistant special counsel. Goodwin was also a member of Kennedy's Task Force on Latin American Affairs and in 1961, was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, a position he held until 1963. As one of Kennedy's specialists in Latin-American affairs, Goodwin helped develop the Alliance for Progress, an economic development program for Latin America. Goodwin also served as secretary-general of the International Peace Corps. After Kennedy's death Goodwin joined the staff of President Lyndon B. Johnson where he worked as a speechwriter and adviser. Goodwin resigned in 1965 and became a fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, and a visiting professor of public affairs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Goodwin continued to be involved in politics and wrote speeches for presidential candidates Robert Kennedy, Eugene McCarthy and Edmund Muskie. Drawing from his close connections with prominent political figures, Goodwin penned his memoir, Remembering America: A Voice from the Sixties. In addition to behind-the-scenes glimpes of Lyndon Johnson, Governor Wallace of Alabama, and Che Guevara, Goodwin's account revealed the scandal which later became the premise of the movie Quiz Show. Goodwin's writing has also appeared in The New Yorker and Rolling Stone.
• Remembering America: A Voice from the Sixties (1988)
• Promises to Keep: A Call for a New American Revolution (1992)
• Hinge of the World : In Which Professor Galileo Galilei, Chief Mathematician and Philosopher to His Serene Highness the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and His Holiness Urban VIII (1998)
