RUSH: REVOLUTION, MADNESS, AND THE VISIONARY DOCTOR WHO BECAME A FOUNDING FATHER by Stephen Fried

May 24, 2020szfreiberger American cultural history, American Political History, American Revolution, American Social History, Biography 1 Comment

Meet the Doctor Who Convinced America to Sober Up

Meet Benjamin Rush, father of the temperance movement, signer of the Declaration of Independence

When we think of the Founding Fathers and heroes of the American Revolution the names that are mentioned include George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, John and Samuel Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and James Madison, among others. Rarely if ever does the name Benjamin Rush enter the conversation. However, in Stephen Fried’s new biography RUSH: REVOLUTION, MADNESS, AND THE VISIONARY DOCTOR WHO BECAME A FOUNDING FATHER, the author presents a truly Renaissance individual who impacted the era in which he lived on multiple levels including science, politics, sociology, psychology, and other aspects of intellectual life. The question must be asked why such a brilliant scientist and political thinker who influenced many of his contemporaries in countless ways has not been the subject of greater historical research.

Fried has filled that gap with an absorbing portrait and attempts to answer the question by arguing that Rush may have known too much about his fellow revolutionaries and physicians who made him privy to many of their deepest thoughts. After his death in 1813, Adams and Jefferson, along with his family members suppressed his writings resulting in the diminution of his legacy. According to Fried he would become the “footnote founder, a second-tier founder.”

Stephen Fried at the statue of Benjamin Rush at Dickinson College (Photo: Carl Socolow)

No matter where Rush falls in the pantheon of the Founding Fathers after reading Fried’s work it is clear he was an exceptional historical figure who impacted many aspects of American society and politics during his lifetime. From his education as a physician, his polemical writings, his role during the revolution, the people he developed relationships with, his impact after the revolution in dealing with mental illness, and raising the level of the health of Americans Rush’s life is worthy of exploration. Fried begins with his medical education stressing the methods available in the 1760s. The study of anatomy and the compounding of medicines created a baseline in which to compare what existed and the improvements that would develop as Rush’s career evolved. His mentors, Doctors John Morgan and Willian Shippen are important in that they provided Rush with knowledge of techniques and diagnostics which laid the ground work for what George Washington would complain, “those damn physicians” who later could not get along because of their egos causing a great deal of trouble during the revolution and after. From the outset Rush’s approach to medicine, i.e., dissection, obstetrics, and midwifery at the time were controversial and provoked a great deal of opposition. As Fried lays out the development of Rush’s belief system it was clear he was his own man and was not shy about putting his opinions in letters and pamphlets and rarely backed away from his approach to medicine or politics.

The strength of Fried’s approach rests on integrating Rush’s writings/opinions from his diaries, journals, letters, and common place books into the narrative. Fried uses this material providing intimate details of Rush’s most important relationships during a lifetime in which he developed with John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and a host of medical contemporaries. Rush was a prolific writer and soon employed “the pamphlet” as his major tool in letting the public know his opinions, many of which rubbed people the wrong way. One of his first pamphlets reflects his dilettantish nature published in the early 1770s, “Sermons to Gentlemen on Temperance and Exercise,” in addition to publishing his views as a Philadelphian concerning the English tax on tea which would lead directly to the Boston Tea Party, and his influence and editing of Thomas Paine’s COMMON SENSE. Rush would dabble in all types of subjects, but his underlying coda was to improve society, but from his own perspective. Eventually he would be a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Admission ticket, Benjamin Rush's lectures on chemistry, 1769

Fried’s narrative recounts the course of the American Revolution in a clear and concise manner. There is nothing that is presented that previous historians have not mined. What sets Fried’s work apart is the role played by Rush in attending the medical needs of the colonists even crossing the Delaware with Washington. Rush witnessed the horrors of 18^th century warfare firsthand and he used what he experienced as a basis for a platform to improve medical care through diagnosis, technique, medicines, and the creation of military hospitals. Rush tended to rub people the wrong way with his writing and commentary, a flaw that got him into trouble with many people including his commentary about Washington’s leadership.

Rush had no compunction about criticizing his mentors particularly Dr. William Shippen leadership as Chief Physician and Inspector-General during the revolution. Historians have pointed out the lack of food, clothing, and pay that colonial soldiers had to cope with. Fried takes it further by exploring the weaknesses of medical care for soldiers. Rush would finally resign from Washington’s army in 1778, but many of his ideas about hospital care were implemented. Later Rush would testify at Shippen’s court-martial against Washington’s advice, but he would be acquitted by one vote.

Fried does not overlook Rush’s private life. He would not marry until the age of thirty because of the advice of his mother. He would marry Julia Stockton who was sixteen, but they had a long life together and were deeply in love. The marriage would produce thirteen pregnancies, but unfortunately only six children would live to adulthood. He was a good father and provider, but as with most men during the period he was away from home at least half the time until the 1781-1786 period were, he devoted himself to his family and medical practice.

Fried describes Rush’s political role in detail particularly after the American Revolution. He had been a delegate to the Second Continental Congress and later would be a delegate to the Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention which would ratify the Constitution in 1787. Rush also became involved in the issue of slavery. He would become an abolitionist; despite the fact he did own one slave who he would free in 1793 and he argued profusely concerning the inhumanity of the “peculiar institution.” Another of his pet peeves was the lack of a comprehensive educational system in Pennsylvania and after the new nation was ratified. He worked assiduously to include women, blacks and immigrants in his program and helped create what would become Dickinson College and Franklin and Marshall later on in addition to improving medical curricula at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School.

But what Rush is most noted for was his attempts at improving care for his patients. He would serve in numerous capacities during his medical career and once gain rubbed many the wrong way. His work with the mentally ill is key as he found their treatment abhorrent and studied numerous cases to determine a better way of treatment. He published a number of pamphlets outlining his ideas that included how best to raise the level of mental health care and arguing that mental illness was a disease to be treated and that patient care was important and they should not be locked away in basements chained to the wall. He would be involved in creating the University of Pennsylvania Hospital and helped create the first American Medical society and would soon oversee the care of the mentally ill. Perhaps Fried’s most incisive chapter deals with Rush’s handling of the 1793 yellow fever outbreak in Philadelphia which killed with “biblical proportions.” Employing Rush’s letters to his wife Julia the reader is exposed to the depth of the tragedy that unfolded. Rush favored a more extreme treatment of victims which provoked a great deal of controversy with his colleagues. It is interesting how a politically partisan approach to treatment took place. Doctors who had Federalist leanings tended to oppose Rush’s methods, while Democratic-Republicans tended to support Rush (sound familiar!). Fried delves into the effect of the disease on Rush’s family, friends, and cohorts and the reader is provided insights into the approach taken toward an epidemic in the early 1790s.

(President John Adams)

Fried spends a great deal of time examining Rush’s later years which were dominated by his correspondence with John Adams who he was able to convince to reconcile with Thomas Jefferson. Further his writing remained prolific particularly in relation to his work with the mentally ill working to improve their treatment and living conditions and continuing his lectures at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School. Rush was always looking to improve the quality of life of his patients and with the deterioration of his son John’s mental health he redoubled his efforts in the areas of alcoholism and mental stability.

Fried has written a comprehensive and fascinating biography raising the historical profile of Benjamin Rush for a twenty first century audience. Rush was a flawed character whose comments and writings often got him in trouble, but as Fried points out repeatedly his motives were usually pure, and his goal was to raise the level of many aspects of society. Fried has created the most comprehensive work to date on Rush, but also has uncovered a treasure trove of documentary sources that can be mined by future historians.

THE LAST TRAIN TO LONDON by Meg Waite Clayton

May 18, 2020szfreiberger Historical Fiction Leave a comment

Night view of Vienna, 1937

One might ask do we need another novel that deals with Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. However, with Meg Waite Clayton’s newest book, THE LAST TRAIN TO LONDON I believe we have a novel that explores a topic that has not been mined by writers that extensively. The story is set in the 1930s involving the Kindertransport rescue of ten thousand children from Hitler’s grasp in occupied Europe and the true story of Geetruida Wijsmuller-Meijer, a childless Dutch woman known as Tante Truus. The story’s backdrop is Vienna as Austria is about to be victimized by an Anschluss (union) with Germany. At the time Jews did very well in the Austrian capitol but once it was taken over by the Nazis after an earlier coup attempt in the early 1930s the plight of the Jews begins to sharpen. Soon Kristallnacht (the night of the broken glass) will take place in November 1938 and the handwriting is literally on the wall for Vienna’s Jewish community.

As 1937 approaches Tante Truus has already spent several years risking her life crisscrossing the border to spirit Jewish children out of Germany. She is a fearless woman with an agile mind who is able to employ her charm with Nazi border guards in order to maneuver her charges out of a number of dangerous situations. She is dismayed as country after country refuse to accept desperate children seeking asylum from Nazi Germany. Despite the increasing danger of her missions she is driven to save as many lives as she can before it is too late.

(Tante Truus)

Enter fifteen-year old Stephan Neuman, the Jewish heir to a great chocolate making fortune. Stephan sees himself as a budding playwright and pays no attention to the political events swirling around him. He becomes smitten with Zofie-Helene, a brilliant math prodigy whose mother, Kathe Perger edits a progressive newspaper which is overly critical of the Nazi regime. The two adolescents enjoy each other’s company, but their carefree life is upended as Hitler’s troops begin to threaten the annexation of Austria.

Clayton is a superb writer who has constructed a mesmerizing story of danger, sacrifice, bravery, and a commitment to confront evil. Her plot seems to run on two tracks. First, the wealthy Neuman family focusing on the mother stricken with cancer, her husband Herman, and their two sons Stephan, seventeen, and Walter, five. They will be removed from their palatial home at the outset, split up into a Vienna ghetto and Dachau. This track includes the Perger family with Zolfie-Helene as the center piece. The second track zeros in on Tante Truus who is working with the Netherlands Children’s Refugee Committee and its English allies led by Norman and Helen Bentwich to remove as many children from Nazi hands in Austria.

These tracks focus on a number of historical events that will drive the story; the Evian Conference called by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, which was invoked by the United States as a coverup for their lack of a refugee policy and fears of letting too many Jews into the United States. Further the Anschluss between Austria and Germany and the disaster it presented Viennese Jews, and lastly, Kristallnacht which led to murder of Jews, seizure of their homes, business, and property, imprisonment, and banishment from Austrian society. The book is permeated with details of Austrian-Dutch political debates at the time through Kathe’s newspaper articles that are integrated into the novel and one witnesses the slow deterioration of Austria’s Jews in the process.

One of the many overriding dilemmas facing Jews at this time was who could they trust. Stephen’s uncle by marriage to his aunt Lisle, Michael who is not Jewish divorces his wife, supposedly to save her, and at the same time takes over the chocolate business in order to keep it out of Nazi hands. He promises to take care of Mutti, Stephan’s terminally ill mother, as well as his brother. But even before the German invasion, he had become extremely alienated from his wife and her decadent “art collection” who then flees Vienna for Shanghai as her husband moves closer to Nazi principles. Stephan is placed in the difficult position of not knowing if he can trust the lives of his family with him.

Clayton carefully describes Tante Tuss’ separate missions to Germany from Amsterdam to rescue children, then her focus shifts to leading children from Hamburg to freedom. Her rescue mission is raised to a different level when the British government under pressure from Lionel de Rothschild and Viscount Samuels agree at first to allow 600 Jewish children between the ages of four and seventeen for temporary resettlement in England. The measure was to be funded privately and all the government had to do was issue visas. The angst which precedes each mission is further heightened when Germany’s sadistic head of the program in Vienna, Adolph Eichmann threatened to withdraw the offer if the smallest detail was not met. Eichmann believed the fastest way to make Germany judenrein (rid of Jews) was to give them a choice of death, living in poverty, expulsion, or emigration to lesser countries. Clayton describes in detail Tante Tuss interactions with Eichmann and the pressure that was placed on her and her own family in trying to save the children.

Clayton relies on a great deal of primary and secondary research which is the backbone of her novel. Historical events and figures receive an accurate portrayal along with character development to present a truly absorbing work of fiction. The structure of the novel is based on the author’s style of no chapter numbers, just headings that provide date and location or topic. Many chapters are five pages or less, and others are as short as a paragraph. The result is an engrossing read about a topic that highlights the inhumanity of Nazi immigration practices and the mostly lacking response by the world community, particularly the United States.

Stock photo of Austria Vienna Schoenbrunn Palace, Vienna, Austria

Austria Vienna Schoenbrunn Palace, Vienna, Nov 18, 1937

PELOSI by Molly Ball

May 15, 2020May 15, 2020szfreiberger American Political History, Biography Leave a comment

The term chutzpah can be interpreted in only one way – a great deal of nerve or other words I cannot use! In the present case it is the perfect description of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi particularly following the completion of Donald Trump’s State of the Union message last January when she ripped up the speech as it was riddled with lies in front of an audience of millions of Americans. Opponents of Pelosi castigated her actions, but they forget it was preceded by Trump’s refusal to engage in the traditional handshake with the Speaker before the speech. Why did Pelosi react in such a manner? The answer to this question is imbedded in who she is as a person and a professional and forms the core of Molly Ball’s new book, PELOSI.

Ball’s crisp writing style makes PELOSI an easy biography to read as in part Pelosi missed the woman’s movement of the early 1960s as she married and raised five children. She would be considered the “almost picture perfect” mother as she trained her brood with Catholic family values as each child was given certain tasks and responsibilities within the family. Once her children were of school age, we see the beginning of a career that begins with fund raising from her home. Ball points out that the seminal moment in Pelosi’s career came when San Francisco Mayor Joseph Alioto placed her on the city’s Library Commission which exposed her to the give and take of local politics.

Ball carefully traces Pelosi’s rise from a housewife to a congressional victory in 1986 highlighting two skills that remain her strengths to this day, fund raising and organizational acumen. Ball describes Pelosi as “ballsy, confrontational, even bitchy.” Further Ball states that once Pelosi was freed from family responsibilities at age forty-seven, she pursued her congressional work with “a maniacal level of energy.” Ball provides a window into the Congressional process upon Pelosi’s arrival, especially the denigration of women and her role in altering traditional male views of women who served in Congress. The white male power structure dominated Congress epitomized by conservative Democratic Pennsylvania Representative John “Jack” Murtha. On the surface it would appear that the “San Francisco liberal” and the hard-nosed Vietnam veteran would have little in common. But as Ball effectively develops their relationship it is clear that without Murtha’s mentorship and support Pelosi’s career may have taken a different path.

Pelosi was a tenacious legislator and supporter of human rights as was evident in her view of China after Tiananmen Square. She was always skeptical about trusting President Clinton and when she tried to tie China’s human rights policies to most favored nation trading status, she thought she had Clinton’s support. When Clinton sold her out, she screamed “corporate sellout,” and never trusted Clinton again.

Ball is dead on in zeroing in on Newt Gingrich and his responsibility in creating the toxicity that exists in politics today. Gingrich’s goal was to block any legislative successes for Clinton and interjected words like, “sick, pathetic, liars, anti-flag, traitors, radicals, corrupt to describe Democrats. When Republicans decided to demonize Pelosi, her response was “I’m shaking in my boots, that is so pathetic, tell them, C’Mon.” She proved to the Republican leadership that unlike Richard Gephardt, the congressman Pelosi replaced as House Democratic Leader that she was no pushover and Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert found her inflexibility and hyperattention to detail galling. Pelosi’s approach throughout her career no matter what position she held in the House was to out work and know more about legislation, her caucus, and any other aspect of her work than any of her colleagues – making her indispensable for any legislative success, Democratic or Republican. She would take advantage of GOP policy failures be it Bush’s invasion of Iraq and its failures, the Katrina debacle, or Bush’s attempts to privatize Social Security.

Ball encapsulates Pelosi by quoting her, “I get up, eat nails for breakfast, put on a suit of armor and go into battle.” Ball states that the suit of armor she created, an extreme and steely toughness that dismissed any hint of vulnerability, would keep her safe.” She would reign in Bush after the 2006 election after six years of being run over by the GOP and by 2008 when she became Speaker one would have thought working with a new administration would produce a collegial relationship, but it did not.

In perhaps her best chapters Ball explores the Pelosi-Obama dynamic which was not very smooth in large part because Obama always sought consensus and believed he could always peel off a segment of GOP support, whereas Pelosi had learned not to trust the GOP leadership and its right wing caucus and all she cared about was winning and delivering on what she believed to be the policies that a majority of Americans wanted. She tried to educate Obama whose “intellectual arrogance” and the attitude of many in his administration won out. The Obama people came to believe that Pelosi at times was more of a hinderance than an asset. Republicans would demonize both, but more so Pelosi over the Affordable Health Care Act, Climate legislations, stimulus, or a grand bargain than the president. From Obama’s perspective she gave him cover.

Ball does an excellent job taking the reader inside negotiations to solve America’s problems. Her reporting concerning Pelosi’s attempts to achieve a withdrawal date from Iraq, or the TARP bill to deal with the 2008 economic meltdown are two cases in point. In both instances Pelosi exhibited her tenacity, control over her caucus (which the GOP could never master), and legislative dexterity to achieve her goals. Ball provides a perceptive analysis how Republicans were able to play Obama, who did not follow Pelosi’s warnings in legislative battles, particularly health care and taxes. As Ball points out, you only get one chance to make a first impression and Obama blew it with his stimulus package, a pattern that would continue throughout his administration particularly after the 2010 congressional shellacking which the GOP learned to block everything they could and give Obama no legislative victories. Despite losing 63 seats, Pelosi rededicated herself and became more tenacious than ever.

Political cheer

(Nancy Pelosi and her family)

Overall, Pelosi is a practitioner of retail politics learned at the feet of her father who was Mayor of Baltimore and later a Congressman. She is superb at arm twisting, raising money, and knowing when and how to cut a deal even if it means angering members of her caucus. But despite rubbing certain members the wrong way even females over aspects of abortion she has earned the respect from most of her opponents.

Donald Trump is the perfect adversary for Pelosi. He is a narcissist, thoughtless, uninterested in issues or its details with no sense of tactics or strategy. He may have been a reality TV star, but Pelosi presents a different type of reality the “avatar of a feminist political future.” Ball quotes Amy Klobuchar’s famous observation: “If you think a woman can’t beat Trump, Nancy Pelosi does it every single day.” Ball’s presentation of the Pelosi-Trump relationship is clear and pulls no punches as she discusses their hostility toward each other even though some of it has been papered over as Pelosi held back her caucus during the Mueller investigation until the Ukraine matter led her to finally support impeachment.

As we confront the Coronavirus and seem stalled at any further stimulus money for the states., hospitals, and PPE, it would be interesting to see what would happen if traditional retail politics could be employed instead of Mitch McConnell’s refusal to engage in anything meaningful other than securing lifetime conservative judges. Ball’s work is based on her excellent reporting and interviews and despite a bit of hagiography the book is an interesting personality and political study that is a fascinating read.

House speaker Nancy Pelosi made her feelings clear about Donald Trump’s speech.

EVERY DROP OF BLOOD: THE MOMENTOUS SECOND INAUGURATION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN by Edward Achorn

May 10, 2020May 10, 2020szfreiberger American Civil War, Biography Leave a comment

A scene in front of the East front of the U.S. Capitol is seen during President Abraham Lincoln's second inauguration, 1865, just six weeks before his assassination. (AP Photo/File)

(Lincoln’s Second Inauguration Address)

Recently I read Ted Widmer’s new book LINCOLN ON THE VERGE: THIRTEEN DAYS TO WASHINGTON. In Widmer’s narrative he explores a number of Abraham Lincoln’s most important speeches given during his odyssey across America to his first inauguration in 1861. When I came across Edward Achorn’s equally new book EVERY DROP OF BLOOD: THE MOMENTOUS SECOND INAUGURATION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN I expected the author to focus more on Lincoln’s iconic speech in March 1865. Much to my disappointment the book focuses on events, personalities, and the politics surrounding Lincoln’s effort in addition to a narrative that focuses in minute detail on the prevailing attitudes that existed in Washington for the twenty four hour period leading to the speech and the state of the city during that time as opposed to Lincoln’s development of the speech. I was also somewhat disappointed in that much of what Achorn has to say has been reviewed by countless historians offering little that is new apart from spending about fourteen pages on the speech itself.

From the outset Achorn sets the scene for the inauguration introducing a number of important historical characters and their past and future roles in American history. Achorn’s description of the new Vice President Andrew Johnson portends the future political warfare that would almost lead to his removal from office after Lincoln’s assassination. Another important personage we are introduced to is Samuel P. Chase, the then Secretary of the Treasury whose political ambitions were fueled by his daughter Kate Sprague who was married to a senator from Rhode Island. Chase had never gotten over the fact that Lincoln achieved the presidency and he did not, an office he coveted. Lincoln deftly handles Chase’s machinations and nominates him as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to remove him as a political threat. Achorn dives into the many conspiracies and rumors designed to unsettle Lincoln and his advisors and its impact on the city from the start.

Whitman at about fifty

(Walt Whitman)

It seems Achorn leaves no aspect of this short period in our history unturned. He describes the atmosphere in the streets, the mud that people had to deal with, and even a discourse on the proliferation of prostitution in the city describing “Hooker’s Division” as the ladies of the night and soldiers who served in General Joseph Hooker’s army. The discussion of the role of Frederick Douglass is important as it reflects his disappointment in Lincoln who he refers to as the “white man’s president. John Wilkes Booth political views and attitude toward race are explored as is a plot to kidnap Lincoln.

Achorn possesses a fluid writing style and the ability to focus on the character traits of the figures he speaks about and is able to create a word picture in the reader’s mind of those under discussion. His description of the poet Walt Whitman who became a special New York Times correspondent for the inauguration is wonderful, as he is seen as a “the big hairy, rambunctious buffalo of a man” as a case in point as is Alexander Gardner, a photographer who eventually took over Matthew Brady’s Washington office who “looked solid, boxy, unblinking as his machine.” Gardner had created a sensation with his pictures from the Antietam battlefield and took the last photo of Lincoln with his enigmatic smile for posterity. Lastly, the description of Lincoln , so reported by a British journalist as a man with “long bony arms and legs, which somehow, seem to always be in the way” and “nose and ears which have been taken by mistake from a head of twice the size,” is entertaining but also inciteful to how these figures were perceived by contemporaries.

Achorn provides a series of mini biographies embedded in the narrative. Portraits of Frederick Douglass, Samuel P. Chase, Stephen Douglas, William Henry Seward, General William T. Sherman, and Mary Todd Lincoln are among a number of historical figures that are examined that provide insight into their politics and beliefs. All are significant and pursue actions that are historically significant, though some more than others.

Perhaps Achorn’s best chapter revolves around Lincoln’s political style and his evolution as a wordsmith pointing out that his folksy way of communicating brought disdain from certain segments of society, newspaper reporters, and politicians. Achorn is correct as he points out that over time Lincoln’s speeches developed a plain-speaking succinct style people, including those just listed and literary types grew to appreciate as the president’s words impacted the general public in such a positive fashion.

(Photo by Alexander Gardner)

Apart from these portraits Achorn allows the reader to gain a feel for what Washington, DC was like in March 1865. At times, the narrative reads like a travelogue that can be somewhat overwhelming as the author seems to describe each social event, the amount of mud in the streets, the lack of city infrastructure, and the availability of housing. Diverse groups of people who are attending are described in detail, in addition to the racial implications of the city’s composition.

If you are looking for a good synopsis of events surrounding Lincoln’s second inauguration and an analysis of the last days of the Civil War, Achorn’s effort should prove satisfying despite the fact that Achorn seems to drag out his story of a twenty-four hour period over the entire book, often pursuing digressions and flashbacks. Just be aware if you are looking for a book that is an intellectual analysis of the speech akin to Gary Wills’ LINCOLN AT GETTYSBURG, you will be disappointed.

Transcript of President Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address (1865)

Fellow Countrymen

At this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention, and engrosses the enerergies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil-war. All dreaded it — all sought to avert it. While the inaugeral address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war — seeking to dissole the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.

One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern half part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration, which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!” If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope — fervently do we pray — that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said f[our] three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether”

A scene in front of the East front of the U.S. Capitol is seen during President Abraham Lincoln's second inauguration, 1865, just six weeks before his assassination. (AP Photo/File)

(Lincoln’s Second Inauguration Address)

LINCOLN ON THE VERGE: THIRTEEN DAYS TO WASHINGTON by Ted Widmer

May 6, 2020May 6, 2020szfreiberger American Civil War, Biography Leave a comment

The French writer, Alexis de Tocqueville described America as enduring a “quadrennial crisis” every four years as it held its presidential elections. The 1860 election was an exception because the artificial passions that were easily stoked reached unheard of levels. de Tocqueville remarked that “a self-absorbed president, catering to the ‘worst caprices’ of his supporters, could easily distract their attention from plodding matters of governance, and whip their enthusiasm into a frenzy, especially if he divided his supporters and his critics into hostile camps.” He spoke of “feverish obsessions” and warned “the potential for lasting damage was always lurking.” As the ominous warnings came to fruition in the Civil War in 1861, today we stand on another ominous precipice as the 2020 election approaches. de Tocqueville’s view of America is as plausible today as it was in the 19^th century as even a pandemic and how to deal with it has strong partisan overtones and we find that people are storming the offices of governors with AR-15 weapons. With the current state of our politics in the background it is useful to examine the pre-inaugural period that witnessed Abraham Lincoln’s journey from Springfield, IL to Washington, D.C. after the election of 1860 wonderfully presented in Ted Widmer’s new book, LINCOLN ON THE VERGE: THIRTEEN DAYS TO WASHINGTON.

Lincoln’s Whistle-Stop Trip to Washington

On the way to his inauguration, President-elect Lincoln met many of his supporters and narrowly avoided an assassination attempt

One might ask why do we need another book about Abraham Lincoln, but to Widmer’s credit he has unearthed a great deal in his research and by focusing on Lincoln’s thirteen day odyssey he does so in a manner that other authors should envy as his narrative is like a flower that has buds leading to numerous diversions for Widmer to relate to other aspects of American history. In a recent CBS television interview Widmer as he does in his book argued that Lincoln’s election was the key to reaffirm the democratic process in America and its continuation as the core of our government. Widmer argues further that the United States was the democratic model for the world and if it did not preserve its democratic principles the rest of the world would not have developed as it did, particularly in the 20^th century and who knows how events would have transpired. Widmer develops other important themes that in a general way are very pertinent. The south had enjoyed an idyllic existence with a free labor system as the basis of its plantation economy or “cotton kingdom.” It did not develop the industrial infrastructure as the north and would soon feel threatened not only by its fear of the emancipation of slaves, but by the growth of the west as evidenced by the new census, which if admitted to the union as free states would result in the loss of its control of Congress. The north’s industrial development particularly the expansion of the railroads was the main threat. The railroads provided the transportation network that was making the steamboat almost obsolete and provided the vehicle for the demographic explosion west of the Mississippi to the west coast.

Widmer makes a number of salient points that reflect southern anxiety. For the first sixty-one years of the Republic slaveholders held the presidency. For forty-one of those years a slaveholder was Speaker of the House. For fifty-two years the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee was a slaveholder. Eighteen out of thirty-one members of the Supreme Court were southerners, despite the fact that 80% of cases that reached the court originated in the north. Lastly, most military officers and Attorney-Generals hailed from the south – no wonder the economic, political, and social changes that were evolving in the 1850s produced so much anxiety below the Mason-Dixon line.

(Dorothea Dix)

Widmer writes with exceptional verve and excitement as he describes Lincoln’s journey to assume the presidency. A journey that had been preceded by Lincoln’s strategy of silence during the campaign which now would be drastically altered. Widmer has the ability to focus on his main task, how Lincoln avoided violence and a possible assassination as he passed through eight states. But, at the same time he fills in the background history of a particular whistle stop and its relationship to Lincoln’s life and career. A case in point is Lincoln’s arrival in Cincinnati, known as the “Queen City,” as well as “Porkopolis” because of its pork industry (which would give rise to Proctor and Gamble in the 1840s!) which Widmer argues was a key to Lincoln assuming the presidency and the North’s ultimate victory in the Civil War. Sitting across on the other side of the Ohio River sat Kentucky with its myriad of political interests making Cincinnati influential in formulating the attitudes of many Kentuckians. Being a border state Lincoln feared that if Kentucky seceded, they would soon be followed by Maryland and Missouri which immediately would have threated the capitol and Lincoln’s assumption of the presidency.

Even before Lincoln left Springfield to travel to Washington rumors and conspiracy theories abounded. Lincoln received numerous threats on his life as he was seen by the south as the embodiment of evil and the ultimate threat to their way of life. As Lincoln traveled toward Washington his friends and cohorts wondered how they could protect him. Thanks to the early warnings of Dorothea Dix who had traveled through the south during the secessionist craze learning of a number of conspiracy theories concerning a possible southern seizure of Washington and the depth of hatred for Lincoln in Maryland. She informed Samuel Felton, the President of the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore Railroad of the possible coup who then contacted General Winfield Scott, and Alan Pinkerton who would deploy eight detectives, among of which was Kate Warne. Warne brilliantly acted the part of a recently arrived Alabaman, which produced a large amount of gossip from southern women, she would also frequent southern saloons trawling for information. This led to a treasure trove of information for Pinkerton’s spies and created an undercurrent of gloom as Lincoln’s odyssey made its way toward the nation’s capital amidst possible assassination plots to take place when Lincoln passed through Baltimore.

Widmer does a wonderful job linking Lincoln’s journey to future historical figures. For example, the sixteen-year-old Thomas A. Edison, the sixteen-year-old Benjamin Harrison, William Howard Taft, Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield, all future presidents in addition to John D. Rockefeller all who witnessed Lincoln’s odyssey.

Photo of Allan Pinkerton

(Alan Pinkerton)

The journey was dominated by political calculations as at each whistle stop Lincoln would make a speech designed for the audience that came to see him by the thousands. Lincoln went further than any president had gone before in addressing the American people. It appeared as if he was having direct conversations with voters and with newspaper and the telegraph, he was able to reach people across America and make a Lincoln presidency more real. Despite Lincoln’s exhaustion he eventually came to relish the relationship he was establishing with his constituents. Lincoln would experience many ups and down during his journey which at times was compounded by his bouts with depression highlighted by the fact he was almost certain that he left Springfield he would never return alive.

As Lincoln traveled from city, hamlet, and village he had to navigate the political minefields of each location. None was more problematical than Albany and New York, NY which had been under democratic control for decades under the stewardship of Tammany Hall and Boss Tweed. Lincoln’s coat takes elected a Republican governor which would only exacerbate the problem as Fernando Wood, the unstable mayor of New York City leaned toward the south and argued for an autonomous zone for his city. Widmer also does a fine job comparing another political minefield as he follows the odyssey of Jefferson Davis, the newly elected president of the Confederacy. Widmer follows Davis’ sojourn from his plantation in Mississippi to the new capitol in Montgomery, AL comparing his executive actions and powers with those lacking in Lincoln who had a ways to go in getting his administration up and running as he tried to survive and reach Washington.

Widmer deftly measures Lincoln up against other historical figures throughout the narrative. His favorite is George Washington who had his own partisan and foreign policy travails who Lincoln studied particularly his “Farwell Address” and how he dealt with enemies within his own administration. It seems that Widmer is able to choose a historical personage from each city that Lincoln visited and compare the future president with that individual on a personal level and the historical context of each.

Kate Warne

(Kate Warne)

Lincoln gave numerous speeches throughout his travels which were roundly critiqued at the time. Widmer does the same but singles out his addresses in Philadelphia as perhaps his most important. When Lincoln arrived in Philadelphia, he immediately grasped its iconic importance in American history as is evidenced by his references to the Declaration of Independence’s “all men are created equal” supposition and the work of the founders in the city. For Lincoln, the city and its shrines were sacred, a message he put forth during each speech. Lincoln focused on a “sincere heart” and the holiness and sacred walls of Independence Hall. It was if he were experiencing his own “Great Awakening.” His speeches raised the level of his bond with the union he vowed to protect as he restored the radical promise inherent in the Declaration of Independence. As Widmer continuously reminds us, throughout his visit to “the city of brotherly love” he received numerous messages of hatred concerning plots that were unfolding in Baltimore which clouded the president-elect’s visit.

Widmer ends his superb narrative after tracing his deception that frustrated the potential assassins surrounding Baltimore by reversing Lincoln’s odyssey, this time departing Washington for Springfield in late April and early May 1865. Widmer has written an excellent account superseding most if not all books on the topic, but also, he has completed a narrative that should join other classics written about the fallen president.

“I don’t think it’s ever been done, what we’re doing tonight, here, and I think it’s great for the American people to see,” President Trump told the Fox News interviewers on Sunday.

(Trump at Lincoln Memorial, May 3, 2020)

THE WINTER SOLDIER by Daniel Mason

April 29, 2020szfreiberger Historical Fiction Leave a comment

2 G55 F1 1915 8 Fatally Wounded in French Field Hospital History WWI France Fatally Wounded in a Field Hospital Stock Photo

(World War I Field Hospital)

Recently I read Daniel Mason’s THE PIANO TUNER and I enjoyed it immensely. This led me to his next book, THE WINTER SOLDIER a novel dealing with the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire as a young medical student Lucien Krzelewski joins the army with the outbreak of World War I and is sent to a small village in the Galician Carpathian mountains called Lemnowice, the site of an aid station at the Church of Our Lady of Lemnowice. The story encompasses a range of human emotions, the brutality of war, and an individual’s need to fulfill a void in his life and make up for what he perceives to be an error that haunts him. Mason employs a number of characters that range from aristocrats who have seen better days, young men destroyed by war, a nurse that Lucien cannot put behind him, and a number of historical figures.

Mason’s portrayal reflects the bureaucratic incompetence of the Austrian army, the remnants of the Victorian Age at the conclusion of the Habsburg monarchy, and the desperation that war creates for individuals who long for a degree of normalcy. Mason writes with verve and the ability to employ humor as it pertained to Austrian society, in addition to expressing the humanity of Lucien who finds himself in an untenable situation. Lucien has not graduated from medical school and has limited practical medical experience. He finds himself thrust into a situation with soldiers arriving for treatment for limbs that need amputation, neurological issues that today we refer to PTSD, wounds to the abdomen and other parts of the body. He has never conducted surgery and feels inferior to the nurses he must work with. One in particular, Margarete from the Sisters of St. Catherine takes him under her wing to fill in the gaps in his education.

The novel centers around Lucien’s attempts to overcome how overwhelmed he feels as he tries to treat his patients in a humane manner with limited supplies, freezing weather, and the shifting battle between the Hungarian Hussars and Russian Cossacks. Mason reflects on the horrors of war as Lucien does his best, but many succumb after clinging to life. One patient in particular, Sergeant Jozef Horvath encapsulates the situation that Lucien finds himself in. Most of Lucien’s training had been in neurology and he believes he knows what is best for Horvath who has been diagnosed with nervenshock with symptoms that seem taken from psychiatrist, Robert Jay Lifton’s landmark book on surviving trauma, DEATH IN LIFE. Lucien does his best to deal with Horvath’s symptoms but he will lose the patient to a sadistic German officer who believes that people who suffer from combat fatigue/shell shock or whatever battlefield malady exists to be shirkers and deserters and he rips him out of Lucien’s care. Lucien cannot get over this and blames himself for the loss of his patient.

The fate of Horvath and Lucien’s inability to let go produces nightmares and difficulty in coming to terms with what has occurred creating a major subtext of the novel. The second subtext revolves around Lucien’s relationship with Sister Margarete who seem to fall in love with each other. After an outing Lucien and Margarete become separated and he will spend a good part of the story searching for her as she is his first love and cannot accept that fact she is gone. As the war winds down Lucien returns to Vienna where his mother decides he must marry which zeroes in on Lucien’s inadequacies and memories of his war experiences as he is placed in charge of a rehabilitation hospital in Vienna by his former medical school professor.

Stock photo of Vienna at the Beginning of World War I, 1914

(Vienna during World War I)

Mason has excellent command of historical and geographical detail as well as the clash of old Victorian Austria destroyed by the war and the new Austria that will be created at the Paris Peace Conference. Once the war ends it is ironic that Lucien is deemed unworthy of being a doctor by the new Austrian government that argues that a physician at war is not well rounded enough and must return to medical school.

Mason who is a professor of psychiatry at Stanford is well placed to write a novel that deals with PTSD as he brings Lucien through his training, experiments on animals, and the dearth of facilities and care for patients. It is a story of redemption as Lucien is pulled in many directions as he deals with his own feelings of inadequacy and loss at a time when Europe is undergoing a complete transformation as is Lucien and the patients he treats because of the cruelty of war and the incompetence of those who cause it.

A British Red Cross hospital in France during the conflict which claimed 6 000 men s lives per day

(World War I Field Hospital)

THE GREAT INFLUENZA: THE EPIC STORY OF THE DEADLIEST PLAGUE IN HISTORY by John Barry

April 25, 2020szfreiberger American cultural history, American Social History, Medical History Leave a comment

(1918 Spanish Flu Epidemic)

As I sit at my desk and examine the latest Covid-19 statistics and fantasize about what might have occurred had the Trump administration carried out its constitutional duties to care for American citizens instead of fomenting a civil war against democratic governors and denying their role in the current pandemic I am appalled and overwhelmed. At this moment there are 927,000 cases of people testing positive for the virus in the United States out of 2,790,000 worldwide. The death rate is 52,400 in the U.S. out of 196,000 worldwide, and each day we add thousands to the total. Words like mitigation, social distancing, ventilators, and numerous others have entered our everyday vocabulary. The questions that pervade the news are when we will “open up” the country? what happens if we do it too fast? and what will happen if each state goes its own way? Writer and philosopher George Santayana is credited for stating that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” In our current circumstances it would be best for those in charge of leading us through the crisis to heed Santayana’s words. All one has to do is turn the clock back one hundred years to learn certain lessons. Those lessons are portrayed based on excellent historical research in John Barry’s 2004 book, THE GREAT INFLUENZA: THE EPIC STORY OF THE DEADLIEST PLAGUE IN HISTORY. A pandemic that “likely caused at least fifty million deaths worldwide, and possibly as many as one hundred million.”

(President Woodrow Wilson)

Barry immediately caught my attention with his opening section that dealt with the state of the American medical infrastructure, readiness, and state of mind in the late 19^th and early 20^th century. Barry’s discussion of American medical schools and their lack of standards, i.e., it was not necessary to have a college degree, once admitted no work on actual human bodies, and engaging in no laboratory science is eye opening in addition to being appalling. In the late 19^th century the United States lagged behind the rest of the world in the study of life sciences and medicine. The inability of American medical schools to accept science as part of the curriculum is shocking. American physicians would travel to Europe, Germany in particular to study laboratory science and the advances that existed in record numbers and returned to implement what they learned in American classrooms and setting up laboratories. The key development was the launching of Johns Hopkins in 1876 and their medical school in 1893, along with their hiring of Daniel Gilman as the school’s president, and William Henry Welch who studied in Europe to head the medical school, a man who would become the most influential scientist in the world.

Hopkins would begin the transformation of American medicine as they employed Welch’s reputation to hire the best physicians and researchers in the world and developed a laboratory research component. In a sense Dr. Welch was the Dr. Fauchi of his era! The other important development that Barry delves into is the role of the Rockefeller Foundation whose donations led to the creation of the Rockefeller Institute in 1901. The Institute would be headed by Simon Flexner, a protégé of Welch. Flexner had a large vision; “in his own work, he had what Welch lacked: the ability to ask a large question and frame it in ways that made answering it achievable.” The Institute developed a small affiliated hospital to investigate disease, where patients would pay no fees but only those suffering from diseases that could be studied were admitted. Flexner saw the hospital as a testing ground for ideas generated by laboratory scientists. Further, Flexner used Hopkins as a model medical school and was also able to attract philanthropic funds to deserving institutions. Those institutions were weeded out as medical schools were ranked based on how well they prepared their students to practice. As a result, those schools that did not measure up dropped their medical schools and others either reformed their approach or faded away. The next important reform on Welch’s agenda was the creation of the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, which was scheduled to open October 1, 1918, toward the end of World War I.

William H. Welch

Barry correctly develops the role of World War I in fostering the worldwide influenza pandemic. Evidence seems to suggest that the virus originated in Haskell County, Kansas. By January/February 1918 Dr. Loring Milner who had treated influenza throughout his checkered career noticed a much more virulent type that was killing people and it completely overwhelmed him. New cases declined in the spring but would reemerge later in the year. With the American entrance into World War I in April 1917 one of the training centers was Camp Funston, part of the Fort Riley Reservation, located about 250 miles from Haskell County. On March 4, 1918, a soldier was diagnosed with influenza at Camp Funston, three weeks later there were 1100 cases – the problem is that there was a great deal of traffic flow between Haskell County and Camp Funston. These soldiers would carry the flu virus with them as they were assigned to units that then traveled to Europe.

Barry points to a great deal of disturbing statistical information for the reader to digest. He examines the history of warfare and concludes that more soldiers died from disease than wounds suffered in combat. In the Spanish-American War more men died of disease in a 6:1 ratio than on the battlefield. The US lost more personnel to disease 63,114 than to combat 53,402, largely due to the influenza epidemic of 1918. If one includes the overall US losses to influenza it is roughly 675,000. In terms of combat losses, the American military was in no condition to deal with an epidemic with 776 doctors in the military out of an overall total of 140,000 for the entire country. Lastly, influenza-related deaths reflected that one in 67 American soldiers in the army died of influenza and its complications, nearly all in a ten-week period beginning in mid-September 1918. It was a disease that targeted those in the prime of their lives as opposed to the old and weak.

William H. Park

The ramp up to prepare for WWI created a situation that made the possibility for an epidemic in the US extremely plausible. In an important chapter, “Tinderbox,” Barry focuses on the number of physicians who were needed overseas leaving the US short of physicians to care for civilians, and those that remained stateside were mostly over 45 and trained in the older methods that were not very effective. Further, by the fall of 1918 research laboratories could only function on a reduced scale. Research was cut back and focused on the war, on poison gas or defending against it, on preventing infection of wounds, on ways to prevent diseases that incapacitated troops like typhus. Laboratory animals were unavailable, and the war sucked into itself technicians and young researchers. As a result, the US was at a disadvantage in fighting the flu epidemic from the get-go.

Barry dissects the impact of politics on the spread of the flu and combating it in detail. The role of machine politics in New York and Philadelphia are cases in point. In Tammany Hall, the New York Health Department was purged replacing qualified people with patronage weakening the response to the virus. In Philadelphia State Senator Edwin Vane’s political machine and the response of Public Health Director William Krusen were a disaster. The Liberty Loan parade on September 28, 1918 is a case in point. Health officials advised against it, but Krusen who did little in preparation to mitigate the disease allowed it to take place with disastrous results. The Liberty Loan parade is emblematic of the role of President Woodrow Wilson. His administration was obsessed with morale and did everything they could to keep news of the epidemic from the public. Between J. Edgar Hoover’s new internal security agency in the Justice Department, and George Creel’s Committee on Information prosecutions increased markedly as anyone seen as a security threat was arrested, i.e., Eugene Debs who ran for president in 1912 and Congressman Victor Berger were incarcerated. Newspapers did not report accurate information and a good percentage of the public was left in the dark.

(Oswald Avery)

The horrific details of the epidemic appear in a number of chapters from its impact on the treatment and deaths of soldiers in various army encampments, i.e., Camp Devens in Massachusetts and the Philadelphia Naval Yard. The impact on civilians is described as is the attempts by scientists to combat the disease. The work of William H. Park, Chief of the Laboratory Division of the New York City Health Department and his deputy Anna Williams in what was considered the best laboratory in the country is explored in detail as was the work of Paul Lewis who earlier proved that polio was a viral disease and centered his research at his lab in Philadelphia, and Oswalt Avery from the Rockefeller Institute. The overriding issue for all of these scientists is that of time and the need for speed which meant they had to forgo the usual protocols and approach to research which of course caused many problems.

Barry does not neglect the scientific details of research. He describes in detail how viruses were determined, explores previous research dealing with pneumonia, typhus, malaria etc. as a means of introducing the reader to what scientists were up against and their approach. Barry assumes the reader knows nothing as he treats the reader to mini lectures in microbiology, immunology, and epidemiology. There are a few chapters that engage in this material and for a “biology novice” like myself it became much to detailed particularly the various types of bacteria, other aspects of lab research, and as a result the book comes across as very text bookish.

Barry’s work is important and should be consulted by public health officials and members of the Trump administration to learn lessons that seem to have bypassed them today. Though the flu epidemic was a hundred years ago certain aspects provide important lessons – it comes in waves and Covid-19 will return in some degree in the fall and possibly well past. Ignoring the past is akin to signing a death warrant for many. Barry has done a service for the American people and though the book was written in 2004 it provides many important guidelines and is a very effective piece of historical research.

Women working for the Red Cross make masks during the pandemic flu in 1918

(1918 Flew Epidemic….making masks)

THE PATRIOTS by Sara Krasikov

April 18, 2020szfreiberger Historical Fiction Leave a comment

(A photo of Gulag prisoners in Perm (undated).

In March 1953, the Russian people could breathe a sigh of relief with the death of Joseph Stalin. From 1929 to 1953 roughly 15 million people were exiled to what Alexander Solzhenitsyn framed as the Gulag Archipelago and another 7-8 million were sent to other parts of the Soviet Union resulting in the deaths of countless millions. Stalin’s paranoid motivation was to seek scapegoats for starvation caused by forced collectivization and the purges and show trials that followed during the course of the 1930s. The Great Patriotic War against the Nazis produced another 20 million casualties and following its conclusion Stalin’s paranoia visa vie the west heightened resulting in the increase in internal deportations to the Gulag sweeping up hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions more. At the time of his death Stalin had organized an antisemitic campaign known as the Doctor’s Plot. In 1951–1953, a group of predominantly Jewish doctors from Moscow were accused of a conspiracy to assassinate Soviet leaders resulting the arrests of numerous Jews and possibly laying the groundwork for a massive pogrom of Russia’s Jewish population. Once Stalin died in early March 1953 the “collective leadership” instituted an amnesty that led to the release of hundreds of thousands of exiled prisoners.

The tension, fears, and horrors of the Stalinist system as well as life in Russia under Vladimir Putin are accurately portrayed with compassion by Sara Krasikov in her novel THE PATRIOTS. In her opening scene we meet Florence Fein as she arrives at the train station in Saratov having just been released from exile after seven years. Her twelve-year-old son Julian is present to meet her, but he hardly recognized her and chose to return to his orphanage. From this point Krasikov dives into the lives of her main characters, a number of which represent a dysfunctional American family who will acquire a Russian branch when Florence Fein decides to move to Russia to volunteer her service for the Soviet regime. Fein is the main protagonist as we follow her idealistic journey to Stalin’s planned city of Magnitogorsk past the Ural Mountains. Jewish from the Flatbush section of Brooklyn she had grown dissatisfied with the inequalities of American life during the depression. Bored and tired of her daily routine she had no idea what forces would be unleashed and what evils she would witness and come to accept in acts of expediency to her idealistic vision for the Soviet system.

Cenzura.

(Stalin visiting an area of the Gulag)

Krasikov will develop the dysfunctional family she has created decade by decade alternating lives and experiences of family members in segmented chapters. There is Florence Fein and her husband Leon Brink, who had been born in New York, abandoned by his father he would become a journalist for a foreign outlet of the Russian news agency TASS. Their son Julian, also known as Yulik born near the Volga River in 1979 would return to America and become an engineer who had expertise in “ice breakers.” He would travel to Russia for his company as oil is discovered in the Russian Artic. While in Russia he sought to convince his own son Lenny who had been working for nine years at a Russian equity firm before he was let go to return to the United States. Numerous other characters appear as Krasikov takes the reader through the 1930s and post war period and what it was like to live under Stalin. She shifts to the period after the collapse of the Soviet Union and focuses on Putin’s plutocracy and the difficulties it posed for the lives of ordinary Russians. Throughout the novel the issue of moral clarity continuously emerges. Decisions that characters must make are up against conforming to Soviet principles or doing what is ethically correct no matter what the psychological and physical price that must be paid.

Among the other characters Krasikov develops is Grigory Gregorevitch Timofeyev, Florence’s boss at the Soviet State Bank who taught her how to achieve proletariat respectability. Comrade Subotin, the typical NKVD functionary will entrap Florence to observe her colleagues at the Institute of Philosophy, History, and Literature and betray her friend by giving false testimony to be used in Stalin’s Show Trials. Ivan (Vanya) Kablukov head of corporate security at L-Pet will try and blackmail Julian to support his companies shipping bid as a means to procure millions in kickbacks under the Putinist system. Alyosha “Alcoholic” a friend of Lenny who reflects the decadence of Putin’s Russia. Seldon Parker, Leon’s friend who along with Florence worked at the Jewish anti-Fascist Committee, and later would become a target of the secret police. Essie Frank, Florence’s close friend who she met on the ship carrying them across the Atlantic on their voyage to Russia, later she would betray her to the NKVD. Captain Henry Robbins, an American Air Force pilot shot down over Korea and imprisoned in the Gulag would become Florence’s savior. There are many other important characters on display who allow the author to delve into the intricacies of the two time periods of Russian history she explores.

Lubyanka is headquarters of the FSB (KGB) and affiliated prison on Lubyanka Square in Meshchansky District of Moscow, Russia. It is a large Neo-Baroque building with a facade of yellow brick.

(Lubyanka Prison, home of the NKVD, KGB, and now FSB)

Krasikov’s mastery of history is on full display no matter what events she chronicles. For example, the murder of Sergei Kirov, the Leningrad Party Secretary on December 1, 1934. His popularity was seen by Stalin as a threat to his leadership and after a Cheka investigation it was found that Kirov “camouflaged enemies in the employ of foreign intelligence.” All the historical evidence points to a NKVD hit ordered by Stalin which touched off the Show Trials of the late 1930s as Stalin needed a scapegoat for the millions who succumbed to starvation during collectivization. The dialogue reflects Soviet revolutionary verbiage throughout as does the descriptions of employment, the distribution of living space, and access to commodities.

Another historical example is the visit of the new Israeli Foreign Minister, Golda Meyerson (Meir) to Moscow in 1949 and its implications for Florence, Leon, and a number of other characters. In many cases Krasikov’s language emits sarcasm and humor, but in most cases, it is dark reflecting the plight of her characters. These traits are on full display as Florence has difficulties understanding all the people “unmasked” as enemies of the state that appeared daily in newspapers. Russia supposedly suffered “from a collective muteness that permeated the nation” as “wreckers and saboteurs” were responsible for industrial accidents and not meeting the quotas set by state five-year plans.

(Sergei Kirov)

Krasikov’s historical analysis embedded within the novel is clear and accurate. Her description of Ambassador to the Soviet Union, Joseph Davies reflects the tools of a historian as she develops his views and relationship to Franklin D. Roosevelt. Her commentary on pre-war and post-war events and their impact on the Soviet Union and the United States is top notch. Insights into the behavior of historical figures be it Stalin’s or Putin’s lackeys is eve opening. The amount of historical research that Krasikov engaged in creates a sound infrastructure for the entire fictional account that rings of truth.

The novel engages in a number of storylines that seem interchangeable. The key one that brings everything full circle revolves around Julian’s frustration and attempts to understand why his mother acted the way she did and clung to her idealistic beliefs when the evidence that should have shattered them did not move her. Further, he could not comprehend why his parents hid the fact that they were trying to leave the Soviet Union right before they were arrested. In addition, he could not fathom why his mother survived and his father did not. Part of the reason Julian travels to the Soviet Union on business in 2008 is to get a hold of the KGB dossier on his parents to try and learn the truth in Putin’s Russia where everyone seems out to extort you.

Sretenka Street in Moscow, 1930

Nathaniel Rich writes in his review entitled “The Patriots’ Charts a Family’s Reverse Journey From Brooklyn to the Gulag,” New York Times, January 24, 2017 that THE PATRIOTS is a historical romance in the old style: multigenerational, multinarrative, intercontinental, laden with back stories and historical research, moving between scrupulous detail and sweeping panoramas, the first person voice and a kaleidoscopic third, melodrama and satire, Cleveland in 1933 and Moscow in 2008. It contains a wartime romance, a gulag redemption story, a kleptocratic comedy of manners, a family saga.” Who could ask for anything more? This is a superb novel that stays with you long after you put it down. Explore and enjoy as this is a work of literature that warns us about authoritarian tendencies actions, and its ultimate danger – its insidiousness that traps the lives of its citizens under the weight of its boot.

(It would be an understatement to describe the gulags as hellacious. Inmates would toil on large-scale construction, industrial, and mining projects for at least 14 hours per day in the harsh subzero winter conditions of Eastern Europe. Without any safety equipment, prisoners were expected to chop down trees, dig up dirt, and pick through the frozen ground with rudimentary and ineffective tools and their bare hands.)

A DARK SONG OF BLOOD by Ben Pastor

April 11, 2020April 11, 2020szfreiberger Historical Fiction Leave a comment

(June, 1944, the liberation of Rome)

One of the best ways to study and learn about the events and personalities of World War II is through historical fiction. The genre has produced a myriad of authors of which the late Philip Kerr whose main character Bernie Gunther a sarcastic and wise cracking Gestapo officer from the 1930s onward is special. Gunther despised the Nazi regime and was able to navigate the politics and horror in his own pursuit of justice. With the passing of Kerr another author has attracted my attention, Ben Pastor who has created the character of Martin-Heinz von Bora , a Major in the Wehrmacht who finds SS and Gestapo policies to be abhorrent, but believes in Germany and is willing to fight for his country as he did on the eastern front. Bora is tasked to investigate a series of murders in Pastor’s series and he too must navigate the minefield that is Nazi vendettas and murders. In Pastor’s third iteration of her Bora novels, A DARK SONG OF BLOOD, Bora finds himself in Italy in early 1944 as the allies are making their way toward Rome and he is assigned to investigate three murders; first a secretary at the German Embassy, Magda Reiner; his former tutor and mentor Cardinal Hohmann; and Baroness Marina Fonseca, a close friend of the Cardinal.

(General Mark Clark, Commander US Fifth Army, accompanied by MajGen Geoffrey keyes, Commander US II Corps, proudly stand at the gates of Rome, the prize that Clark had striven so hard to make his own.)

Bora must work with Sandro Guidi an inspector in the Italian Police Department. The two men have a tenuous relationship that played out in Pastor’s previous novel LIAR MOON, and their attitude toward each other has carried over to Pastor’s new novel. Bora is a tortured individual as he related to Guidi in imparting his feelings about his brother, a pilot who was killed on the Russian front. Bora maintains a great deal of guilt as he believes he was responsible for his brother’s death after convincing him to enlist. Further, he was forced to identify the body after his brother crashed. Bora is also haunted by his experiences that took place at Stalingrad as Germany sieged the city for over 900 days. Later in the war Bora would suffer a catastrophic injury losing a hand to a terror explosion in Lagos, Italy which also resulted in a nasty limp. Bora’s marriage is under a great deal of strain as his wife Dikta resents his service in the army and the fact she has seen him for only three months out of five years of marriage.

(General Albert Kesselring)

At the outset Pastor’s story is a bit uneven. We know the death of Magda Reiner resulted from a fall from a fourth-floor window at the German Embassy which has reacquainted Bora and Guidi to investigate. Pastor also introduces an inordinate number of characters very quickly which requires the reader to pay careful attention. It takes about a hundred pages for the reader to feel comfortable and once the information is digested the novel is easier to navigate as events build upon each other, particularly the relationship between Bora and Guidi.

Bora is a decent man who finds himself in an untenable situation. He suffers from nightmares and guilt related to the death of his brother and his activities rooting out partisans on the Russian front. To further unsettle Bora his wife Dikta will visit only to inform him that she has had their marriage annulled. He is a sensitive person for the most part and all he desires is for the war to end so he can remarry and raise a family. Guidi, Pastor’s secondary protagonist lives in a rooming house with a series of interesting characters one of which is Francesca, a pregnant young woman who he finds he is falling in love with. The problem is the identity of the father, possibly Antonio Rau who may be a member of the Italian resistance. His relationship with Pietro Caruso, the Police Chief of Rome is flawed to say the least and eventually Caruso will fire Guidi and try and have him executed. Bora will step in to save Guidi, but their relationship remains “iffy” as they try and solve three murders as various Nazi and Italian officials create numerous roadblocks inhibiting their progress.

Stock photo of WWII Execution Of Rome Police Chief, Rome, Italy

(WWII Execution Of Rome Police Chief, Pietro Caruso)

One of the strengths of good historical fiction is the blending of a story with factual information with real events. Further, the integration of historical figures and fictional characters is a seamless way to enhance any plot. Pastor possesses these strengths in abundance witnessed by Bora’s interactions with his superior General Siegfried Westphal who had been an operations officer under General Edwin Rommel and was now Chief of Staff for General Albert Kesselring. Other historical figures who are intertwined in the story include, Rome’s Nazi SS Chief Colonel Herbert Kappler, Pietro Caruso the Police Chief of Rome, General Maelzer, the Nazi Commandant of Rome, and SS General Karl Wolfe among others.

The suspects in the three murders appear unrelated, but they are numerous. In the case of Reiner, Pietro Caruso, SS Captain Egon Sutor a former lover, and Rodolfo Merlo, the Secretary-General of the National Confederation of Fascist Unions are all strong possibilities. As far as the deaths of Cardinal Hohmann and Baroness Fonseca evidence points to a crime of passion and a dual suicide which Bora refuses to accept.

Pastor is able to bring all of these elements to the fore and slowly unravels a plot that brings the murders, Nazi obstructionism, and allied movements together in creating a strong addition to the historical fiction relating to World War II. In my mind Martin Bora has replaced Bernie Gunther to satisfy my need for a World War II historical fiction fix and I look forward to reading, TIN SKY, Pastor’s fourth novel in the series which shifts to events in the Ukraine.

How an American spy helped liberate Rome, 75 years ago

Allied troops in liberated Rome. Photo: War Office/Imperial War Museums

THE SPLENDID AND THE VILE: A SAGA OF CHURCHILL, FAMILY, AND DEFIANCE DURING THE BLITZ by Erik Larson

April 6, 2020szfreiberger British History, World War II Leave a comment

Standing out of the flames and smoke of surrounding blazing buildings, St Paul's Cathedral during the great fire raid in London.

(The bombing of London during the WWII “Blitz”)

Living at a time when leadership seems to be severely lacking with a president who enacts his personal agenda seemingly on a daily basis when people are dying is eye opening and ultimately a tragedy. In times like this it is important to examine historical leadership that is grounded in fact and strength of personality. Leadership during times of crisis is of the utmost importance be it a pandemic, wartime, economic or weather-related catastrophes. The public needs to rely on someone to step up and provide honest and factual information with direction to mitigate people’s anxiety and provide hope for the future. Examining the aerial atrocities committed by the Germans during World War II over London, Coventry and other English cities in late 1940 and early 1941 is a case in point. Winston Churchill the newly appointed Prime Minister would rise to the occasion through his wisdom, wit, and force of personality and provide the British people a degree of solace. Erik Larson’s latest book, THE SPLENDID AND THE VILE: A SAGA OF CHURCHILL, FAMILY, AND DEFIANCE DURING THE BLITZ successfully captures Churchill’s role and the courage of the British people in that moment and builds upon his series of historical narratives that ranges from hurricanes, murder in Edwardian London, a serial killer in Chicago’s World Columbian Exposition in 1893, the sinking of the Lusitania, to the rise of the Nazis.

In his current work Larson explores “the year in which Churchill became Churchill, the cigar smoking bulldog we all think we know…and showed the world what courage and leadership looked like.” Larson has produced a workmanlike synthesis of events, policies, and personalities of the time period though he does not add a great deal that is new for historians. What Larson does accomplish is a synthesis of information and sources focusing on many individuals that seem to fall through the cracks in other historical monographs.

Wikimedia Commons

(Sir Winston Churchill)
Larson’s grasp of the most salient historical points is evident for all to see. Churchill’s obsession with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s thoughts serves as a background to most of Churchill’s actions. Churchill is fully aware that England cannot defeat the Nazis without American equipment and financing and finally their entrance into the war. Larson describes the political and personal machinations of FDR and Churchill in traditional fashion as he labors through the Destroyer-Base Deal and Lend-Lease as the United States slowly become more and more of a belligerent. Larson’s description of the visit of Harry Hopkins, perhaps FDR’s closest ally and friend to England for four weeks in January, 1941 is a case in point as Churchill rolled out the red carpet to flatter and convince Hopkins to support American aid to England and encourage the eventual entrance of the United States into the war.Everyday English citizens are presented through their daily lives and travails as they confronted by the German “Blitz.” In addition, Larson takes figures like “Jock” Colville, Churchill’s reluctant private secretary and drills down exploring aspects of their lives in detail. In Colville’s case the unrequited love he pursues in the name of Gay Margesson, a student at Oxford, supplemented by his important role by Churchill’s side. Others explored include Pamela Churchill who had the unfortunate task of being married to Churchill’s son Randolph, an alcoholic, gambler, and philanderer. Mary Churchill, the prime Minister’s eighteen-year-old daughter provides an interesting perspective of an upper-class youth through her diary entries. More importantly Larson pursues the role of Max Aiken, better known as Lord Beaverbrook, a newspaper magnate who performs miraculous work increasing British airplane production at the newly created Ministry of Aircraft Production as well as serving as Churchill’s closest friend and alter ego. Frederick “Prof” Lindemann , an Oxford Physicist assesses the world with “scientific objectivity” who Churchill brought into government to deal with German technology and efforts to counter the damage it caused. The marriage of Sir Harold Nicholson, Parliamentary Secretary for the Minister for Information and his marriage to the writer Vita Sackville-West receives a great deal of attention. Churchill’s bodyguard Detective Inspector Walter Henry Thompson provides numerous nuggets of information. Mass-Observation diarist Olivia Cockett chronicles many of the horrors resulting from the German onslaught. There are of course portraits of the military types like Major-General Hastings “Pug” Ismay, the Military Chief of Staff and political figures such as Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary, who is then shuffled off to Washington as ambassador to remove a political threat to the Prime Minister’s leadership. Characters abound and Larson has the knack of providing just the right amount of detail to make them interesting in of themselves for the reader.

If Churchill was obsessed with FDR, Adolf Hitler was obsessed with Churchill. In Larson’s accurate rendition of the Hitler-Churchill enmity, the Fuhrer did not want to go to war with England at first. He wanted to negotiate a deal that would be somewhat satisfactory to Churchill to end England’s adversarial role toward Germany so he could concentrate on lebensraum, living space is the east against Russia. When Churchill refused to comply, Hitler unleashed the German Luftwaffe led by Hermann Goring against England to knock them out of the war. At times a cartoonish, despicable, and insidious figure, Goring did all he could to raze English cities like Coventry to create the terror that would force the English people to remove Churchill and replace him with a more pliable figure. Hitler and Goring could never quite comprehend why Churchill refused to give up based on the physical and psychological damage they inflicted on the English people. Larson provides a fascinating aside to Goring’s terror bombing of civilians in his ravenous pursuit of cultural artifacts anywhere he could steal them. With Churchill’s obstinacy remaining constant, Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s Deputy Fuhrer hatches a plan to achieve peace with England. Larson does his best to break down the myths of Hess’ attempted flight to Scotland to try and negotiate England’s exit from the war delving into the latest material available.

Larson is successful in explaining Churchill’s historical significance as he describes his speeches and physical appearance throughout London and other areas refusing to kowtow to Nazi bullying and bombing. He demonstrated “a striking trait: his knack for making people feel loftier, stronger, and above all, more courageous.…he gave forth a confidence and invincible will that called out everything that was brave and strong,” as his voice became a reassuring wellspring of hope and resolve. Churchill was an expert at mass psychology, and he knew just how to hearten his downtrodden people and lead them to ultimate victory, even as so many people lived in shelters that were crumbling or pursuing an existence in the London Underground.

Goering Lounging In Chair

(Hermann Goring, Head of the Luftwaffe)

Larson is successful in reaching his stated goal of “hunting for stories that often get left out of the massive biographies of Churchill, either because there’s no time to tell them or because they seem too frivolous.” Larson writes with verve and the character formation of a novelist. He seems to leave no rock unturned in seeking out the intimate lives of his characters so they can provide a feel for what England is experiencing between May 1940 and 1941. He find’s vignettes that are a treasure. For example, Churchill constantly critiques the writing of his Cabinet and military figures correcting grammar and demanding brevity. Deeply personal aspects garner Larson’s attention exemplified by his comments on Churchill and Clementine’s life in the bedroom, which was separate and as far as intimate relations, it took place only upon an invitation from Clementine!

As with any historical monograph there are always suggestions for improvement. According to Gerard DeGroot in his February 28, 2020 review in the Washington Post in Larson’s case it may be fair to argue that Churchill is given too much credit for saving England when English factories and workers produced the Spitfires and Hurricanes that consistently outperformed their German counterparts. Further British workers, male and female were much better mobilized than in Germany. In addition, the idea that England acted alone is an overstatement when the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish contributed greatly as did members of the vast empire including Canadians, Australians, Indians and South Africans who all did their part. One also cannot forget the 145 Polish pilots who fought in the Battle of Britain, in addition to the 88 Czech, and 30 pilots from Belgium. One must also not forget that other parts of the United Kingdom were also bombed – cities like Glasgow, Cardiff, Belfast were also severely damaged. Churchill needs to share the limelight a bit more than Larson offers.

Though Larson has not written the definitive account of Churchill’s first year as Prime Minister he has written an evocative description of what life was like for the English people during the period. One cannot go wrong hunkering down with Larson’s narrative particularly at a time of extreme crisis and discomfort. I was scheduled to hear Larson at the Music Hall in Portsmouth, New Hampshire at the end of March, however due to the pandemic it was cancelled. I fervently hope it can be rescheduled.

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