by David A. Nichols ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 21, 2017
A thorough, well-written, and surprising picture of a man who was much more than a “do-nothing” president.
New insight into Dwight Eisenhower’s silent methods of facing down enemies, particularly Joseph McCarthy.
Eisenhower expert Nichols (Eisenhower 1956: The President’s Year of Crisis—Suez and the Brink of War, 2012, etc.) clearly explains his strategic deceptions and ability to use others to enact his orders. Regarding McCarthy, one of his most effective ploys was to never speak his name. Acknowledging McCarthy’s love of attention, Eisenhower knew that ignoring him would work. As chairman of the Senate Government Operations Committee, featuring control of the permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, McCarthy used his position in his fervent search for those who might subvert American values. He was an impulsive loose cannon, rarely planning his denunciations. Feeding his mania was his chief counsel, Roy Cohn, whose main objective was to keep his chief consultant, David Schine, close to him and out of trouble. When Schine was drafted, Cohn immediately began pushing to get special privileges for Schine, using the clout of McCarthy’s name. When that failed, Cohn swore to “get” the Army, setting the McCarthy committee on its road to ruin. He effectively conducted one-senator hearings, abused senatorial privilege, and, in one particular incident, insulted a highly decorated general—the last straw for Eisenhower. He had his officials prepare a dossier on Cohn and Schine, releasing it just after Edward R. Murrow’s scathing See It Now episode. The Army-McCarthy hearings were the result, ultimately signaling the end of McCarthy’s reign of terror. Nichols has studied Eisenhower diligently and fully understands his subtle methods, especially his ability to never lower himself to McCarthy’s level. He actively promoted his style as the golfing president, and he had the Machiavellian method down pat, never making himself personally responsible for what became the answers to his problems.
A thorough, well-written, and surprising picture of a man who was much more than a “do-nothing” president.Pub Date: March 21, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4516-8660-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Dec. 25, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2017
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by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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by Jon Krakauer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1996
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
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