A few flaws aside, this is an engrossing and informative tribute to a man whom Jimmy Carter rightfully thanked in his...
A memoir of the presidency of Gerald Ford (1913-2006) as seen from the point of view of Ford’s chief of staff and secretary of defense.
When Ford became president on Aug. 9, 1974, writes Rumsfeld (Rumsfeld's Rules: Leadership Lessons in Business, Politics, War, and Life, 2013, etc.), he inherited a nation on “the brink of civil and political collapse.” In his latest book, the author convincingly argues that Ford successfully restored trust in the presidency and held the country together. Born in Omaha, Nebraska, Ford played center for the University of Michigan football team, studied law at Yale, and fought in World War II before his entry into politics. He served almost 25 years as a Michigan congressman before rising to the vice presidency in 1973. With Richard Nixon’s resignation, Ford, who had never run on a national ticket, became president. Although his brief term in office included controversies and missteps such as his pardon of Nixon, the abortive “Whip Inflation Now” campaign, and the appointment of Nelson Rockefeller as vice president, Rumsfeld asserts that Ford oversaw a revival of what had been a moribund economy, responded strongly to the Khmer Rouge’s seizure of the U.S. container ship Mayaguez, and contributed to the birth of the modern human rights movement via his signing of the Helsinki Accords. Above all else, Ford’s honesty, integrity, and decency helped the nation recover from the Watergate crisis. The author also recalls several forgotten chapters of Ford’s presidency, including a Far East trip that featured the first visit of a sitting U.S. president to Japan and a turnout of 2 million people to welcome Ford to Seoul, South Korea. Rumsfeld occasionally confuses dates, and he oversells several of Ford’s accomplishments (the Helsinki Accords being a prime example).
A few flaws aside, this is an engrossing and informative tribute to a man whom Jimmy Carter rightfully thanked in his inaugural address “for all he has done to heal our land.”Pub Date: May 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-7293-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 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
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
