5 comments about Black Titan: A.G. Gaston and the Making of a Black American Millionaire.

1. As a child I participated in and won the A.G. Gaston spelling bee on the state level two years in a row (1957-1958). It was a stepping stone for me and enabled me to go on and do more rewarding things as an adult. I remember staying in his motel in Birmingham with my sponsor and god mother, Mrs Tempie Horton. This is a piece of history that I share with my grand kids. My name is (maiden) Lois Jean Scott and I attended Calvary Jr. high school in Huntsville, Alabama. I am grateful for Mr Gaston and his wife, whom I met on several occasions, for giving me this opportunity.



2. Actually most of the information from this book was taken from Green Power ( written by the man himself) and the rest was stretched. Actually, I know the authors. Neither of them truly new him and as far being related, they were nieces only by marriage. I just think they are trying to make a quick buck on something that they know nothing about.



3. This book is AWESOME and a MUST Read! The authors definitely did their research not only about their grandfather, but also about the history/activities that took place during that era. I was so happy that my mentor, recommended this book to our book club. I am a black woman and I NEVER heard about Mr. Gaston. I didn't even know that we had any millionaires and influencers during this time. This book should be a supplement to African American literature, as well as business courses. The Black Titan should be right next to those books written about J. D. Rockerfeller, J. P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, Sam Walton, etc.



4. This book is not a civil rights manual and its not guide to getting rich. This book offer a glimpse into the life of a man that was successful in business when Black folk in business was virtually unheard of especially at the level that he operated. If you keep an open mind and read this book you will learn something about the civil rights movement and getting rich.



5. So much of our American history is not taught in our schools, so when we become adults, we must self-study especially contributions of Black Americans. This account of A. G. Gaston's life by his niece and grand-niece is well-paced and informative. Gaston took advantage of every opportunity made available to him and his suberb work ethic allowed him to flourish in many business enterprises. Many of us know a lot about Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., but how many of us know A.G. Gaston was the man who bailed MLK Jr. and others out of the Birmingham jail? This is a must read. I've already ordered copies for my parents and my local library. Enjoy!

5 comments about FDR: The War President, 1940-1943: A History.

1. It's a shame that Professor Davis did not live to complete his massive biography of FDR. But what he left is a most thoughtful and provocative account of how Roosevelt steered a reluctant country into a war it had to wage. Davis is skeptical of FDR's management of the war effort -- the president's compulsive manipulation of his staff, his over-reliance on self-interested industrialists for war production, and, above all, the woeful lack of response to the Holocaust. But Professor Davis is not a revisionist -- he makes it clear that the Americans had to fight World War II to stop Nazi-fascism and preserve Western civilization, and that no one else on the American scene could have taken the country in that direction. In "The War President," Professor Davis builds on the strengths of his previous volumes with his enlightening commentary on the impact of modernity and technology on presidential leadership. And he adds to his sketches of the figures who played a role in FDR's life -- Churchill, Harry Hopkins, Wendell Willkie and many others. I hated to see the book end, but the final scene is very poignant, with the President spending a New Year's Eve watching the film Casablanca as he is sending Americans to fight in North Africa.



2. Although Davis' book runs 757 pages, it only covers about 4 years real time. If you take the plunge, you will learn much about FDR, the War, and Davis (the author). I have read many books about the military conduct of WWII, from all sides. This was my first book about Great Leaders, Diplomacy, and World War strategy from the "Top." Most of this was new to me and most of the main points in the book don't show Roosevelt in a favorable light. Here are some of the big sins Davis reveals:

   1. FDR was clearly deceptive in his 1940 Campaign. He promised American mothers that he would keep us out of the War but he was already anxious to get us into the European War.

   2. FDR sold out most of his liberal principles in fighting the War. For instance, he placed industrialists in top positions, he put republicans in the cabinet, looked the other way when large firms ignored labor laws during the war, refused to embrace Henry Wallace's "Century of the Common Man." etc. Worst of all, large firms made money on their contracts! There is a long list
   of FDRs actions that show that the FDR's approach to the War effectively ended the New Deal program.

   3. There was much more tension between Americans and English than I realized. As far as military strategy, the Americans wanted to attack the Germans directly, ASAP, whereas the English
   preferred to attack the Germans indirecty, sometime later....
   The English were afraid of the Germans, who had just recently kicked them out of France, Greece, North Africa, etc. At one point in 1942, General Marshall was ready to jettison the English approach, the Torch invasion, and shift US resources to the Pacific. Roosevelt agreed to English strategies....

   4. FDR thought he could charm Stalin, "uncle joe." What a colossal miscalculation of Stalin's character.

   5. FDR did not worry much about civil liberties, authorizing the "evacuation" of the West Coast Japanese, letting the FBI run rampant with wire-tapping, etc.

   6. FDR was an unprincipled man, devious, back-stabbing, disloyal to people who had backed him for decades, such as Hillman, and Farley. Davis claims FDR could turn his emotions on and off to serve practical requirements. He could not be trusted.

   7. And the final, greatest sin; FDR knew much about the Holocaust by 1942 and he refused to shout it from the rooftops.
   FDR was not anti-semitic, but he did not want his legion of enemies to label it "A War to Save Jews" because FDR knew that many American (voters) were anti-semitic.........

   Somehow, Davis is willing to look past all these sins to
   claim that FDR still deserves to be classified as a great president. Apparently FDRs unwavering focus on winning the War can offset even the largest sins.I'm not so sure.

   As for Davis, his absolute hatred for capitalism and big business is reiterated on every other page. He also puts forth
   a vague theory about technology and human welfare that readers can safely ignore. Davis prefers some kind of socialist state.

   All in all, it made me curious to read more about FDR.




3. This last of five great volumes continues to look at Roosevelt and his times from the progressive Left. Davis was a liberal New Dealer (with the AAA) and he surveys FDR's third term with a view to what might-have-been through the eyes of one of many who welcomed a more fundamental shift from "selfish materialism" to "selfless ideology" in America. What better perspective to measure this century's greatest Democrat?

   Ignore Michael Lind's NY Times review -- except to get a taste of the reactionary manifesto FDR was up against; he simply trashes Davis's liberalism with a neo-con, op-ed spin piece on commies and big business, and concludes the book to be historical fiction. And why the accusation of "calumny" when Davis posits psychology as one of several possible explanations for FDR's inaction to the final solution? Only last year did we learn of John McCloy's discussion with an irate President about bombing Auschwitz ("Why, the idea! I won't have anything to do with it. We'll be accused of participating in this horrible business."), which was insight kept secret for forty years. With such precious little information about the motives of an aging, instinctive President who was always reluctant to espouse the ideological over the pragmatic, why is it unethical to suppose that he "may" have felt the politics of rescue to be personally overwhelming?

   Don't let one review deter you from a great history and a great story. From the Grand Alliance to Pearl Harbor to Casablanca and the Darlan Deal, the book presents a magnificent frieze. I give it four stars only because, alas, it ends prematurely.




4. I purchased this book in the hopes of finding insight into FDR's disability. This huge volume discusses everything and includes about one page total (if that) about it, providing a look into how FDR did and did not discuss his disability. Interesting how the history books and buffs don't talk about it much, but disappointing also so I only gave it 3. If you're a history buff and reading it to find out about the politics of the day and such, you would like it more.



5. To the layman, FDR's name is associated with Pearl Harbour dilemma and the consequential entry of USA into WWII.
   We have read the memoirs of Winston Churchill and seen impassioned appeals (some were even desperate) by the Allied player (France's Reynaud and England's WC) to the American President to interfere. Yet the appeals never effectively addressed the American public opinion.
   The French never understood how FDR could be a `leader' in his country and at the same time stood powerless to make decisions.
   The French, in the bloody and crowded events that encroached them in first half of 1940, could not fully appreciate the American System.
   But the British did.
   The public opinion in the USA, during 1939 and 1940, was one that when the allied had an edge in any battle against the Germans `so what, you see anyway they can win without us (USA)' when Germany was winning, the thinking was `Okay, since it's all over we better stay out, there is nothing we can do anymore'.
   American public opinion was divided and pacifists regarded the French appeals to `come to their rescue', emotionally hysterical. The French must have known how far was FDR bound by the congressional limits that formulated USA foreign policies.
   FDR could not have possibly made his decision apart from the American system, based on personal whims, notably when re-elections were due. FDR was bound to make American voters to see how far he was not missing any opportunity-however small- to prevent an all-out war.
   We should remember that before the war FDR had asked the Congress to approve his request for arms embargo to any country in a condition of `aggression' and the Congress refused unless the embargo applied to all countries concerned.
   Many American felt the Nazi had been forced to fight a war they never wanted.
   British propaganda machines were able to convince a big chuck of the public opinion in the USA that the Nazi had actually betrayed the Versailles Treaty (Post WWI). Wall Street and money mongers were also supporting this thesis. When Germany signed non-belligerent pact with USSR, many pacifists in America claimed that the war between the Europeans was imperialist in nature and urged FDR not to enter forcibly into it. FDR was even accused by the very few American Communists that he was indeed planning to do this.
   Although the French wanted them to come sooner than later, Churchill was convinced that in the end America would go to war, and he knew how far FDR depended on the public opinions at home.
   In his memoirs WC recounted that Lord Lothian (British Ambassador to USA) saw FDR and discussed `among other things, the danger facing America if a) some part of the British fleet fell to the Germans hand in the event of Nazi victory and 2) what are the chances of USA `being at war with Hitler' 3) FDR reiterated that `much depended not only on American Public Opinion but also on whether before that time dictators had taken some action which compelled the USA to go to war in self-defence' 4) only Congress could make commitments to war.
   
   Was FDR aware of the Japanese attack (`sudden attack' as the world was led to believe at all times) before it happened?
   Or had someone held from him the intelligence, which was then available that an air strike was forthcoming?
   
   Pearl harbour was the real casus belli that justified to the American public opinion the urgency of their country to enter the war, after all this was the highly coveted compelling opportunity for USA to fight in self-defence.
   
   When will historians be able to access the documents to sort out this inscrutable mystery?
   
   It may remain a mystery though because the worst thing for any leader is to hurt the intelligent minds of his people.

3 comments about I Rode With Jeb Stuart: The Life And Campaigns Of Major General J. E. B. Stuart.

1. More than McClellan's memoir, this is an early Stuart biography, and later biographies such as Davies' and Thomas' rely heavily upon it. McClellan became Stuart's AG in May '63, but his account starts with Stuart's youth.

   This is a vital account in showing exactly what Stuart's cavalry did during the war: scouting, raiding, screening movements, fighting rearguard actions, gathering information, etc. One thing I didn't know was that Stuart's horse artillery, often under the command of the general himself and sometimes with regular batteries added, would take up a flank position during infantry battles and fire into the Federal ranks. The perpetual, obviously exhausting, activity of the cavalry also becomes obvious.

   McClellan was present for the Gettysburg campaign, and his account is invaluable for this somewhat controversial issue. His writing becomes more personal at this point, and he recounts several anecdotes of interest. He continues his detailed recounting of ANV cavalry activity until Stuart's death; McClellan was present at the deathbed and ends his book there. This should be required reading for anyone interested in the cavalry.




2. It is often more interesting to read what those who have been there have to say than what we think they said. Thus is the case with this book. It may not have every fact correct, but it is what the author McClellen remembered. As with "Co. Aych" and "All For the Union," their perception of the smaller picture of the War than the overall history that is fascinating.



3. I feel this is a great book for anyone intrested in learning more about this great person. He was not just a General but a caring, warm and compassionate person.

No comments about Lincoln And His World: Prairie Politician, 1834-1842.

2 comments about William F. Cody's Wyoming Empire: The Buffalo Bill Nobody Knows.

1. Old West showman William 'Buffalo Bill' Cody was more than just a notorious outlaw: he was a land developer, town promoter, and showman. WILLIAM F. CODY'S WYOMING EMPIRE: THE BUFFALO BILL NOBODY KNOWS is a blend of history and biography especially suitable for college-level American history collections focusing on frontier times: it surveys his life, offers over twenty photos, and considers the reality behind the character. An engrossing, different portrait stands out from the crowd of books on Cody's life and career.



2. Buffalo Bill Cody was America's first celebrity and probably the best advertised name in the world at the time his Wild West Show took to feeding Americans a comforting myth about its conquest of the west. He was a double impostor who aspired to turn his iconic image as an heroic frontiersman into status as a capitalist of consequence.
   
   The book deals with Cody's concerted but ineffectual quest to develop his own corner of Wyoming. Although he was a big name and tireless promoter, his enterprises were doomed by his lack of real business skill or follow-through, exacerbated by his rock star travel schedule and his choice of the arid Big Horn Basin as the place he would will his empire into being.
   
   Cody was not a con artist so much as a show business artist, with emphasis on the show, not the business. Though his show made him rich enough to put him with East Coast aristocrats, Cody sought to earn their company on a higher footing. In this respect, he prefigured today's calculating and self-inflating celebrities, particularly Schwarzenegger the body builder and Trump the bankrupt developer.
   
   In later years, Cody's influence grew weaker as the government bureaus he sought to exploit moved from political patronage to professional management, and real businessmen backed by serious capital came in with the railroads.
   
   Bonner is a fine writer, but his subject is probably too narrow for readers without a stake in the west or an interest in western history. He purposely avoids the well-documented Wild West side of Cody to tell a less celebrated tale of attempts to settle public lands, and in particular, the importance of bringing water into the region.
   
   Cody's story ends with corporate interests and eastern capital opening much of the west and sweeping aside, if need be, the rugged individualists who are enshrined in western mythology -- whether they were dry dirt farmers or the most famous man in the world.

No comments about Henry L. Stimson: The First Wise Man (Biographies in American Foreign Policy).

No comments about We Are the People: Voices from the Other Side of American History.

5 comments about Pocahontas: Medicine Woman, Spy, Entrepreneur, Diplomat.

1. It's true that Gunn Allen's work doesn't fit neatly into any of the normal western categories of biography or history, but then again she's not working within the western tradition to begin with. In order to appreciate what Gunn Allen has accomplished, you first must have a knowledge and appreciation of the Algonquian oral tradition, which embraces a wide range of Indian nations across most of the eastern half of North America, including the state of Virginia, where native communities persist to this day. To begin with the oral tradition, then, is to begin with living communities that still retain the memories of their historical ancestors, such as Pocahontas. From this perspective, as Gunn Allen demonstrates, the story of Pocahontas is less of a romance and more of an adventure, one in which the protagonist is an extension of women's roles and powers in the Powhatan Confederacy. As such, the story of Pocahontas is the story of Native America's fateful encounter with the European powers that would eventually--not annihilate them (though many died, particularly from disease)--but colonize, relocate, and oppress them. In the end, Gunn Allen's eloquent and insightful book is a potent reminder that it is the spirits, the manitou, who ultimately control the world. I highly recommend this book.



2. Dr. Gunn Allen opens our eyes to the roots of modern American culture that are too often obscured, whether intentionally or not. A reader who approaches this work "in good faith" will be regaled with the astonishingly open, clear, and unique viewpoint she cultivates and communicates. She chooses to stand between two cultures and knowledgeably observe them interpenetrate--rather than take the customary political or religious stances of taking one "side" or another. Only a woman with a solid grounding in both cultures (and a tremendous ability to write beautifully), as Dr. Allen has, can accomplish in her work what she is also showing her readers historically. A discerning reader who is willing to admit--and agree to suspend--culturally-programmed judgment can come away from this book with a much richer, smarter, more beautiful and especially more genuinely compassionate sense of REAL purpose this country's citizens might choose to see in their ancestors' having come here, as well as in the direction they would really like this country to take NOW. In addition, I find that it is an honor (still and despite the rude and terrible behavior the English showed towards the interesting and knowledgeable people already living here) to be so respectfully invited into sharing indigenous views of this world, this land, and the Western Europeans who came here. On top of all of this, the book is a truly great read for most anyone who has an intellect that enjoys exercise, and a love of exploring and rediscovering the past in new ways.



3. The feeling the book gave me was one of disjointed-ness, I couldn't fully submerge myself into the book because it didn't seem like the writer could decide how she wanted to present the material. It read like conjecture for a lot of it, with "could", "would have" , and it also read like a lecture given by a professor, at the same time, it was too conversational, and in all just poorly written. The material was interesting enough, and her conjectures intriguing, it was just the presentation that was faulty. It would also have been better if she could have given logic for her conjectures, as it is...she would have done better to have written the book as a fiction novel, and it would have carried better.



4. I don't ordinarily write reviews, but I feel the need to steer people away from spending money on this book! This was a horrible waste of money, and of time spent in reading the first third or so I read before I quit. Patricia Gunn Allen is not simply hooked on Political Correctness (which I could deal with). She substitutes it for decent scholarship and for writing ability. After the pointless detours into the legends of her own New Mexico Native American clan and 21st Century Physics, the attempt to relate the "myth" of Pochahontas to the Legend of one of the Kngihts of the Round Table (I think it was Gawain and the Green Knight, but I'm honestly not sure) did me in. I wanted to know something about Pocahotas -- the Woman! Or, as the title of the book says, the Medicine Woman, Spy, Entrepeneur and Diplomat! And that is what I could NOT glean from this book at all.



5. Pocahontas Was a Tobacco Priestess
   When I was a little boy, my grandmother told me that we were descendents of Pocahontas. The idea aroused my fantasies. Having Indian blood was a special blessing. It endowed me with certain spiritual qualities, psychic perceptiveness and magical abilities--in my imagination. Later I was disappointed to learn that it was fashionable among past generations to claim a blood tie to Pocahontas. I suspected my grandmother's story was of this origin. Much later I realized that a fascination with things Native American was a symptom of a certain affinity. I valued the Indian fantasy as a call of the wild from within. It was to be answered, but in my own, indigenous terms, not in terms borrowed from other cultures. I recently read a book that has added great depth to this perspective.
   Pocahontas: Medicine woman, spy, entrepreneur, diplomat (HarperSanFrancisco), by Paula Gunn Allen, Ph.D., tells an entirely different history of this American icon than the one we cherish. This award winning author, retired professor from U.C.L.A., credited with originating Native American literary studies, has taken the usual sources, plus those rarely referred to, and re-interpreted the data within the context of the Native American mythical world view. The result is a fascinating account of the transformation of "Turtle Island" into "America the Beautiful."
   Dr. Gunn Allen begins by explaining the spirit-centered worldview of the Native American at that time. The "manito aki," which pertains to the supernatural, paranormal, spirit inhabited world, was the Native American waking reality, more real to them than the physical world. We might say that they were good "Jungians" at that time, because they respected the experiences of the imagination as real and worthy of attention. The natives at that time also realized that their world was coming to an end. Their calendars and mythologies had prepared them. The coming of the white men was part of the fulfillment of this prophesy. Evidence points to the fact that Pocahontas was a high priestess, initiated into the mysteries of the spirit world and charged with responsibility to these spirits. Based upon her evidence, the author came to the startling conclusion that Pocahontas, rather than falling in love with Captain John Smith, was actually on a pre-planned mission taking advantage of him as an unwitting pawn. Her objective: to insure that the spirit of tobacco would find a home in the new world. Tobacco spirit, the essential shamanic power of the Native American world, needed to find a way to be a part of the coming materialistic world that was being born. This mission was crucial if the spirit of the Native world was to survive destruction of its manifest existence. Pocahontas was the channel by which the transfer of power was achieved. Pocahontas' connection with John Smith was the means by which Native spirituality was preserved, even though it would have to hide for centuries within a plant that would be marketed, traded, consumed, and vilified within a purely materialistic consciousness, until such time as this ancient spirituality could one day be reborn in the awareness of the European mindset, as is beginning to happen today.
   What is this newly emerging mindset? Gunn Allen writes, "...the construction of Pocahontas in American thought, while often historically inaccurate, is an indication that the imagination of America is as connected to the manito aki as it is to the land. The problem that Americans face in harmonizing our modern American consciousness with the ancient psyche of the land we inhabit is the dominance of a paradigm that assumes material, measurable existence to be all there is."
   The lesson for us is to respect the intuitive nature of the imagination." We need to experience and to understand the imagination as a channel of intuitive realities. The mind and its ambassador, the imagination, is quite real although it inhabits a different plane of existence than the world the senses recognizes. It is real because it makes a difference in our lives. It is in this realm of the imagination that we can find our highest ideals, that we intuit our interconnectedness as spiritual beings, that we encounter non-material beings, and discover the patterns in the creative forces that shape our lives. Our fascination with all things Native American is evidence of our connection to this non-material world. Yet this connection is something that sadly we do not recognize within ourselves, but project onto these indigenous peoples. Gunn Allen re-connects us with our heritage. She joins us in gratitude to the people who came before us, who built a spiritual time capsule that would survive the materialistic, destructive stage of our history, preserving for the future our endowment as spirit's children. Pocahontas is truly America's godmother. [...]

5 comments about Howard Hughes: Aviator.

1. Oh gosh, this is a good read. Buy it! Take it with you when you go to see Leonardo playing Howard on the big screen, so you can keep the airplanes straight and also remind yourself that, for all his genius, Howard Hughes was a rather shabby pilot. (A ***** stick, as they say in the Air Force.)
   
   To save money on aeronautical charts, he flew with the road maps handed out free by oil companies. He ignored air-traffic controllers, filed misleading flight plans, identified himself with the name of his co-pilot, flew under visual rules in bad weather, and cut off the pilot ahead of him in the pattern. Even as a passenger, George Marrett writes, Hughes could turn a routine flight into a debacle. His big ambition was to outshine Lindberg.
   
   Of course Howard Hughes was more than an aviator: he made movies, ran an airline, designed the half-cup bra, founded aerospace companies, made billions, and was the country's most famous hypochondriac. But those are incidentals as for a fellow pilot like George Marrett, who flew a rescue Skyraider in Vietnam and wrote about it in Cheating Death, and who afterward became a test pilot for Hughes Aircraft. By concentrating on the aviation side of his former boss, Marrett has written a short, readable, and fascinating biography. In his hands, Howard Hughes turns out to have been a lot more interesting than Charles Lindbergh, though he never came close to him as an aviator.
   
   -- Dan Ford



2. This is a good book and it reads pretty well. The story often deviates from Hughes (especially in the second half) to go into stories about many of the pilots and engineers that worked with Hughes. This isn't unreasonable because these are the people that the author had access too and they also have interesting lives. However, I feel that this distracts from the Hughes story and I suspect is done to fill in the many gaps when no one knew what Hughes was actually doing. If you are interested in the aviator side of Hughes I feel its worth the purchase.



3. This was the first Hughes book I've read, although I've chased down several more since. It's probably impossible to write a full bio of Howard Huges, given the extra large size of his life and all of his accomplishments... and the extra deep depths of his fall.
   
   George Marrett has probably realized that, and limits the bio to some of the larger events of Hughes life, centered around aviation. He does a great job there, with inside stories (from extensive interviews of Hughes contemporaries) that are fascionating, and inspiring (for Hughes accomplishments - which were many and unique).
   
   Don't buy this book expected to see the full story of Hughes life... or a more detailed view of The Aviator movie (which apparently took more than a few liberties). Buy it to more fully understand Hughes great aviation contributions... and the times in which he lived.
   
   Fortunately, the book stays classy to the end, and avoids the tabloid view of Hughes life (and his end). We can get that type of view elsewhere.. if we want to waste our time. For now lets focus on the great persona of Hughes, and the the fascinating times in which he made his greatest contributions.



4. Well written and well documented book tells about Hughes life from the aviation perspective. Although it probably wasn't the author's primary intent, I was shocked to read how bad a pilot Hughes was with questionable flying ability and certainly flawed judgement. By 1948, Hughes had had 9 major head injuries with at least 5 of them in an aircraft (which may explain his erratic behavior in his later years). A must read for flying buffs.



5. Written from a test pilot's perspective, this is the real story of an unusual man who was a magician with lots of money. Hughes was a true pioneeer in aviation, constantly on the newsreels. He had a fascination with planes, even those which could float on water. There is a picture of the Hercules after it was brought of storage in 1980.
   
   The pictures of so many airplanes brought the story so much better than words could do and Hughes contribution to the war effort. He was truly the Aviator of all time, better then the celebrated Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh. I'm glad he had Bruce Burk at his side to aid in this quest.
   
   After he changed TWA to TransWorld Airlines, he ran into conflict with PanAm president who told him in the Coconut Grove, where a lot of the personal interaction took place, that no airline should have a monopoly on international travel.
   
   There were scandals with the women, though he appeared to enjoy touching planes more than women. He "interviewed" many young starlets under contract to him. He was clear at the end that aviation was the great love of his life. He was dubbed as capricious and eccentric, but mainly he was afraid of people -- paranoid, thinking there were spies in his midst to learn his secrets.
   
   If he loved any woman, it was Kate Hepburn who left him for Spencer Tracy, He visited her family in Conn. but felt alienated, and she tried to dominate him. He wanted to control Ava Gardner and asked her to marry him. Both women appeared in his delusion to prepare for the Senate hearing. He was alo involved with Rita Hayworth and Terry Moore, who claimed to be his wife when he died. The senator accused him of producing a dirty movie and making airplanes which don't fly.
   
   At the hearing, it was promoted that the whole world will see what he has become. The Hercules (later dubbed the Spruce Goose) became Howard's folly, the sixty-ton white elephant with a wing span the length of a football field. It was meant to fly 200 tons of army equipment. When he successfully got that plane out of the water, it proved his ability to overcome his tarnished reputation. The senator charged Hughes with defrauding the government for accepting millions of dollars for spy planes he never delivered.
   
   George Marrett wrote CHEATING DEATH: COMBAT AIR RESCUE IN VIETNAM AND LAOS in 2003. This is the real story of Howard Hughes contribution to aviation, his first and last love.

2 comments about Historia Viva (Living History).

1. De Hillary solo tenía las ideas preconcebidas que habilmente la prensa ha dejado filtrar; una mujer inteligente, pero fría y calculadora. Con esta autobiografía he podido comprobar que ella es mucho más que eso, es incluso una persona que ha realizado en su vida lo que varias. A pesar de ser una persona eminentemente política, es en el buen sentido de la palabra, el de trabajar para los demás, de tener metas y lograr cambios. Me enorgullece pertener a su mismo género.



2. Aunque ella ha perdido la elecccion de 2008 todavia es buena historia de su vida, especialmente 1992 - 2000 con su esposo, el presidente Bill Clinton.