2 comments about Lyndon Johnson & the American Dream.

1. always. Doris Kearns does a find job exploring the psyche of this most complex, conflicted man. She had a unique opportunity, spending unlimited time with LBJ at his ranch after he had retired from public life. She is in fact his very personal
   biographer, this being a task he didn't want to do himself.
   There is great reliance on his dreams & the interpertation of what they mean. The answers are simple & so pat that it is doubtful they were dreams at all but merely a vehicle for LBJ to explain his actions .
   To her credit Ms. Kearns does not dwell on Vietnam. Important to be sure but this was a whole life biography & she did cover the war adequately.
   Cultivation of mentors was a method used by LBJ throughout his life to better himself & led to his sucesses. However, by the time he became vice president he was own his own, isolated for maybe the first time in his life.
   Like presidents before him & since LBJ labored in the shadow of FDR. Few presidents, Jefferson & T. Roosevelt excepted, have attained greatness without winning a major war. This sad fact was apparent to LBJ even as we got caught in the quagmire of Vietnam with no honorable way out. Vietnam is how LBJ will be defined in the future.[...]



2. LBJ and The American Dream is really not to be compared with other LBJ bios. While Dalleck and Caro described LBJ's early years through his Congressional service in one and two volumes respectively, Kearns summarized his entire pre-presidential career in a little over one hundred pages. While her one volume tried to span his entire life like Unger's, it left out some very important milestones.

   Kearns was too close to LBJ, both in terms of her personal contact and in terms of her historical perspective, for a true bio (note I had the 70s edition and there is a second 1991 edition). Although she dutifully recorded his thoughts and reminiscing of his career, and while in many cases, she corroborated his words with evidence, she seemed to introduce little other third party data from any research she might have done. And despite the coverage of the presidential years, she uncovers little about his relationship with Humphrey, Hoover, Jackie Kennedy, McNamera, and his aids like Jenkins and Connely.

   Kearns writes from the perspective of a 1960s Harvard liberal arts grad and that biases her writing. She gives an inordinate amount of copy to Oedipal theories and interpreting LBJ?s dreams, the latter of which one gets the sense that LBJ made up to entertain his subject. This book would have been better titled "Analyzing Lyndon Johnson".

   All that said, this bio has actual experience with its subject that other authors do not have. Mrs. Kearns had unfettered personal access to LBJ for the last few years of his life. Accordingly, she uncovered some interesting facts about his childhood, college life, and professional career. This work is about as close to LBJ's memoirs as we will ever get, as he had apparently intended Kearns to ghost-write them. And she includes some analysis of presidential history which provides a context to LBJ's policies. She provided a good analysis of why LBJ continued with his Vietnam policy, dissecting the influence of his personality, ego and paranoia.

   It's a worthwhile read for an LBJ enthusiast, but I recommend a more modern bio for a reader wanting a quick history. Also, for even more insight into LBJ without the third party bias, I strongly recommend Beschloss' production of the LBJ tapes.

5 comments about Abuse of Power.

1. There is only one word to describe many of these conversations....chilling. Nixon's arrogance and ruthlessness were astounding! What a terrible shock it must have been for men like Haige and Kissinger to learn this was all on tape.

   That anyone could listen to these tapes and proclaim that Nixon was a good president is unbelievable! Clinton lied about his sex life. That was embarrassing, I agree. Nixon, however, lied about his plans for Vietnam, his tax returns, and that fifth-rate burglary known as Watergate, in other words, a felony! As for those of you complaining that these tapes don't contain a "smoking gun." He destroyed two of the tapes he made after he was ordered by the authorities to turn them over. We'll never know what those tapes contained.

   He did all this and Ronald Reagan made him a goodwill ambassador to China! It's terrifying.

   This book is a must for any student of American History or the Cold War.

   We should all be grateful to Nixon for leaving us this invaluable piece of history.




2. This book is put together by an author with credibility. However, he picked and chose excerpts of certain tapes to suit his purpose. I do believe, however, these tapes actually debunk many of the myths put forward by Nixon-haters.



3. If you grew up during the Vietnam era (or not), and cut your teeth on Watergate and the resignation of a president, listen to Abuse of Power as a book on tape. Hear the participants speak for themselves in the privacy of their offices. Kutler's Abuse of Power is based on tapes hitherto suppressed as Nixon, in his lifetime, vigorously sought to repaint his image.
   
   Also recommended to read alongside the tapes: Secrets, A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers by Daniel Ellsberg, and the Haldeman Diaries. Although flawed by grammatical and spelling errors, the Breaking of a President 1974, compiled by Marvin Miller, is also worth reading because it contains thumbnail personal histories of each of the players in the above volumes, and day-by-day breaking news of that era, with lots of pictures.



4. I listened to the cassette tape version of this book, which is a reenactment of the tapes by professional actors. I was kind of hoping to listen to the actual tapes, but this approach turned out to be better than expected.
   
   One thing that kind of bugged me was the continual mispronunciation of Gordon Strachan's name (pronounced "strawn" not "stra-chen"). That kind of boo boo only reminded me that these were actors and not the real people.



5. This is pretty interesting material for Watergate buffs. When Watergate broke the idea that a President cursed and had a private persona shocked the American people. That disappointment is part of what led to Nixon's downfall, regardless of what the Nixon haters want to keep preaching about Nixon's criminality. It has also come to light since those years that, as Nixon Claimed, Presidents before him used their power, the FBI, the IRS, and other agencies to look into and intimidate their opponents. Yes, Johnson and Kennedy did what Nixon did. They just didn't get all of it on tape. Nor did they have the press wanting the get even for Alger Hiss (who really was a Communist agent - see Venona).
   
   For me the most fascinating part of the tapes included in this book is to go in the index and read the segments about Mark Felt, who we now know was Deep Throat for Bob Woodward. It is clear from these transcripts that Nixon and his staff knew that Felt wanted to top job at the FBI, that they didn't trust him, that they knew he leaked to the NY Times and, most amazingly, to the Washington Post. Haldeman makes it explicitly clear on 170 & 171 that he knew from inside the Washington Post that it was Felt leaking to the Post reporters. Facsinating.
   
   Just remember, if you were taped in your private moments, you wouldn't look to the world as you do now. You might not be as dark as Nixon comes across, but then you aren't trying to wield power on a world stage either. I am not a Nixon apologist. Rather, I am taking a broader view of what we have learned since 1975 about our Presidents, the Presidency, and how they used their power while in office. The saying is true about politics and sausage making.

No comments about Heath (British Prime Ministers of the 20th Century) (Life&Times).

No comments about Ronald Reagan: Silver Screen to the White House- Journey of a Lifetime (The Docubook Series).

2 comments about Never Trust a Local: Inside Nixon's Campaign And the White House.

1. This book by a new author presents a fresh, insighful view of what it was like to work in the Nixon white house. Stuart, an "advance" man, who played a number of roles during his tenure, tells stories about well-known national and international figures of the Nixon years. There are also episodes about bit players you may have forgotten about. He tells a wrenching tale about the personal costs incurred by those caught up in the Watergate web. I'll be looking forward to the sequel!



2. For anyone interested in what it's really like to work on a presidential campaign, or work in the White House, this book is for you. In fact, it makes you want to sign up to work for a candidate in '08. Inspiring and fact-filled with "insider" revelations, it should interest everyone who wants to know what it's like to "be there." In addition, there are some great (and unknown) tidbits interwoven from the Nixon era. If you like politics, you'll like this book.

5 comments about Vaclav Havel : A Political Tragedy in Six Acts.

1. Skip this insulting piece of garbage. I almost couldn't believe what I was reading! At one point Keane seems to imply that Havel's five years as a political prisoner, was nothing more than a planned political move to further his career. Mr. Keane definitely is not a historian, or for that matter, a good writer. What a pity that the book has even received so much publicity. A pure unadulterated insult to one of the greatest figures of our time. Shame on you Keane. Attacking this courageous leader for smoking and drinking habits. I wonder if Keane might have looked for a beer and cigarette after 5 years in a communist prison. Lastly, he criticizes Havel as a writer. Wow, this guy has some really big stones! He writes a piece of junk and in it criticizes one of the most creative and courageous voices of our time. This website only lets you rate from 1 star up, otherwise I would have given it no stars. A waste of time and paper.



2. Mr Rossman's review of Vaclav Havel : A Political Tragedy in Six Acts is most misleading and surely based on a careless reading of the book - perhaps even no reading of the book. It should be ignored. The book is very much richer and of long-term significance than he makes out.



3. I was recently in Prague and having read a Havel play (and being a fan of Kundera and Klima) I felt like I needed to know more about the man Havel is. Fortunately I am also interested in the machinations of power structures and how humans spin their webs. This was the main theme of this book, and Havel was it's main character. The chapter about Havel in jail was riveting, but I must say, throughout the book, I would have like more detail regarding the important stories that add dimension to his life, so I would say I should have read something else. Still, Keane's intelligence and insight connect Havel's life with the historical context from which he arises very well. I would say that this it the books greatest strength. I learned a lot, though not always about Havel.



4. I bought this because, without any real data, I had come to think of Havel as a hero. I suppose it was primarily because a creative intellectual in position of political power gives me hope. I felt a need to justify my position, and I believe the book fulfilled that purpose. However, I, too, would have preferred more biography. The treatment of Olga's death was jarring, included as it was in a paragraph about Havel's movie-star girlfriend/wife. Too, the final chapter on death was a bit of a stretch; too full of literary ambition and not enough detail. I had to search for Havel's website to discover that, in fact, he is alive and active.
   
   The section on the Velvet Revolution was particularly engaging, though it seemed that Keane jumped around the timeline a bit much.



5. What a lot of ruffled feathers! A book this well-written must have a lot going for it to upset so many people. And, by the way, the most favorable review below, by "Erica Blair," is a piece of legerdemain by a certain author. Readers of the biography should be able to figure it out.
   I think readers are upset because the book isn't what they expected. Despite its length, it isn't a standard biography with endless accretion of unnecessary detail. For large sections Havel seems absent from these pages, because Keane concentrates on describing--in vivid, smart prose--what it was like to be Czech at various points in Havel's lifetime. It's almost as if we're experiencing these times through Havel's eyes.
   Quite subtly, without appearing to do so, Keane gives us what we need to know about Czech history and politics to understand what made Havel. It's all here, and a graphic and painless read, unlike the more formal histories I've read.
   I agree that calling Havel's life a tragedy is a stretch. The only tragedy Keane comes up with is Havel's ultimate rejection as a politician by his fellow Czechs. But Keane himself points out that this tends to happen to all popular politicians later in their terms of office. (See the fate of Blair and Little Georgie Boy.) Havel seems to be thriving, and all the revelations about his boozing, smoking and fornicating seem to make him seem more human and detract not a bit from his reputation. His books of essays will last as long as political writing endures.

No comments about Edward IV (Routledge Historical Biographies).

No comments about The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, Vol. 65.

5 comments about Harry Truman and the Human Family.

1. A local author known to me has written an engaging book. It is a beautiful testimony to the fact that politics can be about the pursuit of high ideals. Frank captures so well the interdependent dance between people, their leaders and their values. What I love most is how easily people of varying degrees of prominence move in and out of the story Frank weaves. He creates the proof that we are one wonderful human family - flaws and all!



2. In all of Frank K. Kelly's books, especially this one, he writes with the objectivity of a seasoned reporter and the heart of a compassionate observer.

   Truman's humanity is profoundly related to us in this carefully crafted work. We now know a softer and warmer side of Harry Truman because Kelly has been able to focus attention on a major aspect of a very complex man.

   This is a report of the observations of a man who had long-term personal contact with Truman and is uniquely qualified to present a perspective of him in context with the times.

   The book itself is a good read because of Kelly's story telling style and his organizational skills with regard to documenting historical information.




3. I found the book compelling. It is a warm, human book, capturing well what seems today as the innocence of an earlier time. With touching humility, Kelly brings to life Truman's humanity and the deep sense of responsibility he felt as president to help create a truly democractic society. Kelly's many personal anecdotes and reflections take the reader back into this simpler world and helps create hope for the future of real democracy.



4. This book is by an insider in the 1948 campaign that everyone thought that Truman would loose. Mr Kelly gained a lot of respect for Mr. Truman as an honest man in a flawed system. Truman didn't seek the presidency but was thrust into it by the death of Roosevelt. President Truman had a vision for America and America's position in the world. Special interests in Congress blocked many of Truman's dreams. Mr Kelly's later disallusionment with the Washington scene echoes the chaos we see today in Washington.

   Mr. Kelly sheds light on Truman's difficult decisions to use the atom bomb, the atmosphere around Jor Mc Carthy,the Berlin Airlift, the occupation of Japan, the Korean War and many less well known actions by President Truman. This was for me the most enjoyable bok on Truman since "Plain Speaking" by Merle Miller.




5. Too often the political process is something that takes place far outside our own lives, which is why voters tend to be either emotional partisans of their celebrity heroes or apathetic or cynical. Frank Kelly's understanding of one very human and accessible man, Harry Truman, made me rethink what the American Presidency is about. By interweaving his own lifestory with the Truman presidency, Kelly creates an absorbing drama into which we are all swept. He sees politics not as a game, but as the means to realizing a nation's highest potential. Yes, he is an idealist, but we have too few of those. Kelly's vision of one president and his world-changing decisions is transferable to every presidency. As we prepare to elect a new man to that office, there's no more appropriate reading for us than Kelly's book.

No comments about The Future Almost Arrived: How Jimmy Carter Failed Tochange U.S. Foreign Policy (Studies in International Relations).