A gratingly Delphic speculation on which regions might gain dominion in the global village by the turn of the century and beyond. In assessing what the future may hold for latter-day superpowers and their challengers, Attali (a longtime advisor to French President Mitterand who became the first head of the European Bank for Reconstruction & Development, an institution created to give erstwhile Soviet satellites a fighting chance of adjusting to capitalism's Darwinian rigors) offers two main scenarios. In one, the so-called Pacific sphere (an area, anchored in Tokyo, that encompasses not only developed and developing states in East Asia but also all nations in the Americas) emerges victorious in the ongoing struggle for supremacy. In the other, the Continent's common-market countries prevail. Unless they mend their improvident ways, the author predicts, the US and USSR will continue to suffer both absolute and comparative decline since economic rather than military might will determine the winners of this high-stakes game. Such trouble spots as Africa, China, India, and the Middle East are not even in the running, he asserts, though they retain a boundless potential for destabilizing mischief. As the competition for geopolitical ascendancy intensifies, Attali predicts, prosperous, privileged elites will have the means to roam the earth in pursuit of personal fulfillment and/or corporate profit while hordes of have-nots barely subsist in crowded backwaters. In the brave new millennial world dimly foreseen by the author, the planet as well as huddled masses will be ranked among the biggest losers if humanity does not halt its depredation of the environment. In similar small-is-beautiful vein, Attali argues against taking bioscience and other advanced technologies too far. For all their flash and filigree, the author's provocative, albeit carefully hedged, prophecies can be described most charitably as rooted in flights of fancy, not systematic analysis. In brief, then, a quasi-apocalyptic vision that's neither conclusive nor convincing.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1991
ISBN: 0-8129-1913-0
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Times/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1991
BOOK REVIEW
Bernstein and Woodward, the two Washington Post journalists who broke the Big Story, tell how they did it by old fashioned seat-of-the-pants reporting — in other words, lots of intuition and a thick stack of phone numbers. They've saved a few scoops for the occasion, the biggest being the name of their early inside source, the "sacrificial lamb" H**h Sl**n. But Washingtonians who talked will be most surprised by the admission that their rumored contacts in the FBI and elsewhere never existed; many who were telephoned for "confirmation" were revealing more than they realized. The real drama, and there's plenty of it, lies in the private-eye tactics employed by Bernstein and Woodward (they refer to themselves in the third person, strictly on a last name basis). The centerpiece of their own covert operation was an unnamed high government source they call Deep Throat, with whom Woodward arranged secret meetings by positioning the potted palm on his balcony and through codes scribbled in his morning newspaper. Woodward's wee hours meetings with Deep Throat in an underground parking garage are sheer cinema: we can just see Robert Redford (it has to be Robert Redford) watching warily for muggers and stubbing out endless cigarettes while Deep Throat spills the inside dope about the plumbers. Then too, they amass enough seamy detail to fascinate even the most avid Watergate wallower — what a drunken and abusive Mitchell threatened to do to Post publisher Katherine Graham's tit, and more on the Segretti connection — including the activities of a USC campus political group known as the Ratfuckers whose former members served as a recruiting pool for the Nixon White House. As the scandal goes public and out of their hands Bernstein and Woodward seem as stunned as the rest of us at where their search for the "head ratfucker" has led. You have to agree with what their City Editor Barry Sussman realized way back in the beginning — "We've never had a story like this. Just never."
Pub Date: June 18, 1974
ISBN: 0671894412
Page Count: 372
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1974
Less a sequel than an addendum, the book offers a close-up view of the Oval Office in its darkest hour.
Four decades after Watergate shook America, journalist Woodward (The Price of Politics, 2012, etc.) returns to the scandal to profile Alexander Butterfield, the Richard Nixon aide who revealed the existence of the Oval Office tapes and effectively toppled the presidency.
Of all the candidates to work in the White House, Butterfield was a bizarre choice. He was an Air Force colonel and wanted to serve in Vietnam. By happenstance, his colleague H.R. Haldeman helped Butterfield land a job in the Nixon administration. For three years, Butterfield worked closely with the president, taking on high-level tasks and even supervising the installation of Nixon’s infamous recording system. The writing here is pure Woodward: a visual, dialogue-heavy, blow-by-blow account of Butterfield’s tenure. The author uses his long interviews with Butterfield to re-create detailed scenes, which reveal the petty power plays of America’s most powerful men. Yet the book is a surprisingly funny read. Butterfield is passive, sensitive, and dutiful, the very opposite of Nixon, who lets loose a constant stream of curses, insults, and nonsensical bluster. Years later, Butterfield seems conflicted about his role in such an eccentric presidency. “I’m not trying to be a Boy Scout and tell you I did it because it was the right thing to do,” Butterfield concedes. It is curious to see Woodward revisit an affair that now feels distantly historical, but the author does his best to make the story feel urgent and suspenseful. When Butterfield admitted to the Senate Select Committee that he knew about the listening devices, he felt its significance. “It seemed to Butterfield there was absolute silence and no one moved,” writes Woodward. “They were still and quiet as if they were witnessing a hinge of history slowly swinging open….It was as if a bare 10,000 volt cable was running through the room, and suddenly everyone touched it at once.”
Less a sequel than an addendum, the book offers a close-up view of the Oval Office in its darkest hour.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1644-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 20, 2015
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