A sprawling chronicle that details how a clutch of Ivy- educated Wall Street attorneys and their associates—the ``Old Boy network''—created the Central Intelligence Agency and influenced the formative decades of the cold war. Hersh (The Mellon Family, 1978, etc.) has performed a prodigious job of research, conducting more than 100 interviews and burrowing through mounds of archives and declassified documents. His narrative runs from the 1919 Versailles conference, where the young Dulles brothers observed uncle Robert Lansing, Woodrow Wilson's secretary of state, to the Bay of Pigs operation and the frustrating retirement years of its principals. Six men occupy the foreground here: sanctimonious John Foster Dulles and his hedonistic younger brother Allen, who before their heyday as Eisenhower cold warriors were well-heeled corporate lawyers who ran interference for German firms instrumental in the Nazis' prewar rearmament; legendary OSS chief ``Wild Bill'' Donovan; Frank Wisner, ultimately CIA operations chief; New Deal diplomat William C. Bullitt; and Carmel Offie, the dandyish assistant to Bullitt and Wisner and a master of diplomatic sleight-of-hand. Hersh hopes to show how these latter-day Wilsonian ``global salvationists,'' aching to roll back the Communist menace, forged an intelligence apparatus intoxicated with the black arts of covert activities- -loosely supervised, often amateurish, sometimes harebrained. He sheds light on the frantic wartime operations of Allen Dulles and Wisner in Europe, as well as on how much the Americans benefited from the bulging Soviet files of ex-Nazi intelligence chief Reinhard Gehlen. Yet time and again, Hersh projects his insouciance until it begins to grate (e.g., George Kennan was a ``brilliant, mavericky, neurasthenic cheese-parer''). Dulles & Co. deserve a more straightforward treatment than this arch account that bites off more than it can chew. (Eight-page b&w photo insert—not seen.)
Pub Date: March 16, 1992
ISBN: 0-684-19348-5
Page Count: 576
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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