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THE KENNEDY TAPES

INSIDE THE WHITE HOUSE DURING THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS

The glimpse we get into the making of US policy in a crisis— in this case the Cuban missile crisis—is unique and, in light of the historical and legal problems of the taping of White House conversations by presidents, may well remain so. Which is a great pity, for despite the apparently poor quality of the tapes and various unresolved questions relating to them, the picture of US officials dealing with the most serious crisis of the Cold War is memorable. Although the editors, both scholars at Harvard, rightly remark on the ``inherently disorderly character'' of such meetings, the quality of understanding and analysis the participants brought to the task was high. There are some exceptions: The lack of esteem felt by Kennedy for the Joint Chiefs of Staff seems justified by their performance (General LeMay openly equated Kennedy's actions with ``the appeasement at Munich''); the congressional group brought in to advise was less than helpful, Senator Fulbright, ironically, calling for an immediate all-out invasion. Kennedy privately chews Secretary Rusk out for failing to do contingency planning on the US missiles in Turkey. But the praise given by the editors to Kennedy seems justified, not only for his clear recognition of the awesome responsibilities of his actions, but for asking questions that his advisors had neglected. The editors write of his ``cold analytical mind,'' and indeed he alone notes that US allies think that on the subject of Cuba ``we're slightly demented''; if anything, he tends to be pessimistic (``He'll grab Berlin, of course,'' he says of Khrushchev). But it is particularly impressive when contrasted with the idiosyncratic, unsystematic, and uninformed policymaking of Khrushchev. A remarkable and truly historic record, well analyzed and put in context by May and Zelikow. (20 b&w photos, not seen) (Book-of- the-Month Club/History Book Club selection)

Pub Date: Oct. 16, 1997

ISBN: 0-674-17926-9

Page Count: 800

Publisher: Belknap/Harvard Univ.

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1997

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KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON

THE OSAGE MURDERS AND THE BIRTH OF THE FBI

Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.

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Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.

During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.

Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.

Pub Date: April 18, 2017

ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017

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NIGHT

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. 

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance.

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

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