An intelligent, meticulously researched biography of Dean Acheson (1893—1971), who as Harry Truman’s secretary of state became “the most important figure in American foreign policy since John Quincy Adams.” With aristocratic hauteur, decisiveness, command of facts, and biting wit, Acheson could face down dictators, rabid right-wingers, and American presidents. Only now, however, with the collapse of the Iron Curtain and the opening of US and Soviet files, can a proper assessment be made of his achievements and errors. Drawing on these and other sources, World Policy Journal editor Chace provides an evenhanded appraisal. An accomplished lawyer, Acheson came into his own as assistant secretary of state for Franklin Roosevelt, when he played a key role in shaping the Lend Lease and Bretton Woods accords. Chace throws the last pile of dirt on revisionist historians’ contention that Acheson helped precipitate the Cold War, noting that he sought to reach agreement with Josef Stalin until Soviet designs on Europe forced him into pursuing containment. Under Truman, Acheson helped formulate the Marshall Plan and Truman Doctrine and, in what Chace sees as his lasting legacy, brought West Germany into NATO, thus preventing a major continental land war for the last half of the century. While admiring Acheson’s achievements, Chace also notes that his shrill rhetoric encouraged successors— global containment schemes, which this Eurocentric, pragmatic statesman never intended, and that his policies in Asia were less sure-footed than his policies in Europe. He became vulnerable to GOP attacks because of his refusal to condemn Alger Hiss and America’s —loss— of China, yet he retained the unstinting support of Truman. As an elder statesman, Acheson urged John Kennedy to order limited air strikes during the Cuban missile crisis and turned against the Vietnam War as one of Lyndon Johnson’s —wise men.— A skillful biography of one member of a species now seemingly headed toward extinction in Washington: a government titan of remarkable achievement, eloquence, loyalty, and integrity.
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-684-80843-9
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
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
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
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