A useful historical study that will especially interest those seeking a look at government from the inside.
A former chief speechwriter at the Pentagon expands his doctoral dissertation to demonstrate how the National Security Council has become one of the dominant forces in shaping American foreign policy.
Relying on a combination of academic research and less formal anecdotes, Gans, who runs the Global Order Program at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perry World House, shifts back and forth between admiration for the NSC and warnings that the mostly publicity-shy staff members have accumulated too much influence without being overseen by anybody outside the White House. The agency was originally created in 1947 to coordinate sensitive, divergent foreign policy recommendations emanating from the armed services, the Defense Department, the State Department, the CIA, and other elements, and its staffers—not subject to confirmation by the Senate or any other body independent of the president—have become a “band of warriors” for the White House. Gans identifies high-profile national security advisers to every president, beginning with Harry Truman’s group of advisers and moving through Henry Kissinger, Condoleezza Rice, Henry McMaster, and others. A chief value of the book, though, is the author’s focus on case studies about how less-visible staff have exerted influence. These include Alexander Vershbow and Nelson Drew, who shaped Bosnian genocide intervention during the Bill Clinton presidency. To establish his theme early, Gans opens the book with scenes suggesting the influence of NSC staff member Meghan O’Sullivan on the controversial decision of George W. Bush to invade Iraq. Perhaps the most dramatic, revealing section occurs during the Ronald Reagan presidency, as the NSC gained the influence to implement foreign policy, leading to the Iran-Contra scandal and the loss of American lives to terrorists in Lebanon. The author also offers up-to-date research about the role of the presidency of Barack Obama, and he squeezes in a few pages of impressions about the chaos of the NSC during the Trump era.
A useful historical study that will especially interest those seeking a look at government from the inside.Pub Date: April 22, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-63149-456-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Liveright/Norton
Review Posted Online: Jan. 15, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
A carefully researched account of the antienvironmentalist ``Wise Use'' Movement, which has launched a ``holy war against the new pagans who worship trees and sacrifice people.'' Helvarg, an investigative reporter and documentary filmmaker, went behind the front lines to interview the movement's leaders, its grassroots supporters, industry and New Right backers, as well as the victims of the rising tide of antigreen violence. Helvarg brilliantly documents the creeping polarization in American life that we see also in such issues as abortion rights and gun control. As much as environmentalists want to preserve nature, some industries want to preserve unlimited access to natural resources, employees want to preserve their jobs, and property owners want to preserve their right to dispose of their land as they wish. The antienvironmentalist backlash, best exemplified by the ``Wise Use'' Movement, has received considerable attention from the conservative press and key figures such as Rush Limbaugh. But Helvarg faults sympathetic coverage in the mainstream press, particularly the New York Times, for giving the movement more credibility and respectability than its numbers and tactics warrant. His investigation reveals that Wise Use/Property Rights activists are few in number and need to resort to intimidation and violence to be effective in local confrontations. He visits an antilogging protester who was maimed by a car bomb, an antitoxics activist who was raped and tortured, and others who were beaten, shot at, had their dogs mutilated, cars run off the road, and homes burned down. He contends that these and thousands of other cases of harassment are effectively silencing many grassroots environmental activists. More disturbing is the lack of interest on the part of law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, in looking into these threats and acts of violence. A thought-provoking and timely exposÇ.
Pub Date: Oct. 3, 1994
ISBN: 0-87156-459-9
Page Count: 512
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1994
A neat but overbroad analysis of the current state of Supreme Court confirmation proceedings. Since 1968, when the nomination of Abe Fortas to replace Earl Warren as chief justice was shot down by maverick Republican senators defying a politically impotent LBJ, the confirmation process has become ``disorderly, contentious and unpredictable. In short...thoroughly democratic,'' writes Silverstein (Political Science/Boston Univ.). What made '68 such a turning point in judicial history? A number of factors, which the author untangles with the self-assurance of a skilled classroom lecturer. He argues that in the decade before the Fortas nomination, the Warren Court had jettisoned the jurisprudence of restraint, reinventing the federal judiciary as a haven for ethnic and religious minorities seeking novel forms of relief. This heightened judicial activism lured more politically powerful, upper-middle-class groups (such as consumer advocates and conservationists) into federal courtrooms throughout the US. By 1968, the political winds had shifted, a new breed of senators had assumed power, and Richard Nixon's law-and- order regime was dawning. But the politically potent upper middle class was prepared to lobby against any anti-activist Supreme Court nominee who threatened its access to the courts. Silverstein's depiction of confrontational confirmations as a by-product of judicial activism is suggestive, but he tends to downplay factors that don't fit perfectly into this theory—he covers the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, for example, as if they were nothing but a debate over the separation of powers. And his argument that the modern confirmation process has resulted in uninspiring ``stealth'' nominees such as David Souter and Anthony Kennedy completely fails to explain how a controversial, well-known nominee such as Antonin Scalia can have, in the author's own words, ``sailed through'' the process. Silverstein articulately presents a provocative theory but stretches it beyond its limits.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-393-03692-8
Page Count: 172
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1994
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