An intelligent, rigorous analysis of a political mystery.
An insider’s account of a neglected but significant moment in American presidential history.
Soon after Richard Nixon’s landslide electoral victory in 1972, his administration was beleaguered by scandal. Nixon’s hand-picked vice president, Spiro Agnew, was forced to resign in disgrace after pleading no contest to federal tax evasion, and Watergate eventually brought Nixon’s presidency to the point of collapse. When Nixon, too, was forced to resign in 1974, he tapped Gerald Ford, then House minority leader, and a staunch opponent of Democratic policy, to replace him and to issue a pardon for his crimes. But according to the 25th Amendment, when both the presidency and vice-presidency are vacated, the Oval Office becomes occupied by the Speaker of the House, then Congressman Carl Albert. However, Albert, who actually participated in the drafting of the 25th Amendment in 1963, not only didn’t pursue the office, but even made a series of decisions that made it likely Ford would be successfully installed. Carter (I Hear JFK’S Death Shots, 2013, etc.) and Lefebvre (President or Precedent, 2017) assess why Albert, who seemed both fit and prepared to assume the office, would abjure it. They consider several reasons and discuss the political ramifications of Ford’s ascendancy. Additionally, they ponder an alternate historical universe if Albert had, in fact, become president. At the time of the event in question, Carter served as press secretary for Robert Strauss, the chair of the Democratic National Committee, and was also a friend of Albert. This brief historical portrait is admirably exhaustive despite its brevity, and it searchingly considers all the possible solutions to this unresolved mystery. Also, the authors paint a vivid, personal picture of Albert, who emerges as a complex individual known for his bipartisanship, competence, and civility, especially notable during a particularly divisive period in American politics. There are some small errors in the book; for example, the authors sometimes state that Albert nearly became the 35th American president and sometimes the 38th.
An intelligent, rigorous analysis of a political mystery.Pub Date: March 11, 2017
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 85
Publisher: Russell Morris Publishers
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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