Jules Davids

Who was Jules Davids?

Jules Davids was a professor of diplomatic history at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University until his retirement in 1986. A prolific author, his most famous work was undoubtedly his editorial assistance on Profiles in Courage, a surprise bestseller that won the 1957 Pulitzer Prize for biography for its author, Senator John F Kennedy. Davids received $700 for his labors and acknowledgement in the foreword that he "materially assisted in the preparation of several chapters," but extensive revelations from many sources, including a detailed account by Jules Davids himself, establish that Davids prepared initial drafts of five of the chapters on the book.

He joined the faculty at Georgetown University in 1947. His students included future United States president Bill Clinton when Clinton was a Georgetown undergraduate in 1968, future first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, and historian Douglas Brinkley, with whom he discussed his involvement in the Kennedy book.

Davids was born in 1920 and grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and graduated from Brooklyn College. At Georgetown he was one of the most popular professors at the School of Foreign Service, where he taught a generation of future diplomats and policymakers. His own textbook of American history, America and the World of Our Time, was published by Random House in several editions in the early 1960s. A specialist in U.S.-China relations, he edited over 40 volumes that compiled all of the United States diplomatic papers with China from the inception of U.S.-China relations.