Author: szfreiberger

EMPIRE OF PAIN: THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE SACKLER DYNASTY by Patrick Radden Keefe

szfreiberger Investigative Reporting Leave a comment
(Purdue Pharma headquarters in downtown Stamford, CT.)

Yesterday I decided to binge on the two part HBO series “The Crime of the Century.”  It detailed the horrors inflicted on the most vulnerable of the American people – individuals who suffer from chronic pain or are about to pass away and are in extreme pain.  The culprit for these horrors was and remains the Sackler family and its company Purdue Pharma which was created when its other pharmaceutical company Purdue Frederick was making a great deal of money manufacturing items like Benedine and Senekot, but for the family led by Richard Sackler this did not produce enough profit, so it branched out into the “pain market” and took one of its products MS Contin and reoriented its composition to create Oxycontin.  The process involved pressure on the FDA, a great deal of obfuscation concerning its components, bribery, and outright lies to cause the death of over 500,000 Americans since its release in 1996.  One of the narrators for the documentary was Patrick Radden Keefe, a staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of the New York Times bestseller, SAY NOTHING: A TRUE STORY OF MURDER AND MEMORY IN NORTHERN IRELAND the winner of the 2019 National Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction.  Keefe’s newest book EMPIRE OF PAIN: THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE SACKLER DYNASTY fills in some of the gaps of the HBO expose and reaffirms the despicable actions of numerous characters in the family, Purdue Pharma employees, and individuals outside the company and family who were coopted into the process because of greed and a convoluted sense of morality.

EMPIRE OF PAIN is a multi-faceted biography of a family dynamic that produced individuals who seemed to lack empathy for others and were obsessed with the accumulation of wealth which allowed them to satisfy their pocketbooks and egos.  Secondly, it is a study that delves into the drug empire created by the Sackler family and the lengths they would go to continue to engage in practices that would enhance and maintain their wealth while ignoring the negative and at times disastrous effects of their decisions on the American people.  Some family members would argue that this accumulation of wealth is partially offset by the philanthropic ventures that the Sackler’s pursued.  The name Arthur M. Sackler, the individual most responsible for beginning the creation of its “pain empire” appears on museum walls and buildings ranging from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., Harvard, Tufts, Columbia Universities, the Sackler School of Medicine in Tel Aviv, among others in London, Paris, and Berlin.  These gifts and/or donations were made possible by the fortune earned from developing and marketing drugs like Librium and valium in the 1960s and 70s with its negative effects on those patients whose doctors over prescribed the medication.

OxyContin
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Keefe’s narrative unfolds as he explores the origins of Sackler family wealth which is estimated at about $14 billion.  He delves into the role played by three brothers; Arthur, Raymond, and Mortimer Sackler, all three physicians who developed the edifice that resulted in the hundreds of thousands of drug overdoses that have been inflicted on American society in the last few decades.  The key figure is Arthur M. Sackler who after working at Creedmoor Mental Hospital in New York along with his brothers in the 1960s concluded that the care for the mentally ill was grisly and became convinced there was a better treatment solution.  Arthur Sackler, trained as a Freudian concluded that one’s life experience could not fully account for mental illness – that there was a chemical component, and he would unlock the mystery to help these people.  Sackler would conclude that the derangement of brain chemistry was the missing link.  The brothers conducted a series of experiments on rabbits which reinforced their views of chemical changes in the brain being responsible for mental illness.

Keefe lays out the early careers of the brothers, but Arthur was the key.  He was a complicated individual who enjoyed multiple careers; physician, mental illness researcher, and advertising executive.  His strategy was to market products/medicines directly to doctors and at first took “broad spectrum anti-biotics” and revolutionized medical marketing by convincing physicians to write prescriptions for his products.  The advertising techniques used for clothing, automobiles, food, perfume etc. were now applied to medicine.  Promotion and brand differentiation were key, and Arthur’s success was built upon his purchase of the William Douglas McAdams advertising agency whose major client was Pfizer. 

Letters spelling Sackler being removed from a sign.

As Keefe points out, Arthur was shrewd as he owned or had a partnership with McAdams and Bill Frohlich’s ad agency.  The brothers opened their medical practice in the 1950s in New York and purchased Purdue Frederick, a small company in the patent medicine business.  The expansion of their wealth was predicated on developing what they termed “a minor tranquilizer” to offset the use of Thorazine.  Roche, another major pharmaceutical company developed Librium to meet that market and Arthur was tasked to market the new drug.  In an age of Cold War anxiety, it was the perfect time to launch a new tranquilizer.  By 1963 Roche would build upon Librium and develop Valium and Arthur’s firm zeroed in on convincing doctors that it worked separately on anxiety, muscle tension and numerous other ailments.  It would become the first $100 million drug in history, further little was done to determine if the new drugs were addictive – creating a Sackler family pattern.  Valium would be used by 20 million Americans and was at that time the most widely consumed and abused drug in history.  Even the Rolling Stones wrote a song about Valium, “Mother’s Little Helper.”

Keefe encapsulates Arthur’s approach carefully correctly arguing that “he desired posterity, not publicity.  The last thing Arthur wanted to do was call attention to his own wealth and holdings, and to do so in a manner that might raise questions about his overlapping careers.”  It was quite clear that Arthur modus vivendi of helping develop drugs, fiercely marketing them to physicians, manipulating the FDA through the likes of Dr. Henry Welch, indirect gifts and bribery to the right individuals be they salespeople or doctors was unethical as well as illegal.

Cheryl Juaire, center, of Marlborough, Massachusetts, center, leads protesters near the Arthur M Sackler Museum at Harvard University, on 12 April.

(Cheryl Juaire, center, of Marlborough, Massachusetts, center, leads protesters near the Arthur M Sackler Museum at Harvard University)

As Keefe lays out his arguments it is clear the groundwork for our current drug problem was fostered by the Sackler brothers approach that drugs are not addictive, and it was the patient’s personality and needs that were responsible not the drug manufacturer or the physician.  It was clear as they marketed Valium they developed the advertising approach designed to create a vast market for Oxycontin.

The main culprit among the next generation of Sackler’s was Raymond’s son Richard, and Arthur’s daughter Elizabeth (Kathe).  The family created a new company, Purdue Pharma to engage in developing a “pain” product that would create a new market since their patent for MS Contin, a morphine based drug was running out.  The Contin process contained a time released component over a twelve hour period that they argued would prevent addiction.  Kathe’s goal was to apply the Contin system to Oxycodone and Richard would micromanage its development.  At first, they stressed that the new drug Oxycontin (time released Oxycodone/morphine) should be marketed just for cancer patients to gain FDA approval, but what was never mentioned was that Oxycodone was synthesized into heroine by Bayer in Germany.  Once on the market for a period of time the target market would be expanded.

Keefe does an excellent job recounting the mindset of Richard Sackler and his cohorts in undoing the perception that Oxycontin was addictive to enhance the profitability of the drug.  This approach was implemented with a vengeance.  Mitchell Freidman who had been Head of Marketing at the FDA joined Purdue Pharma a year after he left the government and he and Richard would spearhead the idea that Oxycontin could be used for a myriad of issues from back pain, arthritis, post-surgical pain etc.  Keene has culled the evidence and shows how Richard and Freidman deliberately chose a marketing strategy to deceive doctors and their patients of the low addictive quality of Oxycontin and the mistaken belief held by doctors that the drug was less powerful than morphine.  Curtis Wright, who oversaw pain medication at the FDA, was cultivated and he helped write the drug insert for the medication that stated, “Delayed absorption, as provided by Oxycontin tablets, is believed to reduce the abuse liability of the drug.”  On December 28, 1995 the FDA approved Oxycontin.  A year later Wright earned $400,000 at Purdue Pharma.

The sales approach described by Keefe to market the new drug rested on the company’s catechism, “the delivery system is believed to reduce the abuse liability of the drug.”  Keefe dissects the sales pitch and training of the hundreds of Pharma reps.  They would target certain geographical areas like southern West Virginia and eastern Virginia and the rust belt to maximize sales as people overdosed.

Keefe’s account is stunning and based on assiduous research, confidential and original documents, and interviews.  The author follows the legal battle to unearth what the Sackler’s had done and its vast implications for the wealth and health of the American people.  Their arrogance is clear in the words of Kathe Sackler who boasted  that Oxycontin was “very good medicine” and “a safe medicine.”  She also claims credit for coming up with the “idea.”  Years later in reference to the hundreds of thousands of addicted Americans she claimed not be aware of that.  In 2007 the Bush Justice Department only delivered a slap on the wrist after investigating Purdue Pharma.  It was no coincidence that the Sackler’s were major donors to the Republican Party and Rudy Giuliani was one of their lawyers!

The name Barry Meier, a New York Times reporter and author of the first major expose dealing with Purdue Pharma and the Sackler’s, PAIN KILLER: AN EMPIRE OF DECEIT AND THE ORIGIN OF AMERICA’S OPIOID EPIDEMIC became a thorn in the side of the opioid industry.  Keefe relies on Meier’s early work in his research and conveys the travails that the reporter had to deal with.  Purdue Pharma executives pressured the Times  to block Meier’s efforts.  They were successful for a period of time until the various trials against the corporation took place where he was “reinstated” on the topic and his incisive reporting reemerged.

Keefe and Meier argued that it is clear that Purdue Pharma had an inside man at the FDA and Paul McNulty, the deputy attorney general during the Bush administration handcuffed the prosecution and the efforts of John Brownlee, the federal prosecutor for the western district of Virginia who went after Purdue Pharma.  In 2007 Purdue would pay a $600 million fine for the $35 billion earned from Oxycontin.  Two years ago, when the Sackler’s faced their harshest legal challenge, they sold their stake in Purdue Pharma, moved their money overseas and had Purdue file for bankruptcy.  Once that strategy was implemented, no court could gain damages from the family’s personal funds.  By 2019-20 the Trump Justice Department under William Barr gave the family a reprieve and no family members or company executives would face criminal charges.

Patrick Radden Keefe
Photograph by Ilene Squires

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Keefe effectively traces how finally after 2013 the Sackler family name became toxic as museums, universities, medical schools, and hospitals refused their donations and, in some cases, removed their names from their properties.  Keefe follows the family’s efforts to counter lawsuits brought by numerous state Attorneys General and their use of White Plains, NY Judge Robert D. Drain to protect the Sackler family wealth, in addition to the family realization that for the first time settlements might hit them personally.  As a result, they began to siphon off vast amounts of cash (family wealth is estimated to be $14 billion) from the company and planting it in offshore accounts.  The result is that this entitled group of “Sackler’s” had to face the fact they had become social pariahs.

Samanth Subramanian’s review of May 13, 2021, in The Guardian sums up the devastation and corruption, both government and non-government very clearly and its implications for the future: Keefe’s narrative is so lush with details that only in the chinks do we spot the story behind the story: the rotting structure of American healthcare that almost wills disasters into being. Some failures are born of lethargy or neglect. A federal government official once told me that if states had simply transitioned faster to reporting their health statistics electronically, someone might have caught a pattern: “all the drug overdose deaths, the suicides, the medical examiner events” that advertised the opioid crisis. But other failures are the results of a system maintained at a level of designed corruption.

Purdue Pharma’s headquarters in Stamford, Conn., on Thursday.
(Purdue Pharma’s headquarters in Stamford, CT)

CHINA: THE NOVEL by Edward Rutherfurd

szfreiberger Historical Fiction Leave a comment

(the Opium War 1839-1842)

For years I read the panoramic novels of James A. Michener.  His multi-generational plots, historical knowledge, all-encompassing detail, and character development were very satisfying, and I always looked forward to his latest release.  When he passed a void resulted in my reading agenda until I discovered Edward Rutherfurd.  In 1987 I read Rutherfurd’s first novel, SARUM which immediately sparked my interest because of his approach to writing, history, lineage of different generations, and an assortment of interesting and fascinating characters.  I dare say he was “Micheneresque!”  Other novels soon followed; RUSSKA, LONDON, THE FOREST, THE PRINCES OF IRELAND, THE REBELS OF IRELAND, NEW YORK, and PARIS – all very satisfying and engrossing living up to the bar he set with his first novel. 

I was looking forward to his next effort which was published last week, CHINA: THE NOVEL.  The novel does not present the scope and panorama of his earlier works, and there are a few questions about organization, but it still was a satisfying read.  The novel begins with events leading to the 1839 Opium War between England and the “Middle Kingdom” and carries the reader through Chinese history beginning with the Opium Wars, the Taiping Rebellion, the Boxer Rebellion, and finally the 1911 Revolution.  Through its characters Rutherfurd tries to present each event and different attempts at reform that sought to throw off the western imperialist yoke.  Over time these occurrences would lay the groundwork for the rise of Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party which emerged after World War I, consolidated its support among the peasants in the 1930s and during World War II, and finally defeated the Guomintang (Nationalist Party) in 1949 and began the Maoist rule over China which dominated the former “Celestial Kingdom” until the early 1980s.

Opium War Imports into China, 1650-1880

The book seems to be organized in two parts, the first centers around the opium trade and a series of characters from British merchants, Chinese traders, government officials, and a number of ancillary families.  The second part focuses on the life of one individual in particular,  Lacquer Nail whose character is somewhat contrived and how the Chinese government tried to defeat the foreign imperialists, but to no avail.  Rutherdurd does a credible job integrating true historical figures with fictional characters.  At the outset, the key historical figure that is portrayed accurately is Lin Zexu, who was a Chinese head of states (Viceroy), Governor General, scholar-official, and High Commissioner who was charged by the emperor to rid the country of the opium trade that was bankrupting the kingdom because of the outflow of silver to pay for the opium.  The next important character is fictional, Jiang Shi-Rong who rose to become Commissioner Lin’s personal secretary.

From the outset of the novel, it is clear that Rutherfurd has done his homework as he exhibits a firm grasp of Chinese history and culture.  His explanation of the reasons for and the impact of foot binding on women is engrossing as is his description of the Forbidden City, the metropolitan exams to become a scholar-official, the language employed by Chinese officials, the differences between Han and Manchu Chinese, the dichotomy between northern and southern China, as is the presentation  of historical figures like James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin, the weakness of the Xian Feng Emperor, Prince Gong, regent from 1861-1865, the Empress Cixi, Lin Zexu, Edmund Backhouse, a British oriental scholar and linguist among others. 

Map 3: China's Treaty Ports, 1860

(Map 3: China’s Treaty Ports, 1860.)

Fictional characters abound with the key figures including John Trader, a British merchant who engages in the Opium trade as a means of impressing Agnes Lomond in Calcutta; Cecil Whiteparish, Trader’s cousin and  missionary; Mei-Ling a Chinese woman who provides a window into the misogyny of Chinese culture; Nio, Mei-Ling’s “brother” who is a pirate and eventually joins the Taiping movement to overthrow the Emperor; Guanji, a Manchu officer; the Odstock brothers who lived off the opium trade; and Mr. Liu who is bent on destroying Lacquer Nail.

Rutherfurd navigates the different factions within the Chinese government and the disagreements and friction among the characters very nicely.  A case in point is the Eunuch system and what one went through to become one and how they achieved wealth and power in the Forbidden City in dealing with the Emperor. Rutherfurd is able to develop a number of stories within the larger story of the novel very carefully.  Chief among them revolves around the Taiping Rebellion, an uprising commanded by Hong Xiuquan, the self-proclaimed brother of Jesus Christ. Its goals were religious, nationalist, and political in nature; Hong sought the conversion of the Chinese people to the Taiping’s syncretic version of Christianity, to overthrow the ruling Qing Dynasty, and a state transformation.  At times it appeared that the British might ally with the Taiping’s in order to secure the opium trade and other commodities like tea.

The overall theme of the novel is the history of China between 1839 and 1911 that was dominated by British imperialism, later joined by other European powers and the United States.  As Rutherfurd develops the novel he integrates other important historical information germane to his topic, i.e., the recruitment of Chinese labor to work on the railroads in the United States, the politics of the British parliament, events in India, among others.  If one is conversant in Chinese history during this period, you will be able to relate to what is evolving.  If not Rutherfurd clearly presents the rhythms of the Chinese approach to life and how it conflicted with western expectations and why conflict was inevitable.

Forbidden City
(The Forbidden City, Beijing, China)

Cultural superiority is a dominant theme as the Chinese saw the west as barbarians who were inferior to the Confucian way of life, and western lack of respect for Chinese culture seeing the Chinese people as animals in many cases.  The causes and results of the two Opium Wars are reviewed and their effect on Chinese society and politics stand out.  Rutherfurd spends a great deal of time on the Taiping Rebellion which many historians see as laying the groundwork for Maoist thought with their agrarian reform ideas, however over 40 million Chinese would die during the conflict.  The author also takes a deep dive through his characters as the Chinese try to reform themselves after the Taiping Rebellion with the rise of the Empress Cixi but to no avail.  The Boxer Rebellion becomes front and center at the turn of the 2oth century as does the rise of Sun Yat-Sen and his ideas that resulted in the 1911 Revolution that followed the death of the Empress Cixi.

Empress Dowager Cixi, who died 109 years ago today.

(Empress Cixi)

The earlier sections of the novel are much more engaging because of its focus on the Chinese family apart from the opium trade.  The later sections of the novel are exhausting with its focus on court life and attempts to deal with the west.  From the title of the book, one would hope its focus would be more on the Chinese people themselves without providing such a prominent occidental slant.

The book at times can be unwieldly, but slowly it will captivate you and make you want to complete its 763 pages.  Rutherfurd will lay out the difference between eastern and western culture and one might question the goals and complexities of each.  Though I do not think the book flows as evenly as previous Rutherfurd novels, the book provides an education in of itself through its historical and myriad fictional characters and is worth the read.

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If you have found the events and personalities presented in the book interesting, I would recommend the following: THE BOXER REBELLION  by Diana Preston; AUTUMN IN THE HEAVENLY KINGDOM by Stephen R. Platt; IMPERIAL TWILIGHT: THE OPIUM WAR AND THE END OF CHINA’S LAST GOLDEN AGE by Stephen R. Platt; EMPRESS DOWAGER CIXI  by Jung Chang; GOD’S CHINESE SON by Jonathan Spence or any other books on Chinese history written by Spence.

Image 1: A “stacking room” in an opium factory in Patna, India. On the shelves are balls of opium that were part of Britain’s trade with China.

(A “stacking room” in an opium factory in Patna, India. On the shelves are balls of opium that were part of Britain’s trade with China.)

WHEN AMERICA STOPPED BEING GREAT: A HISTORY OF THE PRESENT by Nick Bryant

szfreiberger Uncategorized Leave a comment
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During the past year, the United States has undergone a series of events that have accelerated our partisan divide and portends serious problems in the near future unless we can overcome our differences. Election conspiracy theorists and deniers, the January 6th attack on the capitol by insurrectionists, the continuation of gun violence, police actions, voter suppression legislation, cancel culture are just a few of the issues contributing to our political, social, and economic insanity.  If this is not enough, we still are in the midst of a pandemic with 30-40% of the population refusing to be vaccinated.  Former President Trump reigns in Mar-a-Lago as a potentate receiving his minions pouring out his venom, lies, and conspiracy theories and one must ask, OMG how did we get here?

Perhaps BBC New York correspondent Nick Bryant provides some of the answers in his new book; WHEN AMERICA STOPPED BEING GREAT: A HISTORY OF THE PRESENT.  I find it intriguing that someone from across the Atlantic seems to have greater insight  into our situation than the majority of Americans arguing that “Ronald Reagan was one of the Founding Fathers of America’s modern day polarization.”  Bryant develops his theme by explaining that Reagan and the arrival of his right wing supporters who loved his anti-government persona along with the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act began the road to our current polarization.  Barry Goldwater’s loss in 1964 gave birth to the Republican’s southern strategy as white voters grew afraid because of the fast pace of racial reform.  The situation was further exacerbated by the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the Immigration and Nationalities Act which expanded voting to minorities and ended white preferences for those entering the United States and enhanced the “browning of America.”  The events surrounding the elections of 1976 and 1980 set the stage for the election of Ronald Reagan a man who relied on his acting ability, stage management, sense of humor, and ability to communicate to win over the American electorate.

See how Ronald Reagan combatted communism and the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War
(President Ronald Reagan)

It was Ronald Reagan who became our first movie star president and developed the theme of “Let’s Make America Great Again” paving the way for Trump to become the first reality TV star to enter the White House and refine Reagan’s message.  The difference between the two was that Reagan’s personality was uplifting while Trump’s emitted a nastiness never seen before in the Oval Office.  In a sense Reagan was Trump’s role model except he lacked the vindictiveness and abusive behavior that the former president exhibited over his term in office.  According to Bryant Reagan created the choreographed presidency with evocative scripting, polished production values, an eye for the dramatic photo-op, and a variety of show-like mix of spectacle, entertainment and gags.  The problem was that Reagan was intellectually incurious, ill informed, and overly reliant on cue cards resulting in a flawed blueprint that showed that the president could achieve historical greatness without even mastering the basics of the job.  Americans felt comfortable with Reagan’s manner and presentation unaware of the lack of depth behind the scenes – sound familiar?

The Reagan era witnessed a massive increase in wealth and consumerism – “Greed is Good!” became the epitome of Reaganism.  To prove his point Bryant does an excellent job referencing the the culture of the 1980s through film, television which reaffirms the results of Reagan era policies.  Further he explores Trump’s role during the decade and concludes quite correctly that he became the poster child of a profit obsessed society highlighted by garishness, ego, and a sense of entitlement.  But Bryant is clear Reagan is responsible for the anti-government sentiment that has proliferated over the last twenty years and he is also correct that if one digs down into Reagan’s record the result would be Reagan would probably be primaried today if he ran for office by the Trumpers!

George HW Bush
(President George H. W. Bush)

Despite the fact that Trump/Reagan seemed to dominate large segments of the book there are a number of important specific reasons that Bryant relies upon to make his arguments.  Key among them is the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and the Immigration and Nationalities Act that have been mentioned.  All deal with the racial divide in America which is a dominant reason for the lack are bipartisanship in Congress which is the main reason for the decline in America’s reputation worldwide and the fracturing of American society.  1991 stands out because of the beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles which clearly proved that no one of color would receive fair treatment under the American justice system. This was a warning at a time that the Berlin Wall had fallen, and the Soviet Union ceased to exist, as the US saw itself as the dominant and most respected country in the world.  But from this point it was all downhill.

The arrival of Newt Gingrich is another major cause for the developing dysfunction in US politics.  Bryant follows Gingrich’s career, ideology, and actions that led to his Speakership of the House.  Gingrich’s slash and burn mentality designed to create roadblocks for any democratic legislation along with his nasty confrontational style accomplished his goal of making the Republican party an opposition party and did away with any consensus in Congress.  The resulting grid lock that led to Bill Clinton’s impeachment, shutting down the government, among many other actions slowly eroded our democracy.  Bryant does an excellent job connecting the political dots in bringing Gingrich to the Speakership as the Democrats rejected John Tower as Defense Secretary to be replaced by Dick Cheney whose leadership position in the House went to Gingrich launching the Georgia lawmaker to create his mayhem.

Bill Clinton
(President William Jefferson Clinton)

1992 would be the watershed election as it reflected the racism and anti-Semitism of Pat Buchanan wrapped in his ethno-nationalism.  The election of Clinton would normalize presidential bad behavior, and gave us Ross Perot whose populist lure of nativism, nationalism, and protectionism which would dominate politics in 2016.  This nativism would lead to the Oklahoma City bombing, American failure in Mogadishu, Bosnia and Rwanda further eroding America’s reputation in the world.  It appeared despite the economic growth of the 1990s the US was self-destructing.

Bryant presents cogent answers to the question raised in the title of his book.  He zeros in on the role 9/11, the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the subsequent disaster in that country and Afghanistan, and the 2008 economic disaster that still reverberates with American voters as those who were responsible were never punished and the government bailed out the “too big to fail” banks.  This would lead to the Tea Party and further divided the American polity.  Events overseas roiled America’s allies particularly the occurances surrounding Abu Ghraib, torture at black sites conducting by CIA operatives and others, and the situation at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.  All of this was occurring as Vladimir Putin pursued a revanchist policy in Russia. Angry over NATO expansion into Eastern Europe, the fall of the Soviet Union, and the state of Russian influence in the world he would take advantage of America’s continued slide in worldwide influence.  Putin’s task was facilitated by George Bush’s “Axis of Evil speech,” President Obama’s decision to allow President Bashir Assad to cross his “red line” in Syria, President Trump’s abandonment of the Kurds in Syria, all of which gave Russia an opening in the Middle East, Crimea, Georgia, and eastern Ukraine which Putin took advantage.

Foreign policy bears a great deal of responsibility for America’s decline but also domestic policy.  Globalization is seen by American workers in the “Rust Belt” which produced NAFTA as a major reason for their loss of their livelihood.  Between 2001 and 2013 over 65,000 factories closed in the United States costing over 5,000,000 jobs which would provide the seed bed for Trump’s support.  Trump would play on white resentment against trade policy, immigration, and cultural issues to ingratiate himself with the Rust Belt revolt against robots (automation that cost jobs) to gain the presidency.  This white-working class revolt heated by US corporate tax policies would further inflame the US electorate.

Learn how the September 11th terrorist attacks and the Iraq War defined George W. Bush's presidency
(President George W. Bush)

Bryant does a good job developing themes that are difficult to disagree with, but he also produces vignettes that reflect American hypocrisy, i.e., Gingrich’s affair with a congressional aide, Bob Livingstone his replacement as Speaker was exposed by Hustler magazine for his own affair, and Dennis Hastert, his replacement was later exposed as a child molester – all while trying to impeach and ruin Bill Clinton!  Another surrounds the Bush administration’s actions in dealing with or not dealing with Hurricane Katrina, and his approach to the 2008 economic crisis.

Bryant’s dissection of each presidential administration seems fair and accurate.  “No drama Obama” receives his due apart from his defunct Syrian policy.  By not addressing income inequality in America, lining up with Wall Street not main street, and trying to achieve consensus with a Republican Party that totally rejected him in large part because of race all contributed to a weak presidency which his “aloof” cerebral manner just exacerbated.  This produced the election of 2010 which saw an increase in of 63 Republican seats in the House and 8 Senate seats.  The argument is sound that perhaps Obama was doomed because of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s policy of making Obama a one term president which he is continuing with Joe Biden, but an attempt to confront McConnell’s tactics should have been more forceful.

5x7 President Barack Obama Official PHOTO Portrait White House image 0

(President Barrack Obama)

Bryant does not disappoint in his examination of the Trump presidency.  The analysis of Trump’s personality and actions line up with numerous books that have been written since 2017 that explains Trump’s “American carnage.”  “Like Reagan’s and Obama’s, this was a hugely symbolic presidency., but whereas the Gipper signified resurgence and Obama embodied renewal, Trump represented revenge.”  Trump greatly accelerated the world’s negative view of the United States.  Though nationalists and right wing authoritarian leaders made Trump weak at the knees his policies of: withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal; withdrawal from the Trans Pacific Partnership; withdrawal from the Paris climate accord; his fawning over Vladimir Putin; use of a wrecking ball to the Atlantic alliance; his denigration of allied leaders;  withdrawal from Syria; his bromance with Kim Jong-un; praising Saudi leader Mohammed bin Salman who ordered the death of a Washington Post reporter; trade wars; suspending US funding for the World Health Organization in the middle of a pandemic all resulted in America’s moral reputation worldwide coming close to an abyss which of course China benefited from along with other presidential actions.  A Pew research poll gave Putin a higher international approval rating than Trump 33-29%, and Xi Jinping was at 28%!

On the domestic front Trump even raised the polarization level during a pandemic, i.e.; mask debate, anti-vaxers, holding virus spreading events etc.  While Trump fiddled, minorities burned, or died at an unacceptable rate when compared to whites.  Lacking health insurance and economic resources Trump just caste people adrift.  Misinformation and conspiracy theories reinforced by the 2020 election outcome, the George Floyd murder by a Minneapolis policemen heightened support for the Black Lives Matter Movement all of which contributed to the rift between the “red” United States and “blue” United States making people overseas wonder how the richest country on earth has made such a mess of things resulting in its precipitous decline over the last twenty years.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump gestures during a campaign rally at the Henderson Pavilion on Oct. 5, 2016, in Henderson, N.V. Trump is campaigning ahead of the second presidential debate coming up on October 9 with Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
(President Donald J. Trump)

But as Bryant makes clear, Trump is not the only reason America stopped being great, it was a process that began with Vietnam, racial issues of the 1960s, and the evolution of personalities and events over fifty years that saw Pax Americana last for a noticeably short period despite the claims of George H. W. Bush in 1991.  The United States is confronted with a public health crisis that disproportionately affects people of color, an economic shock that disproportionately affects people of color, and civil unrest caused by police brutality that obviously disproportionately affects people of color.  The United States according to Bryant is a shattered mirror being held up to a fractured country.

 Bryant’s overall approach produces a tightly argued narrative that I would challenge anyone to disagree with.  It is thoughtful, based on personal experience, and relies on facts and reality, which for some is difficult to accept.

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THE LAST GREEN VALLEY by Mark Sullivan

szfreiberger Historical Fiction Leave a comment
(Stalinist Gulag)

A few years ago, I read an unforgettable novel BENEATH THE SCARLET SKY by Mark Sullivan.  His approach toward fiction exhibited the unique ability to blend historical events and characters with his own imagination and further documentation to produce a work of exceptional, what he describes as historical fiction based on real life stories dealing with World War II and its aftermath.  The skills developed in BENEATH THE SCARLET SKY are on full display in Sullivan’s latest effort, THE LAST GREEN VALLEY which transports the reader to late March 1944 as World War II is ending as the Soviet army moves west through the Ukraine.  As the Russians push the Germans out of the Soviet Union Sullivan’s most important characters Emil and Adeline Martel must decide if they should follow the German army under SS protection westward or should they remain in the Ukraine and risk seeing their family torn apart as Emile would be sent  to Siberia by Stalin’s forces, and Adele and her sons would become orphans of the state.  The decision making process is paramount, and Sullivan’s back story is centered on what might you do if you found yourself in the situations that the Martel’s faced as they tried to escape Hitler’s and Stalin’s grip.

The novel focuses on the extended Martel family that includes Emil, a farmer, his wife Adele, and their two children Wilhelm and Waldemar, along with their grandparents and uncles and aunts.  Sullivan’s writing is very descriptive and from the outset the reader finds the Martel’s in a number of precarious situations as they decide to follow the German army westward.  Sullivan has an excellent command of history and is able to integrate the historical past in each situation. 

One of Sullivan’s techniques is to alternate historical periods.  The immediate situation finds the Martel’s trying to survive during the spring and summer of 1944 which is balanced by scenes from the late 1920s through the earlier part of World War II.  A case in point is Sullivan’s description of life in the Ukraine and the conditions they were forced to endure under Stalin’s plan to collectivize Russian agriculture and to starve peasants living in the Ukraine or accuse them of being Kulaks, capitalist farmers who threatened the Soviet regime and sending them to what Alexander Solzhenitsyn describes as the Gulag Archipelago.  The result is the “Red Famine” that Anne Applebaum develops in her book of the same title which witnesses the death from starvation of millions of peasants throughout the 1930s.

The key to the story is the Nazi concept of volksdeutche, ethnic Germans who were invited by Catherine the Great to live in the Ukraine and assist Russian peasants to increase their agricultural yields.  These people were referred to as “Black Sea Germans” and lived between Odessa and Kiev until the Russian Revolution.  With the rise of Stalin, they were seen as a threat and were labeled Kulaks and many including Adele’s father, Karl Losing were sent to Siberia for over fifteen years, and Emile’s father spent seven years working in the Siberian mines developing lung disease.

Stalin’s order to starve the Ukraine in 1933 is referred to as the Holodomor as Russian soldiers destroyed wheat crops killing millions forcing Emile to question the existence of god, compared to his wife’s faith in the church.  Sullivan’s description of how Emil changed because of Stalinist policies, the war, the effects on his family are heart breaking, particularly how he was haunted by SS Hauptsturmfuhrer Haussmann because of incidents involving the slaughter of Jews by the SS at Dubossary on the Romanian border that took place in 1941.  Further, Emil has difficulty dealing with members of the Selbstschutz a group created by the SS made up of Romanians whose task was to kill Jews.  One in particular, Nikolas is a threat to Emil and his family.

Picture
(Author, Mark Sullivan)

The Martel’s harrowing journey west by wagon then cattle car is described in detail.  Faced with avoiding German and Russian tanks, planes, and artillery the family does its best to live another day.  Despite the nature of the story Sullivan does his best to present the humanity of people and inject humor whenever possible even under horrendous conditions, i.e.; when four year old Will needs to pee in a jar or out the back of the wagon as they travel westward.  Laughter was such a rarity – it was cherished when it occurred.

Sullivan offers repeated poignant scenes throughout the novel.  Whether it is Adele realizing she is living in an apartment house that used to house Jews in Wielun, Poland or that she and her family were wearing clothing stripped of Jews before they were gassed, she has difficulty coping.  Another is the dilemma Emil is forced to deal with as he is ordered to shoot a Jewish father and three children by the SS.  Emil refuses to do so at first, but when threatened with his life and never seeing his family again he finally succumbs to the pressure, but in the end, he never carries out the order.  In Emil’s mind he has already executed the innocent Jews and cannot except the fact he did not kill them.  For four years he carries the burden that he is an unworthy human being and a murderer until an unusual figure convinces him that god was looking out for him even though he had denigrated God the entire time.  Throughout their journey Emil and Adele try and keep the faith that they will see each other again even when it appears it will never come to pass.  Their journey is such that it is difficult for the reader not to become emotionally involved with Sullivan’s characters.

Speaking of characters, both real and imagined, Sullivan presents a number of fascinating individuals particularly the Romanian Corporal Gheorghe who suffered a head injury at Stalingrad.  He comes in contact with Emil and his family putting forth a strong belief in god and with his empathetic nature then after losing contact with him they meet again in a Soviet labor camp four years later where the Corporal has an amazing impact on Emil’s life providing him with a new way of seeing the world, and a new way of thinking.

Sullivan is a fantastic storyteller and researcher.  He spent a great deal of time with the immediate Martel family and their descendants while researching the book, and even walked in their footsteps through Ukraine, helping him capture the drama and emotion of their journey.  It is the type of story that makes it difficult for the reader to put the book down as its hold on you makes you wonder about how certain inhabitants of the earth do the things they do, how people have the intestinal fortitude to survive, and the importance of memory and hope in confronting situations beyond their control.

Bleak: Soviet inmates at the frozen prison camp in Norilsk, Siberia, in 1945. The camps, often in the middle of nowhere, were surrounded with barbed wire and watchtowers

(Soviet inmates at the frozen prison camp in Norilsk, Siberia, in 1945) 

OUR TEAM: THE EPIC STORY OF FOUR MEN AND THE WORLD SERIES THAT CHANGED BASEBALL by Luke Epplin

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(Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium)

Spring has arrived, at least in our minds up in New England, and with it the sounds and hopes generated by a new baseball season which hopefully will not be affected by Covid as it was last year.  At the same time, we are experiencing the 100th anniversary of the Negro Leagues, in addition to the tumult that fostered the creation of the Black Lives Matter Movement and its continuing relevancy.  Based on time of year and the impact of race on the news on a daily basis Luke Epplin’s new book, OUR TEAM: THE EPIC STORY OF FOUR MEN AND THE WORLD SERIES THAT CHANGED BASEBALL seems like an excellent choice to navigate the role of race in baseball history and its impact on our current view of the sport.

Epplin’s focus is on four individuals who greatly impacted baseball history apart from the Cleveland Indians magical run to the pennant in 1948.  Playing in the cavernous Municipal Stadium its owner Bill Veeck, part showman, shrewd businessman, and baseball lifer introduced a number of changes as to how owners approached their teams.  The second impact individual was Bob Feller, an Iowa farm boy who became one of the best pitchers in baseball history, though by 1948 he was on the downside of his career.  The last two individuals Larry Doby and Satchel Paige have a special place in baseball history when it comes to the integration of the sport.  By the time Paige arrived in Cleveland he was in his early forties and had played in the Negro League for years.  Possibly the best pitcher, black or white since the 1930s Paige would make significant contributions in 1948.  The last person Epplin focuses on Larry Doby became the first negro player in the American League. 

In 1947, Jackie Robinson who was groomed to be the first negro player in baseball by Branch Rickey made his debut.  When one thinks of the integration of baseball. Robinson and his experiences dealing with racists in out of the game comes to mind, and few think a great deal about Doby.  The young Cleveland outfielder was playing in Newark in the Negro League when he was called up in 1948 and did not undergo the “grooming” process that Robinson had.  Despite this handicap, after a slow start, Doby, along with Paige and a few other Indians players are responsible for the amazing 1948 season.

(Satchel Paige)

Epplin explains how the Cleveland Indians and these four individuals captivated the American people in 1948 as baseball had recovered its fan base and put their best product on the field since before World War II.  In addition to the economic impact, these men focused on  social issues facing the American people as the country was moving closer to the civil rights revolution.

Epplin gives justice to the legends and myths relating to Bob Feller and Satchel Paige dating to their confrontations on the diamond beginning in 1936.  The pre-1947 era was dominated by barnstorming players competing with each other during the off season to supplement their salaries which were kept low by owners due to the reserve clause.  Baseball Commissioner Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis realized that if negro teams defeated white teams on a regular basis, it would be difficult to justify segregation, so he implemented new rules to limit the barnstorming.  He wanted people to see them as exhibitions to prove that negro players were inferior to whites.  Despite Landis’ attitude players like Lou Gehrig, Dizzy Dean, and Carl Hubbell all believed that Paige belonged in the major leagues.

Satchel Paige Bob Feller Comparing Baseballs : News Photo
(Satchel Paige and Bob Feller)

The author effectively integrates the history of Jim Crow laws, and the overt and covert racism that existed in American society throughout the narrative as he focuses on the role race played in these individual lives in addition to the personal competition between Feller and Paige.  The subject of race is key.  Paige obviously was one of the best pitchers of his generation, but he never had a chance to exhibit his talent because of baseball’s color barrier enforced by its racist Commissioner Judge Keneshaw Mountain Landis who ruled baseball as a dictator after repairing its image following the 1919 Black Sox scandal.  When Bill Veeck tried to buy the Philadelphia Phillies in 1942 and Landis learned he would sign negro players he blocked it.  When the history of baseball integration is told writers tend to focus on Jackie Robinson and leave out the trials and tribulations highlighted by the demeaning behavior and outright racism suffered by Larry Doby who a year after Robinson broke the color barrier took the field in the American League.  Epplin has thoroughly researched his topic and the racist comments by Feller concerning Paige who repeatedly bested him on the mound during the off season are presented clearly and reflect the true character of the Cleveland fireballer.

The key figure in integrating the American League and bringing a World Series championship to Cleveland in 1948 was Bill Veeck.  Epplin zeroes in on the essence of who Bill Veeck was – his optimism, ingenuity, and ability to convince others of his viewpoints.  Ever since I read Ed Linn’s VEECK AS IN WRECK as a boy I have been fascinated by Veeck and his ability to transform baseball franchises be it in Milwaukee, Cleveland, or Chicago.  In effect through his desire to sign negro ball players, his promotional creativity, and his willingness to sacrifice his personal life and health Veeck became a sort of “mad scientist” conjuring up new ideas in his baseball laboratory on a regular basis.  As Epplin develops his narrative it is interesting as he notes that following World War II part of the reason Veeck signed Paige at the age of forty four was due to the decline of Bob Feller as a pitcher. 

It was Feller who epitomizes baseball during the era he played.  He was baseball’s dominant pitcher in the late 1930s until World War II.  Feller was a selfish individual who had difficulty accepting the lost wages because of his four year service in the military.  After the war he was hell bent on recouping the money and incorporated himself as RO-FEL Inc.  The barnstorming was the key, but his star status meant he had to pitch almost every day, make all arrangements and his commitment to earning as much money as possible and confronting baseball’s hierarchy meant he shortened his career as there are only so many pitches in a person’s arm during the pre-Tommy John surgery era.  Feller’s decline and views on race, and his selfishness as viewed by other players detract from his overall reputation as a baseball great.  As Epplin correctly points out, “Feller’s swoon, in a sense, facilitated Paige’s rise.”

LARRY DOBY – BASEBALL’S OTHER PIONEER
(Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby)

Epplin follows Veeck’s quest to buy the Indians in 1946 in detail.  He delves into the roadblocks he faced, his interaction with fans and his promotional ability, and finally deciding to sign Paige and integrate the team with the signing of Larry Doby who after a poor start became one of the dominant sluggers in baseball at that time.  Epplin makes the important point that Robinson’s almost immediate success with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 was due to this preparation in the minor leagues for what he was to expect once he stepped on the field as a Dodger.  Secondly, Robinson was used to the publicity surrounding his athletic prowess at UCLA, his maturity from serving in the US Army during the war, and the strategy employed by Branch Rickey.  On the other hand, Doby, only twenty three, was forced to change positions, had no seasoning in the minors, and was a quiet introverted type who had never been exposed to the type of racism he would confront once Veeck signed him to a contract.  Interestingly, according to Epplin, Veeck developed a wonderful relationship with Doby, but Paige and Doby always seemed to be at loggerheads.

BILL VEECK – OWNER, SHOWMAN, INNOVATOR
(Bill Veeck)

The book will take the reader through the 1948 season and Cleveland’s ultimate victory in the World Series.  Epplin does bring his focus on others aside from his four major characters to reinforce his views, but it is the role of Feller, Paige, Veeck, and Doby and his focus on the Negro Leagues that allows him to develop a narrative that is both interesting and timely as we confront the same type of covert and overt racism today.  It is clear that if Veeck had not signed Doby and Paige the Cleveland Indians quest for a pennant and World Series championship would have come up short in 1948.

Overall, Epplin has written a fine baseball history of the Cleveland Indians and their quest for a World Series in 1948.  However, apart from some interesting ”nuggets” that the author has uncovered, much of what he explores has been presented by other baseball historians which he acknowledges.  Despite this minor flaw Epplin writes well and he has produced an interesting read that should satisfy baseball fans of every generations.

Cleveland Municipal Stadium, former home of the Cleveland Indians
(Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium)

THE BOMER MAFIA: A DREAM, A TEMPTATION, AND THE LONGEST NIGHT OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR by Malcom Gladwell

szfreiberger Biography, World War II Leave a comment


Curtis LeMay coffee or die
(Colonel Curtis LeMay officially congratulates a bomber crew of the 306th Bomb Group in front of their B-17 Flying Fortress at Chelveston Airfield, England, June 2, 1943)

For the last few years, the historiography of allied bombing during World War II has undergone much greater scrutiny.  The death and destruction of civilians and their property has been labeled as unethical and immoral as cities such as Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo and of course German bombing of allied cities experienced a level of violence that was unprecedented when compared to the pre-World War II era.  The role of technology in the process cannot be downplayed without which the carnage of war would not have reached the levels it did.  Malcom Gladwell, the spirited writer for The New Yorker normally explores the realm of social psychology, but in his latest work, THE BOMBER MAFIA: A DREAM, A TEMPTATION, AND THE LONGEST NIGHT OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR he turns his focus on to a group known as the “Bomber Mafia” that argued for a new type of bombing during wartime.   The group was made up of generals who went against the standard view of warfare put forth by the U.S. Army and Navy and broke away from the ideology of the Army Air Corps and set up the Army Air Corps Tactical School at Maxwell Field in Montgomery, Alabama.  Gladwell’s focus is on four generals particularly the much maligned Air Force General Curtis LeMay who led and designed American air power that culminated in the firebombing destruction of German and Japanese cities.

Gladwell creates the juxtaposition of Air Force General Haywood Hansell who tried to win the war in the Pacific Theater through precision bombing of Japan.  According to Gladwell this strategy was unsuccessful and gave way to LeMay’s approach whose goal was to win the war against Japan as soon as possible by saturating Tokyo with napalm bombs which would result in the death of over 100,000 people in just a few hours and went on to firebomb other Japanese cities killing thousands of civilians that held no strategic value.  Gladwell concludes that LeMay’s approach followed by the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended the war and set the United States and Japan on the road to peace and prosperity much quicker than  had Washington pursued a more conventional approach to warfare into 1946 that would have killed millions of Japanese civilians and who knows how many American soldiers.

Firebombing Tokyo coffee or die
(The devastatiopon suffered by Tokyo March 9, 1945)

Gladwell’s work can be considered anti-revisionist or the new revisionism as without mentioning the likes of Gar Alperovitz’s ATOMIC DIPLOMACY, he purports that the United States pursued their strategy to end the war quickly and was not sending a message that would spark the Cold War.  Gladwell’s fascination with “bombing” during World War II stems from his childhood in London where his father recounted the horrors brought on by the German Luftwaffe over the English capitol and other cities.  As Gladwell mines his topic, he includes portraits of the most important characters involved.  Men like General Haywood Hansell; General Lauris Norstad who fired Hansell; General Curtis Le May; General Ira Eaker, the head of the 8th Air Force bombers stationed in England;  Frederick Lindemann, a friend of Churchill who helped alter the British Prime Minister’s view of strategic bombing; RAF Marshall Arthur Harris, who doggedly opposed the new American approach to bombing; Louis Fieser, a Harvard chemistry professor, who is credited with developing a Dupont chemical along with E.B. Hershberg and created an incendiary gel known as napalm; and perhaps the most important person in the process, Carl L. Norden, the inventor of the “bombsight” that allowed true precision bombing are all explored among a number of others.  Gladwell is correct when he argues that the firing of Hansell in Guam on January 6, 1945 set the United States on a strategic road that still reverberates today.

Gladwell states his goal in writing the book was to present what led up to the firing of Hansell, what changes were made, and how the shift in US strategy had implications for the war itself and the future conduct of warfare.  For Gladwell, “THE BOMBER MAFIA is a case study in how dreams go awry.”  A strategy designed to save lives during wartime in the end did not result in the goals set out by this group of Air Force Generals.   Instead, a Dutch genius and his home made computer who developed the 55 pound bombsight; a “band of brothers” in Alabama; a British psychopath; and pyromaniacal chemists in basement labs at Harvard were responsible for the creation of a weapon that still affects us on a daily basis.

Gladwell begins by explaining how difficult it is to successfully hit a target on the ground from thousands of feet in the air.  The key to solving this conundrum was the work of Carl Norden who began working on his bombsight in the 1920s.  After its development it would take six months to be trained on the Norden bombsight and if it were a success these powerful men thought we would no longer need to leave young men dead on the battlefield or lay waste to entire cities.  War would be made “precise and quick and almost bloodless.  Almost.”

Curtis LeMay coffee or die
(Brig. Gen. Thomas Power, right, senior officer on the March 10 attack on Tokyo by more than 300 B-29s, talks to Maj. Gen. Curtis E. LeMay, second from left, 21st Bomber Command commander, and Brig. Gen. Lauris Norstad, far left, 20th Air Force Chief of Staff, after returning from the attack that burned out huge areas of the Japanese capital)

The Bomber Mafia’s mantra was “high altitude.  Daylight.  Precision bombing.”  These men had a radical mind set much different than the army and navy and passionately believed that they were pursuing a revolutionary goal.  Gladwell explores this group with deft, but not overwhelming detail and to lighten the reader a bit he provides priceless descriptions of a number of characters.  The nicknames he provides labeling Arthur Harris as “Butcher Harris,” Carl Norden as “old man dynamite,” a devoted Christian who believed he was saving lives, Haywood Hansell was called possum, and Curtis LeMay was described as “brutal” by Robert McNamara as all provide insights to the type of people that Gladwell describes.

One of the major strengths of Gladwell’s narrative is how he integrates historical experts, World War II aviators, and comments by other participants providing the reader with greater insight than most into the thinking of the major characters.  These characters would be successful in their mission to end the war early but by 1943 they had hit a wall as disagreements with the British, missions that failed to live up to expectations, and inter-service rivalries played a role.  What is interesting is that LeMay was not part of the “Bomber Mafia” circle.  He was drawn to practical challenges and doctrine left him cold.

Maj. Gen. Hansell

(Major General Haywood Hansell)

Gladwell’s digressions are entertaining but also educational as he pontificates on weather technology, cloud formations and wind over Japan, along with descriptions of certain chemicals and their strengths and weaknesses.  One of those chemicals would lead to the development of napalm a discovery that probably did more to end the war than Norden’s bombsight.  Napalm was chosen by LeMay as the key component in devastating Japan and ending the war quickly.  Once he took over the 21st Bomber Command from Hansell in January 1945 he would soon realize the difficulties that Hansell faced and the obstacles in directing precision bombing against Japanese industrial capacity on the mainland.  LeMay changed American bombing strategy by adopting a low flying approach that was the antithesis of the Bomber Mafia’s methodology.  Gladwell’s chapter “It’s All Ashes” is an incisive look at how LeMay’s personality and modus operandi would lead to the events of the night of March 9, 1945.  Gladwell describes LeMay as suppressing his own nerves and fears as he focuses on the mission that ultimately dropped 1,665 tons of napalm on Tokyo over a three hour period burning everything for sixteen square miles and the death of over 100,000 people.  LeMay’s planes would continue to wreak havoc, death, and devastation on 67 Japanese cities killing at least 500,000 or perhaps 1,000,000 people before the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  After the atomic explosions LeMay continued to bomb Japanese cities as he believed the nuclear attacks were superfluous as the hard work had already been done.  One can debate the necessity for this type of devastation, but Gladwell is correct in arguing that it was so effective that it must be given credit for shortening the war.

In summation it is clear Gladwell has written an informative and important new slant on World War II bombing and I agree with historian, Diana Preston’s conclusions in her April 23, 2021 review in the Washington Post, “Gladwell does however confront us with difficult questions: “Ask yourself — What would I have done?” he suggests at one point. In so doing he has produced a thought-provoking, accessible account of how people respond to difficult choices in difficult times. Albert Einstein once warned that “our technology has exceeded our humanity.” Gladwell suggests that, given their concern not to cross a moral line, the Bomber Mafia would have approved of modern technical innovations like the B-2 stealth bomber, capable of precision strikes on military targets while minimizing civilian casualties. Yet ingenuity and conscience always sit uneasily in warfare, and Einstein’s warning should not be forgotten.”  But in the end Gladwell is correct as high altitude precision bombing soon replaced firebombing – “Curtis LeMay won the battle.  Haywood Hansell won the war.”

Curtis LeMay coffee or die
(B29s flying over Tokyo, March 9, 1945)

THE FORGER’S DAUGHTER by Bradford Morrow

szfreiberger Mystery/Thrillers Leave a comment
Cover art

Will is a reformed rare book and manuscript forger who has spent the last twenty years on the straight and narrow living a placid existence with his loving wife, Meghan and two daughters Nicole and Maisie.  This idyllic life will be upended as an old enemy of Will has aggressively confronted the eleven year old Maisie in their Hudson Valley, NY home and forced a package upon her that was to be given to her father.  Will fervently believed that he had settled all accounts and claims from his past but now in Bradford Morrow’s exquisite sequel to THE FORGERS, entitled THE FORGER’S DAUGHTER he is faced with a decision that could upend his family and their way of life. 

Morrow is a talented novelist who in 2014 decided to write a thriller that depicted the underside of the rare book and manuscript world, a world in which Morrow was well versed.  His readers will be quite satisfied with his latest effort as he continues to impart the seamier side of his protagonist’s avocation.  After his daughter is attacked, Will is confronted with Henry Slader who has reappeared after being released from prison having served a sentence after brutally attacking Will with a meat cleaver while he and the family were living in Kenmare, Ireland severely damaging his right hand when he refused to go along with Sadler’s demands.  Lingering in the background throughout the novel is the murder of Meghan’s brother Adam Diehl, another practitioner of literary forgery twenty years earlier, and Will’s own sordid literary  past.


(author, Bradford Morrow)

Morrow’s approach to preparing and writing a mystery thriller is intellectually satisfying with his repeated references and excerpts from the works of numerous literary figures including, Edgar Allan Poe, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and W.B. Yeats.  As in the first novel, Morrow’s obsession with anything related to Doyle and his Sherlock Holmes character pervades the story.  Morrow places Will in a very tenuous position as Slader demands that he reproduce a copy of Edgar Allan Poe’s first book TAMERLANE which with only twelve known copies in circulation is considered the holy grail of American letters.  The story unfolds carefully and selectively as Will and Meghan co-narrate the story telling the tale through alternating chapters.

The novel travels evocatively from upstate New York farmhouses to Manhattan auction houses, and there’s an aptly gothic tinge to the tense drama that ensues.  Will does not realize how dangerous Slader’s request and threats pose to his family as to complete the task he must coopt his twenty year old daughter Nicole who he has trained and imparted his knowledge and calligraphical skills over the years. 

Shops in village of Rhinebeck, New York, USA Stock Photo

(Rhinebeck, NY downtown)

Despite his misgivings Will proceeded as he felt a weird kinship with Slader who he realized was his equal in the dark craft of forgery.  While he mistrusted Slader he was somewhat envious of him as he concluded that the two of them had survived the machinations against each other and had shattered each other’s lives in significant ways as they had been extremely competitive even before they formally met.  Will concluded that Slader was no worse a transgressor than he was himself and started to accept the idea that had they been collaborators instead of competitors, God knows what satanic masterpieces they might have produced.  But what Will most regretted was that he would have to involve Nicole in the project.   

The novel progresses as Will and Meghan narrate chapters sharing their emotions and misgivings about what Slader had roped Will into doing. Through Will and to a lesser extent Nicole the reader will be exposed to the mechanics of preparing forgeries and the emotional toll that it takes.  Further, Morrow relates how the avocation of bookselling was carried out and the numerous steps involved in preparing, pricing, and selling books to book dealers, private citizens, or the general public.

As is the case in all of Morrow’s novels he is a master in creating meaningful characters.  In THE FORGER’S DAUGHTER they include Henry Slader, a narcissist who is the source of many of Will’s demons; Nicole, Will and Meghan’s perceptive and talented daughter; and Atticus Moore, Will’s rare old book compatriot who reemerges after twenty years.

After spending most of the novel in upstate New York in their Hudson Valley farmhouse Will and Meghan will return to Manhattan and make a spectacular discovery in their bookstore.  The discovery will lead to an unexpected turn in the plot line that produces a wild finish to the novel.  You do not have to be an obsessive book devotee to enjoy THE FORGER’S DAUGHTER as it stands alone as a wonderful literary thriller.

THE FORGERS by Bradford Morrow

szfreiberger Mystery/Thrillers Leave a comment

Lighthouse at Montauk point, Long Islans Lighthouse at Montauk point, Long Islans. montauk stock pictures, royalty-free photos & images

(Montauk, LI lighthouse)

After reading Bradford Morrow’s PRAGUE SONATA I knew that I had to move on to another of his novels.  The choice I made, THE FORGERS, is an excellent and absorbing story that delves into the corrupt and invidious nature of the rare book collector’s world in addition to a murder mystery that is dominated by love and obsessions.  The novel begins in the upscale community of Montauk, NY, a town located on the eastern most tip of Long Island where the postman on a routine delivery enters a beachfront cottage and discovers the body of a local resident with its hands cut off.  The scene is littered with manuscripts by political and literary figures from an earlier era with other rare books splayed on the floor.  Book inscriptions were torn from works on Lincoln, Churchill, Twain, Dickens, and Arthur Conan Doyle.  Many of the books were torn to shreds and the victim, Adam Diehl, a book collector seems the subject of a ruthless and senseless murder.

The narrator of the novel is named Will, though for some reason Morrow does not divulge his name for the first half of the book.  The murder seems rather odd as many valuable books were not taken or damaged.  Will is dating Diehl’s sister, Meghan and never really got along with her brother.  Meghan operates a bookstore in the East Village and Will and Adam had been book forgers which is the only thing they had in common.  Morrow delves into the emotional attachment that rare book collectors share as Will points out the eroticism, emotion, and true happiness that forging a manuscript or inscription gave him.

East Village Books, 99 St Marks Pl, New York, NY. exterior storefront of a used bookstore in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan. Stock Photo

Will is a complex character whose forging career ended abruptly when an unknown source turned him into the police.  He was convicted and given probation ordering restitution to his victims and he served his time and thought it was all behind him.  Trying to live on the straight and narrow was difficult because for Will, forging was an addiction that he could not share with Meghan who he deeply loved.  The murder itself will soon become a cold case though Will had come across an invoice from a Henry Slader when they were cleaning the cottage after the police had wrapped up the case.  Slater seemed to have purchased some of Adam’s books and forgeries and was receiving monthly installments from Adam.  Will suspected Slader but had no proof.

Will shared the forger’s life with Adam but also a love of the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle the creator of Sherlock Holmes in addition to any letters or manuscripts that dealt with the author. Will’s obsession with Holmes began in childhood and he had purchased a number of Holmes materials from a dealer in Providence, RI.  The materials were a fraud, but Will admired the forgery as the finest he had ever seen reflecting his love of his craft and his admiration for others  who pursued the same avocation as he did. 

Will had begun to receive threatening letters in a forged Henry James script at the time he started dating Meghan.  He assumed they were from Adam, but after his murder the letters continued.  Will was haunted by the letters and was afraid that their author would turn him into the police as Adam’s murderer.  At the same time Will was convinced that the author of the letters was the true murderer.

Best Kept Small Town 2017
(Kenmare, Ireland)

After marrying, Meghan and Will decide to sell off all their possessions and move to Ireland.  Will took some of the proceeds from selling his valuable collections to pay Slader off, hoping the letters would stop and he would be able to begin a new life with his bride in Ireland.  Will’s wish was not to be granted as new letters arrived as they were moving, and he was convinced that he was being stalked by Slader after their relocation.

Morrow is a superb novelist, a teacher at Bard College, and the editor of the distinguished literary magazine, Conjunctions.  He himself is a serious book collector with a particular interest in books inscribed by their authors to notable friends, or volumes that once belonged to other famous people.  As the novel unfolds it is obvious that Morrow has a particular love of rare books and when he has Will add inscriptions that are perfect forgeries to the front-end papers.  Will is extremely talented  and states that “when I am finished copying a warm personal epistle to one of the author’s friends, for instance, a part of my soul merged with Doyle’s.”  Will prided himself on fooling the experts.

Morrow’s writing has almost a lyrical quality to it be it a mundane conversation or references to poets or masters of fiction.  As Morrow proceeds, he periodically turns to the past as Will acknowledges his artistic mother who taught him his calligraphic skills, and his wealthy father who taught him about collecting rare books and the pleasure that it brought him.  When Morrow returns to the present, Meghan and Will are in Ireland trying to escape the past, but the past seems to rise up as they cannot escape Adam’s death and the threats against Will.

This is an audacious novel with intricate details ranging from the Irish countryside, the shape of letters and the type of ink used to scribe, to unpacking a complex story that may move slowly at times, but the language is precise and at times beautiful.  Obviously, I greatly enjoyed the book and if you do, we are in luck because after seven years Morrow has just published the sequel, THE FORGER’S DAUGHTER.

Montauk Lighthouse and beach aerial shot Montauk Lighthouse and beach aerial shot, Long Island, New York, USA. Beach Stock Photo
(Montauk, LI lighthouse)

THE VIETRI PROJECT by Nicola DeRobertis-Theye

szfreiberger Historical Fiction Leave a comment
Rome's incredible skyline needs to be seen to be believed
(The skyline of Rome)

Nicola DeRobertis-Theye’s debut novel THE VIETRI PROJECT is a well-conceived and imaginative work of historical fiction that presents an intimate portrait of a complex young woman trying to evade her uncertain future that will lead her to discover a great deal about her family, her own life, and the pitfalls we all face.  The story revolves around Gabriele, a young woman who recently graduated college and works in a bookstore in Berkley, California.  Immediately, Gabriele tells the reader about a man named Giordano Vietri who lives in Rome and orders fifty somewhat obscure books which she is put in charge of locating and shipping to Italy.  Once the order is filled it is followed but a series of new ordersfor hundreds of books which in the “Amazon era” seemed surprising.  Gabriele becomes fascinated by Mr. Vietri, though she knows nothing about him.  By coincidence it appears that Vietri’s address is located near where her mother grew up and not far from where Gabriele spent a number of summers during her teen years visiting relatives.

Gabriele becomes obsessed as the book orders keep appearing at the same time, she is approaching her twenty-fifth birthday and as she begins to reevaluate her life, she becomes upset.  Her solution is to leave the bookstore and travel the world finally winding up in Rome in search of Mr. Vietri. As her search for Vietri proceeds she is given a box that contains a book by one of Vietri’s neighbors and she hopes that the book will provide a road map to locate her target.  As her search unfolds Gabriele renews her relationship with her cousin Andrea who tries to assist her in her quest.

As the novel unfolds it becomes more and more personal for Gabriele in that her 25th birthday holds tremendous significance as when her mother reached the same age she was diagnosed as a schizophrenic which provokes a great deal of guilt.  Gabriele learns details of her mother’s life before she turned twenty-five and blames her birth on the development of her mother’s disease.  DeRobertis-Theye writes with a great deal of sensitivity as she expertly explores Gabriele’s inner thoughts as she searches for meaning to her life and how she fit into the larger world.  Gabriele’s fear is that as she reaches the same age as the onset of her mother’s sickness she too will suffer from mental illness and be institutionalized.

(Benito Mussolini, King Victor Emmanuel III, and high officials of the Italian military photographed in Ethiopia in 1936)

A stolen electric bill offers Gabriele information which she is convinced will lead her to Vietri, so she decides not to abandon her search and remain in Rome.  DeRobertis-Theye introduces a number of important characters which will reorient Gabriele’s life.  One of these, Ianucci Loredana, a seventyish widow who lives in an expensive part of Rome rents her a room in her apartment which will begin a relationship that will force Gabriele to learn a great deal of her mother’s past as Ianucci is the mother of Gabriel’s mother’s best friend while growing up.

DeRobertis-Theye creates a sense of realism throughout the novel as she integrates contemporary events into the story, i.e., the Amanda Knox trial, the death of Muhammar Qadhafi, refugees caused by the Arab Spring, Silvio Berlusconi, and the reign of Benito Mussolini.  Mussolini’s fascist reign in Italy is explored through the eyes of an author who has written a biography of an Italian artist who was arrested in 1935 for articles written for an anti-fascist Italian newspaper.  It seems the artist came from the same village, Aliano as Mr. Vietri and wrote a memoir that recounted his time in the Vietri home village; a widow whose husband served with Vietri in World War II; and a journalist who wrote a story about a pottery company named Vietri.  However, what is deeply important is Italy’s uncomfortable history that includes the brutality of an Apennine village that the author presents in the 1930s along with the atrocities perpetrated by Italian troops in Ethiopia (Abyssinia) during its occupation and the murder of Jews under Mussolini.

Gabriele’s search for Vietri unfolds very slowly at the same time she uncovers a great deal about her own family.  The key is whether Gabriele finds Vietri, but in reality, does it matter in the larger dilemma of Gabriele’s life.  The novel itself relies on the nature of identity, personal and national, along with the dangers of secrecy.  For Gabriele she has come of age in a broken world, along with a family that seems to have been broken for generations.

THE VIETRI PROJECT is a strong first novel with an absorbing story line that focuses in large part on how one survives in a world rife with violence, destruction, and madness.  The dominant theme is Gabriele’s need to be defined only by her true inner self, even if she was unsure who, or what, that was.

Rome

(An aerial view of Rome, Italy)

THE LIGHT OF DAYS: THE UNTOLD STORY OF WOMEN RESISTANCE FIGHTERS IN HITLER’S GHETTOS by Judy Batalion

szfreiberger Holocaust, Nazi Germany, World War II Leave a comment

(Crowds of Jews in the Warsaw ghetto, Poland, 1942)

The role of women during the Holocaust be it their experiences in the death camps, participants in the resistance, and the effect of Nazi atrocities on the families of victims has not received the attention it should.  Five years ago, Sarah Helms’ Ravensbruck: Life and Death in Hitler’s Concentration Camp for Women was published and provided numerous insights into what women experienced in the camps, but their role in the resistance has not received the serious treatment that needed to be afforded until now with the publication of Judy Batalion’s THE LIGHT OF DAYS: THE UNTOLD STORY OF WOMEN RESISTANCE FIGHTERS IN HITLER’S GHETTOS.   In her remarkable book Batalion has created a narrative that follows the exploits of a number of women who fought back against the Nazi genocide.  Batalion focuses on Renia Kuklieka, who was a courier for the Zionist youth organization; “Freedom,” Zivia Lubetkin, a “Freedom” leader in the Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB) and the Warsaw Ghetto uprising;  Frumka Plotnicka, a “Freedom” comrade who led the fighting organization in Bedzin, Poland; and Vladka Meed, who rescued countless people from the Warsaw Ghetto and other acts of bravery and genius.    There are numerous other courageous women that Batalion brings to the reader’s attention and they all exhibit an unimaginable degree of courage, tenacity, and empathy as they confronted their situation on a daily basis.

Batalion tells her story through the eyes of numerous women through their personal experiences, first trying to maintain a degree of normalcy once the Nazis invaded Poland on September 1, 1939.  They would continue their work with Zionist Youth organizations working to gain passage to Palestine, trying and manipulate the Judenrat, and training their members for what appeared to be a dismal and dangerous future.  Batalion examines the lives and personalities of these women and explores their character as they evolved into strategists, leaders, and carrying out dangerous missions.  Their bravery was unquestioned, and their work was rewarding in that they chose to return to Poland rather than emigrate to Palestine in order to contribute as much as possible to derail the Nazi machine.

Renia Kukiełka in Budapest, 1944

(Renia Kukiełka in Budapest, 1944)

The origin of the book stems from Batalion’s research into the life of Hannah Senesh, one of the few female resisters in World War II not lost to history.  While examining material in London’s British Library she came across a book written in Yiddish, FREUEN IN DI GHETTOS (WOMEN IIN THE GHETTOS) published in New York in 1946.  Up until that time Batalion and numerous others were unaware how many women were involved in the resistance effort, nor to what degree.  The stories recounted in the book speaks of women who engaged in violence, smuggling, gathering intelligence, committing sabotage, and engaging in combat.  This exposure to the heroism of these women led Batalion to pursue her narrative that resulted in LIGHT OF DAYS.

The core of female exploits originated from “female ghetto fighters”: underground operatives who emerged from Jewish youth group movements and worked in the ghettos.  These young women were combatants, editors of underground bulletins, and social activists.  The role that stands out is the contribution women made as “couriers,” disguised as non-Jews who traveled between locked ghettos and towns all across Poland smuggling people, cash, documents, information, and weapons, many of which they obtained themselves.  In addition, women fled into the forests and enlisted in partisan units, carrying out sabotage and intelligence missions.

Batalion has the uncanny ability to tell the personal stories of her protagonists uncovering their emotions, strengths, and private thoughts.  She presents the horrors of ghetto and camp life that the Nazis perpetrated very clearly.  She traces European anti-Semitism dating to the 19th century that culminated in Nazi atrocities.  German malice and sadism are on full display as they carried out Hitler’s Final Solution which made Renia and her compatriots sick and haunted from what they witnessed. For Jews anything they did or said at any moment could result in execution of themselves and their families.  Jews faced a dilemma even if they escaped the ghetto as their families would be eliminated in retaliation.  The options women faced were limited; stay and try to protect the community, run, fight, or flight.

Judy Batalion
(Judy Batalion)

Batalion accurately and poignantly describes life in the Warsaw, Bedzin, and Vilna Ghettos.  She examines people’s fears and coping strategies that were developed in order to survive from soup kitchens, autobiographical writings and meetings to share experiences, including medical care and cultural activities.  Batalion presents a vivid portrait of the role women played in the preparation for the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.  She delves into the acquisition of weapons, explosives, and other necessities including the training that women had undergone.  The end result was a disaster from a military point of view, but it provided Jews with self-respect as they achieved revenge against the Germans as they killed over 300 Nazi soldiers suffering over 13,000 deaths of their own.  Renia and others escaped to continue their goal of revenge against the Germans.

The resistance organizations that women were a part of were not uniform in their beliefs and strategies.  Batalion explains their differences from the left wing Zionist groups to the more religious Akiva organization.  The key for these groups was that they were led by individuals mostly in their late teens and late twenties who were committed to seeking vengeance against  the Nazis.   Batalion’s presentation allows the reader to get to know Renia who by 1944 was only 19 years old and her compatriots on a personal level in addition to their exploits on the battlefield.

Perhaps Batalion’s most powerful chapter, “The Courier Girls” offers a description that humanizes the women in a world of atrocities and genocide.  Her details of their preparation and missions are eye opening and for them life affirming.  Another important chapter, “Freedom in the Forests – Partisans” is well thought out as life in the forest was extremely difficult but the partisans accomplished a great deal.  They set up a village of underground huts which included printing and weapons capabilities, medical attention, a communication network, the accumulation of clothing and food, in addition to the work of the couriers.

Forged papers of Zivia Lubetkin. (Courtesy Agnes Grunwald-Spier)
(Zivia Lubetkin)

At times reading Batalion’s account is literary torture as she describes the use of sex as a means of exchange for survival, torture, rape and other perversions fostered by the Nazis.  This material is difficult to digest unless you realize the perpetrators were a version of animals.  How Renia and others did not lose their minds is beyond my comprehension.

Batalion’s narrative is somewhat bifurcated as she relates the actions of couriers, events in the ghettos, partisans in the forest, and preparation by all groups in seeking revolt and revenge against the Nazis.  On the other hand, her story is one of endurance and survival as she probes the daily travails women faced under the most ominous conditions including imprisonment, torture, and the constant fear of death.  A case in point is Renia’s capture resulting in constant torture and deportation to Auschwitz.  Her story is one of amazement as she would survive the camp by escaping, traveling across Slovakia, Hungary and Turkey and eventually arriving in Haifa, Palestine on March 3, 1944.

Batalion’s epilogue is important as she delves into why women were left out of the “history of resistance” for so long.  She focuses on the politics of the newly created state of Israel, how their role was viewed by American historians, the image of women needed to fit the policy and personal goals of the survivors, and why so many women “self-silenced.”  It is clear that an incalculable number of women suffered from survival guilt, nightmares, and post-traumatic stress syndrome after the war, and Battalion’s recounting of their role is important to set the historical record straight, but also to clarify the emotions the survivors felt and how the next generation views what they accomplished.  I agree with Sonia Purnell’s comments in her April 6, 2021 New York Times book review that a simpler narrative with fewer subjects might have been even more powerful.

(Warsaw Ghetto, 1942)