Biography

MY BELOVED MONSTER: MASHA, THE HALF-WILD RESCUE CAT WHO RESCUED ME by Caleb Carr

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Caleb Carr, with glasses and a white beard, nestles his face on his cat's head.

(Caleb Carr considered his late cat Masha, the subject of his new book, the love of his life.)

Over the years I have enjoyed Caleb Carr’s historical fiction immensely.  THE ALIENIST, THE ANGEL OF DARKNESS, and SURRENDER  reflect his commitment to his craft integrating an accurate approach to history and exceptional character development.  His latest book is a total change from what he has written previously.  MY BELOVED MONSTER: MASHA, THE HALF-WILD RESCUE CAT WHO RESCUED ME maintains his superb writing and as far as character development it continues in his latest work, this time with a feline.  Being a cat lover myself, having had deep relations with the feline species over the years, including KC who was with me and my family for over nineteen years, and our current duo of Kota and Shelby who we rescued over ten years ago, I greatly enjoyed Carr’s dual biography of Masha and Caleb.  I have learned a great deal about Carr’s life and views on society, which makes his historical novels more interesting.  But, from a cat person’s viewpoint I learned a great deal about felines through Masha’s life story, both about Masha and my own cats.

Carr’s recounting of his relationship with Masha is presented on a number of levels.  First, it provides insights into how humans and felines bonded.  I can relate to a great deal of what Carr recounts, but he adds a dimension I have never thought off – how a cat’s neurological, heredity, and species development impacts their choice of whom to bond with and try to manipulate.  Second, if you are a cat person you realize early on that they control you, not the other way around.  As Carr explains they are able to get you to do what they want easily, but once you gain their trust you can impact their behavior as opposed to controlling it.  Third, Carr’s ability to decode much of Masha’s inner world.

In a sense Carr has written a love story that is like no other.  He describes how each participant in the relationship projects their needs and how they are met.  Carr and Masha had been together for seventeen years and most of the time they were inseparable.  Masha is a Siberian Forest cat which presents its own issues that domesticated cats do not present.  Carr adopted her after her previous owner locked her in an apartment.  When they met, a cat’s intuition was on full display as somehow she knew that Carr was a perfect match, especially when she was taken home to a three story home in rural upstate New York.  She would have the best of two worlds; outside where her instincts could be tested; and inside where she could control her environment and also her relationship with Carr.

My Beloved Monster

Masha had to be special as she replaced Suki, Carr’s previous cat who he also had a strong relationship with.  According to Carr cats are independent and are never responsive to punishment or negative reinforcement as forms of discipline and training.  They do not need us, but rather make use of us.  “Their loyalty depended on mutual respect and decent treatment.”   Carr carefully relates how his own life, in part, paralleled that of Masha.  At a very early age he drifted away from people and forged his closest bonds with cats.  As a boy he believed he had been a cat in a previous life and wanted to return to that life.  He grew up with an abusive father with two alcoholic parents who were somewhat violent.  Carr feared his father would kill him and he evolved into a very angry person.  He would turn to cats for compassion.  Cats taught him how “to give and receive not simply a talent for survival but compassion, affection, love, and joy.”  As the two of them bonded over the years Carr expressed surprise at their shared childhood traumas, shared physical ailments that included arthritis, neuropathy probably caused by the physical violence of their younger years.  For Carr illness added a new intensity to his connection with Masha as he wondered if he would outlive his companion.  When Carr was ill he returned to Masha who like many cats knew exactly how to care for her friend.

The number of astute observations Carr makes is astounding.  Among the many that I can relate to are  cats usually bond with just one human, not several, no matter how well socialized they might be – I have witnessed this firsthand as my wife Ronni and I share two cats, Kota and Shelby.  Interestingly, Kota gravitates to me and would spend her entire day, sleeping, playing, and just keeping me company.  Shelby is attached to Ronni and is content to stay on the right side of our bed where Ronni sleeps,  and Kota dominates the left side with me – in fact, we had to buy a king size bed to accommodate all four of us!  Many cat owners believe that cats stick around so long as food is available and that cats are aloof, at times, finicky.  In fact, what they want is attention, interaction, and play – and if they do not receive it they can become lethargic and obese as food becomes their only option. 

As Chris Bohjalian writes in his Washington Post review “what makes the book so moving is that it is not merely the saga of a great cat. Libraries are filled with books like that, some better than others. It’s the 17-year chronicle of Carr and Masha aging together, and the bond they forged in decline. (As Philip Roth observed, “Old age isn’t a battle; old age is a massacre.”) He chronicles their lives, beginning with the moment the animal shelter begs Carr to bring the young lioness home because the creature is so ferocious she unnerves the staff — “You have to take that cat!” one implores.”*  Through the struggles that life presents all of us from illness, happiness, and sadness.

Trust is the key in any relationship and cats are no exception, but the trust level between Carr and Masha reaches an incredible level.  Whether Carr is discussing his own health history or that of his feline companion their synergy amazes.  How they support each other is nothing less than extremely unusual, but if you are a cat owner and have had an injury or an illness you have experienced  the sensation of being cared for by your furry friend.  I can speak to this from knee to hernia surgeries or my wife’s knee replacements – there is always a cat present to cheer one up, indirectly lessening one’s pain.

For all of Carr’s insights into Masha’s behavior there is one area I would question – her language skills.  Carr goes a little overboard when discussing his verbal interactions with Masha, particularly the idea that she is sounding out words.  I do believe cats do understand a series of words, but to go as far as a conversation between a human and a feline I have my doubts.  In the end Carr has authored a marvelous book delving into his lifelong relationship with cats and focusing on Masha in particular.  Carr has written a love story which can only bring a smile and tears to the reader.

*Chris Bohjalian. “Libraries are full of books about great cats.  This one is special.” Washington Post , April 13, 2024.

To learn more about Caleb Carr and his latest book check out the following article from the Los Angeles Times:

‘Alienist’ author Caleb Carr — grieving his late cat — reflects on his life amid battle with cancer

Caleb Carr considered his late cat Masha, the subject of his new book, the love of his life.

By Chris Vognar

April 15, 2024 3 AM PT

My Beloved Monster: Masha, the Half-wild Rescue Cat Who Rescued Me

By Caleb Carr
Little, Brown: 352 pages, $32

Caleb Carr visits the grave of his beloved Masha, whom he considers the love of his life, every day. “We have a little chat,” said Carr, best known for his 1994 crime novel “The Alienist,” during a video call from his home in upstate New York. It’s late at night — Carr is a longtime night owl who does most of his work after it gets dark — and the author, who now has a long white beard, is thinking about grief and dying — subjects that linger over his new nonfiction book, “My Beloved Monster,” and loom over what might be the final months of his life.

Masha, the beloved monster, was a Siberian forest cat whom Carr rescued from a shelter and built a life with in his mountainside home in Cherry Plain, N.Y. Animals, particularly cats, had long been a source of companionship and comfort for Carr, an antidote of sorts to a chaotic, abusive childhood in New York’s Lower East Side. As Carr writes in the new book, his father, the Beat poet, journalist and convicted manslaughterer Lucien Carr, had a habit of knocking his son down flights of stairs. “I began to understand that he was trying to kill me,” Carr writes. “And while I didn’t yet know about his past” — Lucien Carr stabbed David Kammerer to death in 1944, later claiming that Kammerer came on to him sexually and offering a “gay panic” defense — “I certainly recognized, from the horrifying and even gleeful expressions that would enter his face when he came after me, that he was capable of killing.”

“I have been living with the idea of death since I was a small kid because my father taught me about it,” he said. But death has become much more than an idea of late. Carr, 68, has cancer, which started in his prostate and has spread throughout his body.

“If I could be around when the book is published, that would be really nice,” he said in late January. “I don’t know what’s going to happen when, but it’s not going to be good. I always knew cancer moved fast, but boy, when it starts to move, it starts to eat you. Madness. Just madness.” “My Beloved Monster” will be released on Tuesday.

It was Masha’s death on April 5, 2022, and Carr’s subsequent despondence, that led him to write “My Beloved Monster,” which reads as a love story, a tribute and a reminder that, in some instances, the uncomplicated love of animals helps humans keep going.

A blond, long-haired beauty with a wild side who had been rescued from a cat hoarder, Masha initially greeted Carr, as he writes, with “one of the most communicative gazes I’d ever seen in a cat, a look facilitated by the structure of her face: the eyes were oriented fully forward, like a big cat’s rather than a domestic’s, and seemed to comprehend everything she was studying — especially me — only too well.” Carr writes about cats with a tender vividness that might make you see your own pets through new eyes.

As a child Carr lived in an environment where people couldn’t be trusted, with wild parties and everyday life descending into violence. He lived in a neighborhood so rife with drugs and prostitution that it provided the shooting location for the climax of Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver.” But he always had animals: dogs, gerbils, fish, rabbits and, most to the young Carr’s liking, cats. The family cats would join him in cowering from the domestic turmoil, and comfort him as he reeled from another beating. They seemed to understand him.

Carr would go on to a career as a military historian, journalist and novelist, reaching a wide audience with “The Alienist” (and its 1997 follow-up, “The Angel of Darkness”). The books put his darkness into words as he told the story of a late 19th century forensic psychiatrist on the trail of a serial killer. But he never really forgot his four-legged friends. When he met Masha, he quickly realized he had found a soulmate.

“Animals fulfill something that was damaged in all of us when we were very young and can’t be fixed by people,” Carr said. “We can go on to have relationships with people, but those wounds need a different kind of treatment than people can provide, and that causes trouble when you have to explain that very carefully to whatever girlfriend or whatever significant other you have. I never lasted as long with a woman as I did with Masha, God knows, and no woman ever did for me what she did, which sounds crazy even to me. But it’s really true.”

Carr was actually contracted to write another “Alienist” book, but the spirit did not move him. He was deep in grief and needed to get it onto the page. He began cranking out the story of his life with Masha and sent a draft to his editor, Bruce Nichols, who was also the publisher of Little, Brown before he stepped down in March. Nichols was on board with Carr’s change in direction from serial killing to cat love.

“It was clearly a passion project for him, not only because of his medical situation but because he spent his whole life with cats and this one was very special to him,” Nichols said. “If you’re a cat lover and owner, or a dog person, I think it will resonate with you. And I don’t think it matters whether you care about historical fiction or military history or any of Caleb’s past experiences. It’s sui generis. It is what it is, and it’s an amazing book.”

Carr certainly hopes to tap into the pet community (and perhaps see if any “Alienist” fans are Catster subscribers). He also hopes to win over skeptics who might doubt whether one can love and grieve a beloved animal with the intensity usually reserved for another human.

“I’m hoping that some people will learn from this, and maybe even catch themselves almost thinking of Masha as a person,” Carr said. “That’s really what we have to do as a society much more: Think of these animals as our equals. That’s what they are.”

Photo of Caleb Carr

(Author, Caleb Carr)

THE SHOWMAN: THE INSIDE STORY OF THE INVASION THAT SHOOK THE WORLD AND MADE A LEADER OUT OF VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY by Simon Shuster

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Working trip of the President of Ukraine to Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk, Kirovohrad and Cherkasy regions

(Ukrainian President Zelensky visting troops at the front)

As the war grinds on in Ukraine, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson remains adamant that he will not bring to the House floor for a vote a bi-partisan bill negotiated by Democratic and Republican senators that would provide aid to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, and funds to deal with the crisis at our southern border.  It seems that Donald Trump has instructed the Speaker on how to proceed with the legislation because if it passed it would provide President Biden a political victory during our election season.  The fact that Ukraine is slowly running out of munitions and weapons has no impact on the MAGA world as its goal is to re-elect former President Trump and the consequences be damned.  Vladimir Putin sits in the Kremlin with that cheshire smile on his face laughing on the inside as he observes the political chaos in Congress and believes that anything that would return Trump to the White House would benefit Russia.  The result is that he will drag the war of attrition out further in the hope of achieving that goal. 

Meanwhile, frustration in Kyiv, NATO headquarters, European capitals, and Washington is reaching new heights as the Biden administration tries to cull a deal.  The man responsible for leading the Ukrainian people, President Volodymyr Zelensky tries his best to convince House and Senate members of the crisis that will ensue in Europe and the threats it will create should Russia prevail.  Zelensky is the key figure in the process and is the subject of Time magazine correspondent Simon Shuster’s new book THE SHOWMAN: THE INSIDE STORY OF THE INVASION THAT SHOOK THE WORLD AND MADE A LEADER OUT OF VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY which provides in intimate detail the story of Zelensky’s evolution from a professional comedian to a symbol of Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion of February 24, 2022 and how he has tried to rally western democracies to support his cause and bring about Russia’s defeat in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

There are a number of important books concerning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Ukrainian history.  Most recent are those by Yaroslav Hrytsak, Serhii Plokhy, Owen Matthews, Joshua Yaffa, Paul D’Anieri, Christopher M. Smith, Jade McGlynn, Luke Harding, and Christopher Miller.  All are excellent monographs, but Shuster’s biography brings the life and actions of President Zelensky into greater focus than other authors.

Shuster offers an unparalleled look at what Zelensky, his wife Olena Zelenskaya, his two children, and the Ukrainian people experienced as the war drew closer, and the actual invasion and its consequences.  Shuster zeroes in on Zelinsky’s decision making, tactics to try and invigorate and reassure the Ukrainian people, and the impact of the strategic approach taken by the Ukrainian military leadership.  All aspects of the war are explored with many insights and airtight analysis.

Shuster does well in describing Zelensky’s rise from being an entertainer to a successful politician.  Among the important points he makes focuses on the characteristics and talents of the comedic world and the entertainment business that Zelinsky developed over the years and how he employed them in his transition to politics.  Many of the individuals who worked with him in his production company would find themselves as part of his “inner governing circle” once he assumed the presidency of Ukraine.

Local resident hugs a Ukrainian servicewoman after Russia's retreat from Kherson, in central Kherson

(The liberation of Kherson from Russian troops)

There are a number of interesting points that Shuster offers in dealing with Zelensky’s approach to Putin, the preparation of the domestic population for war, and the outbreak of war itself.  For a long time Zelensky was under the delusion that he could deal with Putin on a one to one basis.  He believed once he sat down with him he could rely on his personal persuasive talents to come to agreements with the former KGB operative.  This reflects Zelensky’s naivete when it came to Putin.  I am certain that Zelinsky was completely aware of Putin’s Pan Slavic beliefs, his mantra that Ukraine was part of Russia, not a separate country, and a modus operandi employing “little green men” in eastern Ukraine, Crimea.  Zelensky did get his face to face with Putin and negotiations in 2019 which in the end were a failure.  Prisoner swaps were agreed to but on issues of substance dating back to the Orange Revolution of 2014 there was no progress.  Putin was inflexible, arguing there were no Russian troops in the Donbas region so Zelinsky’s goal of Russian troop withdrawal before any elections could take place was a non-starter.

Zelensky firmly believed that war could be avoided and did his best to prevent a furtherance of a conflict that began in 2014.  He refused to accept American intelligence that the war was imminent.  He was overly careful in making war preparations fearing he would scare the Ukrainian people, would harm the domestic economy as Ukraine was dependent upon Russia for gas and oil and a significant amount of investment would be lost, and lastly, it would send the wrong message to Putin fostering an invasion.  Nationalists in the Ukrainian parliament opposed Zelensky’s stance arguing he was selling out to the Russians.

Ukrainian President Attends Wreath-Laying Ceremony At Tomb Of Unknown Soldier

(Ukraine’s First Lady Olena Zelenskaya)

Shuster is correct in that Putin was a spy who believed in subterfuge as opposed to direct combat.  A prime example is Putin’s relationship with Viktor Medvedchuk, a Ukrainian media billionaire who was Zelensky’s main political opponent.  Medvedchuk’s relationship went back decades with Putin attending his wedding and was the godfather to his daughter.  In reality Medvedchuk, a member of parliament, was Putin’s surrogate whose media empire attacked Zelensky repeatedly, particularly over his Covid vaccine policies as Putin’s “Trojan Horse.”  As Zelensky’s popularity declined in 2019 and 2020 and Medvedchuk’s political party made gains in parliament, Putin came to believe that he could achieve his takeover of Ukraine by democratic means once his surrogate replaced Zelensky.  This was not to be as Zelensky confiscated Medvedchuk’s assets which Shuster argues pushed Putin toward invasion and restore what he termed the “historical unity” between Russia and Ukraine.

Many wonder why Ukraine was able to push back the invasion within a few weeks.  The key was the battle for Kyiv which was the most significant combat in Europe since World War II.  Others have reflected on the idea that Russia relied on maps that dated to 1989, the fact that troops and certain commanders did not receive their orders until two days before the invasion, the Russian military did not train enough for the type of resistance it came upon, etc.  But the keys as Shuster points out were the purchase of Bayraktars drones from Turkey which were successful against the long Russian columns of tanks, artillery, and other equipment and supplies.  The appointment of Major-General Valery Zaluzhny as commander of Ukrainian forces as unlike senior Ukrainian officers he was not trained in the Soviet model of warfare, and he implemented a more offensive approach toward the Russians in the east.  Now they could fire back, something they had been restrained from doing before Zaluzhny took command.  Lastly, American satellite intelligence proved a boon to Ukrainian defense and offensive actions.

Valentyna Nechyporenko, 77, mourns at the grave of her 47-year-old son Ruslan, during his funeral at the cemetery in Bucha, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Monday, April 18, 2022. Ruslan was killed by Russian army on March 17 while delivering humanitarian aid to his neighbours in the streets of Bucha.

(Results of Russian atrocities in Bucha)

Shuster describes the atrocities of Bucha in intimate detail, the key battle for Mariupol, the siege at the Azovstal Steel works and the fighting in Kyiv suburbs.  He describes a leader  who seemed to find himself and employ his communication talents once the invasion began.  He kept pushing for American and European weaponry which in large part was successful as the war ground on.  One of the key elements for war on Putin’s part was the weakening of NATO and blocking Ukrainian membership in the alliance.  Putin’s goals backfired as Ukrainian military needs were met by the west.  Kyiv gave up old Soviet military weapons and systems and integrated NATO equipment into its military arsenal. The more weapons that arrived and with the training of Ukrainian forces by NATO, more and more they became a western force.  Further, to Putin’s anger, Finland and Sweden joined NATO increasing NATO’s presence on its 900 mile border with Finland.  Putin’s response was vindictive bombing of civilians and threats of nuclear war.

(Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (L) and Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) arrive to attend a meeting on Ukraine with French President and German Chancelor at the Elysee Palace, on December 9, 2019 in Paris. – Russian president will for the first time hold formal talks with his Ukrainian counterpart over the conflict in Ukraine’s east, at a much-anticipated summit in Paris)

FRANCE-RUSSIA-GERMANY-UKRAINE-POLITICS-CONFLICT-DIPLOMACY

(Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (L) and Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) arrive to attend a meeting on Ukraine with French President and German Chancelor at the Elysee Palace, on December 9, 2019 in Paris. – Russian president will for the first time hold formal talks with his Ukrainian counterpart over the conflict in Ukraine’s east, at a much-anticipated summit in Paris)

Shuster has not produced a work of hagiography as is seen by his commentary on prewar policies and digs around the corrupt oligarchs in Zelensky’s orbit.  Despite this THE SHOWMAN is a portrait of a brave, inspirational, and bold leader who did not shy away from danger, visiting troops and combat areas to share in some way what his people were experiencing. Shuster, who has been reporting from Kyiv since 2009, relies a great deal on interviews with the most important players in the Ukrainian drama.  He would interview Zelensky in 2019 as a presidential candidate and was able to become part of his inner circle and shadow him for the first year of the war.  He points to Zelensky’s limited experience as a statesman who was able to gain the trust and support from the West employing “incessant repetition” of his demands through rhetoric, his personality, and commitment to his cause.  Zelensky did resort to highhandedness at times which Shuster blames on the exigency of war, not any drive toward autocracy.

Zelensky’s transformation into a wartime leader was not predictable and he evolved  turning the conflict into one the West would take ownership of.  The problem is that as the war continues it seems the West might be losing interest, or “Ukraine fatigue,” as the Republican Congress threatens further military aid, and Donald Trump may appear on the horizon as President which would play into Putin’s hands.  This fear was reaffirmed this weakened at a Trump political rally as the ex-president pontificated on NATO warning members that if they didn’t pay enough dues he would not honor Article Five of the NATO charter.  He further stated that if that were the case he would encourage Putin to do “as he damned well pleased” and even encouraged the Russian autocrat to invade westward.  In the interim the conflict is pretty much frozen on the battlefield as both sides fight for limited territory.  The problem is should Ukraine run out of certain weapons by spring it could lead to negotiations where Putin achieves most of his demands or obtains out and out military victory and the end of a free Ukraine.

President honored the memory of the Kruty Heroes

NAPOLEON: A LIFE by Adam Zamoyski

szfreiberger Biography, French History Leave a comment

French general and emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.

According to British historian Munro Price over 200,000 books have been written about Napoleon Bonaparte.  There is a fascination with the French dictator that historians have addressed for over two centuries, and currently Hollywood has produced its own version of Napoleon.  Today the most recognized biographies of Napoleon are written by British historians that include the three volume work of Michael Broers, and the single volume by Andrew Roberts which approaches 1000 pages.  Obviously, if one is to put pen to paper concerning Napoleon, the result will be a rather long monograph.  One of the latest contributions to the Napoleon genre is by Polish historian, Adam Zamoyski entitled, NAPOLEON: A LIFE though shorter than Roberts’ work by 250 pages it is a comprehensive look at the French leader that digs a little deeper into his thought process and ultimate decision making than previous works.

Zamoyski has written a thorough and workmanlike biography focusing on Napoleon’s personal life, domestic issues and relationships, his ideology, domestic and foreign threats to his reign, along with insights and details pertaining to the battlefield and the diplomatic movements of the period.  In doing so the reader should acquire an intimate knowledge of Napoleon – what made him tick, what was his belief system, and determine his place in history.

François Gérard (1770-1837), Portrait of Josephine de Beauharnais, 1801, oil on canvas,... Josephine Bonaparte’s Gardens at Malmaison

(François Gérard (1770-1837), Portrait of Josephine de Beauharnais, 1801, oil on canvas, 178 x 174 cm/70 x 68.5 in. Hermitage Museum, Russia)

What sets Zamoyski’s work apart is the context that he places his subject.  According to the author Napoleon should be seen as “a visible symptom of the sickness of the times, and as such bore the blame for the sins of all.”  Zamoyski argues that Napoleon did exhibit extraordinary qualities, but in many ways was quite ordinary.  To credit Napoléon as a genius for his many victories, overlooks the worst disaster in military history as he single-handedly destroyed the great enterprise he took years to create. Undoubtedly he was a brilliant tactician, but he was no strategist, as his miserable end attests to.  Further, Zamoyski argues that Napoleon was not an “evil monster.”  He was selfish, violent, and egocentric, but there is no evidence that he inflicted suffering needlessly.  His motives  and ambition are akin to Alexander I, Wellington, Nelson, Metternich, Blucher, Bernadotte and others whose careers adjoined Napoleon.  In addition, if one examines British actions in India, Canada, and Egypt; Austrian measures in Poland and Italy; Prussian activities in East and Central Europe; and Russian movements across Central Asia, one should conclude he was nothing more than the embodiment of his age.  Throughout the monograph Zamoyski develops these themes and integrates a great deal of Napoleon’s personal life and beliefs.

MARIE-LOUISE OF AUSTRIA

(Empress Marie-Louise, by François Gérard 1810 © Louvre Museum)

According to Zamoyski, Napoleon’s Corsican lineage plays a significant role in his emotional development and worldview due to how the French government treated his family and the Corsican people in general.  As the French Revolution evolved into the “Reign of Terror” and the authoritarian rule of the Directory and the European wars that ensued Napoleon learned that the rules of chivalry did not apply, and only winning mattered.  Zamoyski argues that “the dreamy romanticism of his youth had been confronted with the seamy side of human affairs, and at the age of twenty-four he had emerged a cynical realist ready to make his way in the increasingly dangerous world in which he was obliged to live.”

Zamoyski’s portrayal does an excellent job recounting Napoleon’s relationships with Josephine de Beauharnais who he married in 1805 and divorced in 1810, and Marie-Louise, the Habsburg Archduchess who took her place.  The detail is striking, providing insight into Napoleon’s emotional state and his genuine love and caring for both women.  At times Zamoyski goes overboard as he relates Josephine’s numerous affairs and Napoleon’s adolescent love for Marie-Louise. 

Along with the women in his life Napoleon’s family is placed under a microscope, particularly his brothers.  First, Lucien, a rather egoistic individual in his own right who helped Napoleon become First Consul during the Brumaire Coup and then lived his life according to his own needs rather than conforming to his brother’s wishes.  Second, Joseph who believed he should have been the French Emperor, not his brother who reigned in Italy and later made a mess of his rule in Spain – a rather incompetent individual.  Third, Jerome, a total military failure, and lastly, Louis, Napoleon’s favorite who would deal with psychological issues and became king of Holland but angered his brother when he refused to support the Continental system.

Charles Maurice de Talleyrand Périgord (1754–1838), Prince de Bénévent, baron François Gérard (French, Rome 1770–1837 Paris), Oil on canvas

(Charles Maurice de Talleyrand)

A key component in understanding Napoleon’s mindset is his approach to diplomacy which for him was an extension of the battlefield.  Zamoyski’s nimbly account recounts Napoleon’s negotiations and relationships with Austrian Chancellor and former ambassador to France, Klement von Metternich, Russian Tsar, Alexander I, Charles Habsburg, Holy Roman Emperor, and French Foreign Minister Charles Maurice de Talleyrand who initially supported Napoleon, but turned against him when he believed the Emperor’s expansionist policies went too far. Zamoyski integrates many other key figures into the monograph that includes lesser royal figures, French generals, Russian, English, Prussian, and Austrian figures.  In reading Zamoyski’s account it conforms to A. J. P. Taylor’s classic THE STRUGGLE FOR THE MASTERY OF EUROPE, 1815-1848.

One can draw many insights from Zamoyski’s analysis as he argues that Napoleon was a dichotomy in that he felt insecure next to the monarchs of Europe because he lacked their “bloodlines,” as he referred to himself as  “parvenue.”  On the other hand, he saw himself as a supreme leader creating his own emperorship defeating the monarchies that he compared himself to.  Zamoyski does a wonderful job describing the Napoleon-Alexander I relationship as the French autocrat had little respect for the Russian monarch but grew to respect him as he ultimately could not bend Alexander to his will despite professions of love and respect.  Other important insights involve the opposition to Napoleon in France from Jacobins and Royalists.  A number of coups are discussed, and it is clear in Napoleon’s mind that the only way to remain popular and maintain domestic support was to keep delivering victories on the battlefield as opposed to obtaining peace.  For Napoleon war was the tool to tamp down unrest in the military and domestic sphere no matter how much opposition he encountered.

(Klement von Metternich)

Zamoyski relies a great deal on previous research particularly, Napoleon’s invasion of Russia.  His decision making and battlefield conduct are laid out clearly as he quotes from his previous book, 1812: NAPOLEON’S FATAL MARCH ON MOSCOW. Particularly interesting is Napoleon’s admission that invading Russia was a grievous error –  a rare confession. One of the highlights of Zamoyski’s work is his reliance on Napoleon’s remarkable correspondence, personal reflections, and notes left by those close to him to create an exceptional portrait of the French Emperor.

(Alexander I)

Zamoyski’s depiction of Napoleon is enhanced as he tackles his domestic program.  The Code de Napoleon, the Concordat with the Papacy, and his educational system are well known, but reflect interests apart from the conduct of war. However, relying on Napoleon’s letters as he describes his cultural interests, his plans for museums, opera houses, wide boulevards and other cultural and architectural projects allowing the reader to acquire a sense of Napoleon’s desires, not only to conquer and spread his “continental system” throughout Europe, but also to encourage and foster intellectual pursuits.

Zamoyski’s achievement in this book is to bring to life Napoleon as a person, not just a military leader, and political ruler.  He describes a man who viewed the world through the lens of a game of chess, and people, religion, morality, affections, and other interests as pawns in a game where pieces needed to be moved and used as the situation called for.  To Zamoyski’s credit his monograph is eminently readable and deeply researched making it an important contribution to  Napoleonic literature.

Jacques-Louis David: The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries

AMERICAN PROMETHEUS: THE TRIUMPH AND TRAGEDY OF J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER by Kai Bird; Martin Sherwin

szfreiberger Biography, Cold War Leave a comment

As American moviegoers obsess over two films, “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” I decided to view substance over pure glitz, and I guess entertainment.  On opening day, I went to see “Oppenheimer” and I was duly impressed with the acting, dialogue, and overall historical presentation.  The film was based on Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin’s 2005 biography AMERICAN PROMETHEUS: THE TRIUMPH AND TRAGEDY OF J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER a book that stood tall on one of my bookcases for eighteen years – it was time to engage.

Kai Bird, a superb biographer with credits like THE CHAIRMAN, the life story of John J. McCloy, THE COLOR OF TRUTH, a dual biography of the McGeorge and William Bundy, and THE OUTLIER: THE UNFINISHED PRESIDENCY OF JIMMY CARTER tams with Martin Sherwin, who passed away in 2021 known for his seminal work on the atomic bomb in A WORLD DESTROYED: THE ATOMIC BOMB AND THE GRAND ALLIANCE in 1975 and updated in 2003, and GAMBLING WITH ARMAGEDDON: NUCLEAR ROULETTE FROM HIROSHIMA TO THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS in 2022.  Both authors are known for their assiduous research, thoughtful analysis, and command of historical sources and other materials.  Their joint effort supports that evaluation of their previous work and is certain to remain the most important study of Oppenheimer.

Katherine "Kitty" Oppenheimer (Images via Atomic Heritage Foundation, and LIFE Photo Collection/Google Arts and Culture)

(Kitty Oppenheimer, Peter, Toni, Robert)

Oppenheimer’s life is a dichotomy which the author’s describe as an irony of “a life devoted to social justice, rationality and science would become a metaphor for mass death beneath a mushroom cloud.”  In tracing the evolution of Robert’s life we discover an individual who was raised in a household that stressed fairness and integrity, a commitment to scientific learning and progress, teaching the next generation, and a belief that what he had achieved by overseeing the development of the atomic bomb was necessary because of the aegis of war and realized that history had changed leading to taking the necessary steps by sharing the science to prevent a nuclear arms race.  During Robert’s journey he became involved in left wing movements in the 1930s, particularly through speeches and donations involving republican forces in the Spanish Civil War, the unionization of teachers and professors at the University of California, Berkeley, and other causes which fostered the belief that he was a communist.  But in reality, Oppenheimer was nothing more than a typical fellow-traveling New Deal progressive, even though J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI did not think so and would hound him well into the 1950s.

The author’s monograph is all encompassing.  They provide insights into most aspects of his private life.  Their “microscope” encompasses friendships, colleagues, family life – particularly his marriage to Kitty.  They conclude that though they lacked parenting skills, suffered from personality defects they loved each other deeply and were mutually dependent.  It was clear Robert was a polymath whose knowledge of science, literature, poetry, and music dominated his interests.  Bird and Sherwin gather the most important aspects of Robert’s life in a well-written engrossing narrative interspersed with concrete analysis directed at the myths and inaccuracies that have been associated with his life.  To begin, there was no evidence that Robert was a member of the Communist Party no matter how hard the US Army, Intelligence agencies, politicians, and those jealous of his work tried to prove it.  He did associate with known communists, most importantly, Jean Tatlock, the love of his life who eventually committed suicide with whom he carried on long relationship even after he was married, and his brother Frank, also a physicist who was a party member who Robert would eventually bring to Los Alamos.  For Robert, his support rested on social causes and what he considered right and membership in the party by friends and colleagues was not of primary importance.

Photograph showing the head and shoulders of a man in a suit and tie

(Niels Bohr)

Bird and Sherwin do a credible job laying out the leftist’s ideological currents of the 1930s focusing on Haakem Chevalier, a French literature professor at Berkeley who was a committed communist who was suspected of being a conduit for scientific information to the Russians because of his friendship with Robert.  Chevalier and Tatlock were successful in moving Robert from theory to action when it came to social causes.

The names and beliefs of countless individuals associated with Robert come to the reader at a steady pace.  A roster of the most important and brilliant physicists of the age appears.  Most prominent was Neils Bohr, the Danish physicist who won the Nobel Prize in 1922 and was committed to an “open world” by sharing scientific discoveries to prevent future wars; the German scientist Werner Heisenberg who conducted atomic research for the Nazis;  Ernest Lawrence, an American nuclear physicist who won a Noble prize in 1939; Isidor I. Rabi, another American physicist who won a Nobel Prize in 1944; Edward Teller who evolved into a jealous enemy of Oppenheimer and after the war pushed for a hydrogen bomb and replacing Los Alamos with Livermore under his leadership; among many other scientists.  Apart from the scientific community the authors zero in on Robert’s relationship with General Leslie Groves who was in charge of the A-Bomb Project.  The two men generally liked each other as they believed they could outmaneuver each other.  Groves ruled by intimidation, Robert by his charismatic authority.  Groves questioned Robert’s administrative experience and whether he was a security risk, but he soon came to realize that he was the best person to oversee the project.

Theoretical physicist Dr. Edward Teller lecturing at the Miami-Dade Community College North Campus.

(Edward Teller)

The Groves-Oppenheimer relationship was emblematic of the relationship between the Army and the scientists as the nuclear physicists believed that the military’s security protocols hindered their work.  The Army bureaucracy was very suspicious of the leftists’ backgrounds of many of the scientists and it placed Robert and his colleagues under surveillance including illegal wiretaps throughout the period.  Other important non-scientific personalities included Lt. Colonel Boris Pash who was in charge of security at Los Alamos and did not trust Robert, and Lt. Col. John Landsdale, Groves’ security aide  who would come to accept Oppenheimer as a loyal American.

In relating their narrative, the authors integrate a great deal of dialogue taken from Robert’s papers, interviews, and other sources.  It provides the reader with a certain intimacy with the characters and one can develop a very close relationship with Oppenheimer as you read on.  In comparing the film to the book, it is obvious that a great deal of the actor’s dialogue and conversation comes directly from Bird and Sherwin’s research.   

99-1156 (untitled)

(Lewis Strauss)

A key theme that the authors develop is that once Robert is chosen as the director of a weapons laboratory he had to learn to integrate the diverse effort of the far-flung sites of the Manhattan Project and mold them into a usable atomic weapon.  He would develop skills he did not yet possess, deal with problems he could not imagine, develop work habits entirely at odds  with his previous lifestyle, and adjust to modes of behavior that were emotionally awkward and alien to his experience – Oppenheimer would remake a significant part of his personality, if not his intellect in a brief period of time to succeed.  Once Robert realized that the Nazis were working on the bomb it became his mission to develop one for the United States first.  Another theme that repeats throughout the book is that Robert’s statements, support for causes, association with colleagues would come back to haunt him after the war as the United states entered the McCarthy period of political paranoia when it came to communism.

To the author’s credit, there is no mathematics and little physics in the book which made it so readable.  Bird and Sherwin concentrate on an intimate portrayal of Oppenheimer.  As James Buchan wrote in his February 1, 2008, review of The Guardian; here, as it were, are the cocktails and wiretaps and love affairs of Oppenheimer’s existence, his looks and conversation, the way he smoked the cigarettes and pipe that killed him, his famous pork-pie hat and splayed walk, and all the tics and affectations that his students imitated, and the patriots and military men despised. It is as if these authors had gone back to James Boswell, who said of Dr Johnson: “Everything relative to so great a man is worth observing.”

Oppenheimer would become haunted by Hiroshima and came to believe that the Japanese were essentially defeated before the bomb was dropped.  After the war as Director of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton and as advisor to the new Atomic Energy Commission he tried to gain support for international control of nuclear weapons.  He tried to convince President Truman to support his efforts, but Truman labeled him “a crybaby.”  The military and Lewis Strauss, a former banker appointed by Truman to chair the Atomic Energy Commission hated Oppenheimer because of his opposition to plans to build a “super” or hydrogen bomb more powerful and lethal than anything developed previously.

General Leslie R. Groves

(General Leslie Groves)

The section of the book that runs about 70 pages provides insights into the political atmosphere in Washington in the early 1950s.  Strauss hated Oppenheimer for his suspected betrayals and his personality and in 1953 sought to revoke Robert’s security clearance.  The April 1954 Gray Board Hearing, brilliantly portrayed in the film, reflects how a man can lose his head and be totally disgraced by Strauss and Hoover who were convinced Oppenheimer was about to defect to the Soviet Union.  The authors are correct in pointing out that the persecution of Oppenheimer showed liberals that the rules of the national security game had changed.  “Now, even if the issue was not espionage, even if one’s loyalty was unquestioned, challenging the wisdom of America’s reliance on a nuclear arsenal was dangerous.  The Oppenheimer hearings thus represented a significant step in narrowing the public forum during the early cold war.”  The authors are correct when they argue further that Stalin had no designs on Western Europe after the war and once he died there was an opportunity to engage the Russians in arms control talks and prevent a hydrogen bomb fueled nuclear arms race.  However, the Eisenhower administration never tried to approach the Kremlin over arms limitation.

Bird and Sherwin worked on their account for almost thirty years analyzing Oppenheimer’s behavior from many vantage points.  What emerges is a biography that aligns its subject’s most significant decisions with his early education and his ultimate undoing.  The book succeeds in providing an understandable description of their subject even the paradoxical aspects of his personality.  As an aside, the movie was well done, but it does not compare to the book.  In closing it is clear that writing a biography that stresses the intellect of its subject, is an art form – these two gentlemen are masters!

Oppenheimer.

CALHOUN: AMERICAN HERETIC by Robert Elder

szfreiberger American cultural history, American Political History, American Social History, Biography Leave a comment
Oil on canvas painting of John C. Calhoun, perhaps in his fifties, black robe, full head of graying hair

(John C. Calhoun)

Today we live in a country where white supremacism is on the rise, descendants of former slave’s demand reparations, state legislatures try to obstruct the teaching of black history, the College Board gives in to extremists who did not like the content of Advanced Placement African history classes, the Supreme Court ends affirmative action for colleges, and state’s rights advocates seem to have the floor.  Three years short of our 250th anniversary, the United States finds itself with a bifurcated population politically, economically, and socially over issues of race.  The question is how did we get here, when did it originate, and who is responsible?  Historian Robert Elder tries to provide some of the historical background in his recent biography of the former 19th century South Carolina Senator, Vice President, and Secretary of State John C. Calhoun, in CALHOUN: AMERICAN HERETIC.  Some might argue how a man who was so impactful in the first half of the 19th century could still maintain such influence today.  The answer offered by Elder is clear.  Calhoun, a slave owner who argued that slavery was a positive good for America, furthered the doctrine of “state interposition” which for many became the legal argument for secession that led to the Civil War, and was the dominant spokesperson for the south, state’s rights, and the enslavement of blacks deserves a great deal of credit for setting the United States on the path it now finds itself confronting – a political climate that does not seem to have an exit ramp, with racial violence on the upswing.

Portrait of Henry Clay

(Henry Clay)

Elder’s monograph should be considered the definitive account of Calhoun’s life through the lens of a cultural and ideological biography.  The account encompasses all facets of Calhoun’s life and covers the most notable events of the first half of the 19th century.  In doing so Elder traces the intellectual development of his subject very carefully.  He pulls no punches as he outlines in detail how Calhoun went from a proponent of optimistic nationalism featuring what historians refer to as Henry Clay’s American system which consisted of internal improvements such as roads and canals linking the country’s economic development, a low tariff to promote trade, a National Bank, and the use of federal funds to assist the states to achieve his goals. 

As the War of 1812 approached Calhoun justified his views of federal power over the states as a necessity because of the exigencies of war.  Further his ideology was predicated on the concept of “honor,” particularly as it related to British impressment of American citizens.  Throughout his career honor was foremost in his mind especially in debates with colleagues and those who opposed his beliefs.  Elder has engaged in a prodigious amount of research that yields wonderful character studies of Calhoun’s contemporaries.  An interesting example of his commitment to his personal honor belief system is the author’s description of his disagreements reflected in debates with Virginia’s House  leader, John Randolph.  Calhoun as his wont was to employ a carefully crafted barrage of logic that demolished his opponent, raising points with surgical precision one after the other.  It was Calhoun’s strength of debate and putting pen to paper that allowed him to be the equal among the great figures of the period, like Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, among others.

The head and shoulders of a man with light skin and gray hair nearly fills this vertical portrait painting. Shown against a peanut-brown background, the man’s shoulders are angled to our left, and he looks off to our right with blue eyes. His gray hair curls around his forehead and over his ears. His bushy gray eyebrows gather over a furrowed brow, and sideburns grow down past his earlobes. His long, straight, slightly hooked nose and high cheekbones are set into his long, oval-shaped face. His pink lips are closed over a rounded chin, which is framed by vertical wrinkles. The white edge of a collar peeks above the high neck of a velvety black garment with wide lapels. The area beneath the man’s shoulders is a dark ivory color, perhaps indicating that this painting is unfinished.

(President Andrew Jackson)

However, by the late 1820s he argued that the tariff of 1828 was unconstitutional.  His solution,  referred to as the South Carolina Exposition and Protest, argued the concept of “nullification” whereby the states had the right to declare federal actions as “null and void.” His viewpoint was clear as the Tariff of 1816 was designed to provide revenue, not to encourage manufacturing.  The 1828 version was not a revenue measure.  At this point Calhoun was not calling for disunion, as Elder argues he was trying to find a way to preserve the structure of the Union consistent with the principle that power resided in the people, although the people of states.”  Calhoun would work creatively to find solutions for problems that arose within the system.

Calhoun was always a fervent defender of slavery though his justifications were part of an evolutionary process.  He always argued that treating slaves as property gave masters a financial interest in their well-being.  Calhoun was very wary of the British who ended the transatlantic slave trade in 1807 and ended slavery at home in 1833.  His concern rested on his fear that London would undermine slavery as the United States expanded and their machinations throughout the western hemisphere. He would consistently point out British hypocrisy especially its rule of India and of course with his Irish lineage his dislike of England was predictable.

Calhoun’s mindset could be very convoluted as he saw no connection between European feudalism with its lords and vassals and southern slaveholding society.  For Calhoun slavery was a “positive good” as Africans achieved a degree of civilization they had never previously attained.  Further, he argued that slaves were treated better than European laborers who existed among the poor houses of Europe.  Slavery created a stable society unlike the labor unrest in the north.  Finally, he stated slavery was “an institution uniquely suited – morally, economically, politically – to the conditions of the modern world.”  A believer in English philosopher, Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarianism, the greatest good for the greatest number, slavery fit perfectly as black inferiority and lack of progress were self-evident.  Calhoun could compromise at times (see the Missouri Compromise of 1820 or the Compromise of 1850), however, when he believed southern rights centering on slavery were threatened he would draw the line.

Portrait of Daniel Webster

(Daniel Webster)

Elder is correct when he argues that the second watershed in Calhoun’s development apart from 1828 occurred in 1836 as he finally came to reject Jeffersonian principles he once espoused.  First was conflict with Andrew Jackson who created “Pet Banks” that his administration could fund instead of a National Bank – this would foster the Panic of 1837, the worst depression in US history to that point as cotton prices were hit hard.  Further, the election of Martin Van Buren in 1836 reinforced Calhoun’s fears of hereditary monarchy.  The result Calhoun’s views of state’s rights solidified resulting in his vehement support for slavery.  These views were further exacerbated with the Texas annexation crisis, the Mexican War, and northern attempts to block or limit any expansion of slavery into territories acquired from the war.  For Calhoun legislation like the Wilmot Proviso which would not allow slavery in any territory obtained from Mexico pushed Calhoun over the edge arguing that if this went into effect disunion could only result.

(Floride Calhoun, wife of John C. Calhoun)

Elder’s portrayal is of a brilliant man driven by intensity and unrelenting ambition.  He believed that “Providence had placed him” on earth to complete his duty for his country.  Elder strongly suggests that as Calhoun’s political career evolved his moods began to darken as does his belief system.  Elder states he could be “noble, stubborn, suicidal or delusional,” all of which is supported by Calhoun’s own writings, speeches, political activity, and interaction with his contemporaries.  Had Calhoun simply argued that slavery was a necessary evil whose abolishment would mean disaster for the south instead of arguing in a very tortuous manner that it was a moral good, economically sound, and made the south more democratic, he might be viewed more positively by history.  However, his makeup would not allow this, and his defense of white racism, treatment of his slaves, and stubbornness are responsible for his reputation. 

In Elder’s telling, Calhoun loved his country and his region, and despite his flaws his impact on American history cannot be denied.  Elder’s work is one of objectivity that is well supported by the documentary evidence and should remain the most important biography of Calhoun for many years to come.

John C Calhoun by Mathew Brady, 1849. Some scholars think the senator and vice-president was Melville’s model for Captain Ahab.

(John C. Calhoun)

AND THERE WAS LIGHT: ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND AMERICA’S STRUGGLE by Jon Meacham

szfreiberger American Civil War, American Political History, Biography Leave a comment
Abraham Lincoln

In many ways Jon Meacham is the conscience of America.  The Vanderbilt historian and author has a very optimistic view of the American people and his appearances on MSNBC and other programs is usually upbeat when it comes to the future of the United States.  This viewpoint is readily apparent in a number of his books, including THE SOUL OF AMERICA: THE BATTLE FOR OUR BETTER ANGELS where he discusses turning points in American history and how we have overcome numerous issues including partisanship.  Meacham is a prolific author whose books include FRANKLIN AND WINSTON: AN INTIMATE PORTRAIT OF AN EPIC FRIENDSHIP, AMERICAN GOSPEL: GOD, THE FOUNDING FATHERS AND THE MAKING OF THE NATION, AMERICAN LION: ANDREW JACKSON IN THE WHITE HOUSE, HIS TRUTH IS MARCHING ON: JOHN LEWIS AND THE POWER OF HOPE, and DESTINY AND POWER: THE AMERICAN ODDESSY OF GEORGE HERBERT WALKER BUSH.  All books are well written with a degree of empathy for his subjects which is the case with his latest effort, AND THERE WAS LIGHT: ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND AMERICA’S STRUGGLE which tells the story of our 16th president from his birth on the Kentucky frontier to his leadership during the Civil War through his assassination.  For Meacham, Lincoln’s life illustrates the ways and means of politics in a democracy, the roots and durability of racism, and the capacity of conscience to shape events.

Meacham’s Lincoln is a humane and empathetic individual who must overcome personal tragedy and his own demons.  The death of two children, a depressive personality, and a spouse who caused trouble repeatedly must be dealt with as he tries to maintain the union and reunify his country.  Lincoln did not shy away from complex decisions whether dealing with politics, military personnel, or wartime strategy.  He was a firm believer in Jeffersonian equality and the constitution.  He was not averse to making compromises to maintain the union and a democratic form of government.  The idea that the federal government could not end slavery in states where it existed but could prevent its expansion into new territories was deeply ingrained in him.  According to poet and editor James Russell Lowell who wrote in 1864, for Lincoln it was more convenient to say the least, to have a country left without a constitution, than a constitution without a country.”

1862. Allan Pinkerton, President Lincoln, and Maj. Gen. John A. McClernand at Antietam.

(Lincoln at the battle of Antietam)

Meacham’s account of Lincoln’s treatment of slavery is heavily laden with theological arguments and experiences which Lincoln argued was his own enslavement by his overbearing father who forced him to labor and forgo education, to the exposure to reverends preaching against slavery during his boyhood.  Meacham develops anti and pro-slavery ideology throughout the narrative and concludes that Lincoln did not believe in racial equality, favored the colonization of slaves to areas outside the United States, but overall, he could not tolerate individuals being owned by another and having to labor for someone not of his choosing.

The narrative carefully recounts Lincoln’s evolution concerning the slave issue relying on his religious and political development.  Lincoln was a man of compromise in all areas, but not concerning the maintenance of the union.  Meacham reviews the most important debates, events, and movements of the period and offers a dissection of Lincoln’s thought processes and how he finally reached the conclusion in 1862 that after trying everything to appease the south and keep the states as one to announce the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863.

Lincoln only served one term in Congress, but it was an important education.  He learned a great deal about slavery coming into contact with southern members of the House of Representatives, opposing racist legislation, and the need of compromise, not conquest in order to make meaningful change.  Lincoln repeatedly turned to the “Founders” for inspiration and if one examines his speeches it is a combination of religious belief and political pragmatism.  As Lincoln stated in 1861, “I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence.” 

This is an image of Lincoln, Grant, Lee, and Davis.

(Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee)

According to historian Richard Carwardine, “the fatalist and activist were thus infused in Lincoln.”  He was a dichotomy.  He articulated his moral commitment against slavery and his willingness to leave a white dominated society intact.  For him racial prejudice among whites was at such a level that the practical course was to acknowledge and accommodate it.

There are countless interesting aspects of Lincoln’s life that Meacham introduces.  One of the most surprising is his obsession concerning his own birth – was he illegitimate?  Did policy decisions emanate from his own inferiority about his own birth that summoned temporal and divine help, as he tried to put the national family back together when his own family origin was in doubt? 

Meacham does an excellent job reviewing events leading to the Civil War, the course of the war, and the ultimate victory of the north which cost Lincoln his life.  The author concludes that in most aspects of his narrative race is the central cause of the conflict as even if he would free the slaves northern racists were on par with those in the south – the only difference was they did not want to enslave them, but they could not accept that they were equal.

AND THERE WAS LIGHT is not a traditional biography of our 16th president.  It is more a conversation with an eminent historian who examines the intellectual development of his subject while at the same time placing him in the context of the world he lived in and the difficult choices that he made.  Meacham offers an account that is worldly and spiritual, and carefully tailored to suit our conflict-ridden times.  Meacham alludes to the present with examples from the past.  A case in point is Vice President John Breckinridge’s courageous decision to carry out the electoral college faithfully in February 1861 as Mike Pence did in 2021.  Further Lincoln promised to accept the results of the 1864 election, even if he lost, Donald Trump and Kari Lake are you listening?  Lastly, Lincoln’s support for absentee voting for soldiers, unlike Trump’s call to outlaw the process.  Lincoln faced a White supremacists national minority chafing against Jeffersonian ideals which Lincoln was committed to.  With January 6th and further threats of violence Meacham tries to use Lincoln as an example of leadership in somewhat similar times. 

The book is thoroughly researched and highly readable written by a craftsman of the English language.  The book as are his other works is relevant for today as Meacham writes, “ A president who led a divided country in which an implacable minority gave no quarter in a clash over power, race, identity, money, and faith has much to teach us in a twenty-first century moment of polarization, passionate disagreement, and differing understandings of reality.  For while Lincoln cannot be wrenched from the context of his particular times, his story illuminates the ways and means of politics, the marshaling of power in a democracy, the durability of racism, and the capacity of conscience to help shape events.”

refer to caption

G-MAN: J. EDGAR HOOVER AND THE MAKING OF THE AMERICAN CENTURY by Beverly Cage

szfreiberger American cultural history, American Political History, Biography Leave a comment
FBI director J Edgar Hoover aims machine gun

(Long arm of the law: J Edgar Hoover in 1936)

J. Edgar Hoover is considered one of the most controversial figures in 20th century American history.  His reign as FBI head is fraught with controversy and certain peculiarities associated with Hoover on a personal level.  Though Hoover believed the federal government could accomplish great things, his view of the American people was rather narrow, and he felt that minorities and supposed communists did not belong to the American fabric.   He held a strong racist streak and demanded total loyalty and conformity from those who served under him.  He was probably the most powerful government employee of his era serving eight presidents during his reign at the FBI, remaining in power, decade after decade, employing the tools of government to create a private empire unrivaled in American history.

Hoover used his office as a vehicle of intimidation for those he saw as enemies, either personal or governmental, and embodied conservative values ranging from anticommunism to white supremacy to a crusading interpretation of Christianity.  If he were in power today he would fit right in with the MAGA crowd that dominates the rightwing of the Republican party.  Since there has not been a major biographical reassessment of Hoover’s life and role in government in decades, Beverly Gage’s new work, G-MAN: J. EDGAR HOOVER AND THE MAKING OF THE AMERICAN CENTURY fills an important void.

Gage, a professor of American history at Yale University has written an almost encyclopedic  biography of Hoover exploring his personal, ideological, and political development.  The keys to his personality are examined very carefully along with his personal life.  Cage delves into the myths surrounding Hoover and develops sound conclusions based on fact and research not conjecture.  The book should become the go to source on Hoover due to Cage’s research, writing style, and analysis and she should be commended for her effort.

Author image by Kathleen Cei. G-Man cover by Penguin Random House.

Author, Beverly Cage

Cage’s approach focuses on how Hoover tried to twist events to fit his preconceived view of people and movements, particularly those that dealt with civil rights and what Hoover believed was the jurisdiction of the FBI.  Cage’s narrative explores Hoover’s attitudes and role in numerous situations involving the deprivation of civil rights for certain groups especially minorities.  Early in his career the focus is on Hoover’s role in the Palmer raids after World War I.  Here Hoover laid down certain principles regarding leftist politics in American society.  These principles were followed throughout his career and are prevalent in the Roosevelt administrations approach to organized crime in the 1930s, the internment of the Japanese during World War II, and the second Red Scare that emerged after the war.  Though Hoover supposedly believed in following certain FBI protocols designed to follow law, it did not stop him from developing counterintelligence programs like SOLO and COINTELPRO that implemented misinformation, surveillance, wiretapping, and intimidation among his strategies.  This approach dominated the post-World War II period as the FBI was involved in the prosecution of the Hollywood Ten, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Alger Hiss, and others who were convicted of spying for the Soviet Union.  If Hoover smelled a link of some sort with communism, particularly the CPUSA, the FBI head was like a bloodhound until he was able to put his targets away.

The case that stands out is Hoover’s pursuit of Martin Luther King, his strategy in dealing with southern violence against blacks in the 1950s, and his treatment of Freedom Riders and other civil rights actions in the 1960s.  Cage correctly points out that at times Hoover could appear to be working with King and his movement, but his hatred for the head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference was all consuming.  Hoover was obsessed with bringing King down and he employed COINTELPRO techniques to achieve his goals as he tried to prove that Dr. King was a communist with links to the Soviet Union and was a threat to American national security.

It is clear from Cage’s portrayal that Hoover was a racist and she does a commendable job tracing his views back to his upbringing in Washington, DC, then a segregated city, his attendance at George Washington University, and his participation in Kappa Alpha, a southern fraternity which highlighted segregationist and other racist views.  Kappa Alpha played an important role in how Hoover filled positions at the FBI, and the perfect agent for Hoover was part of the fraternity who attended George Washington University Law School and other similarities to the FBI Head’s own background.  This in large part explains how FBI personnel approached many civil rights issues.

Clyde Tolson and J. Edgar Hoover.

(Clyde Tolson and J. Edgar Hoover never openly acknowledged a sexual or romantic relationship)

Cage investigates Hoover’s relationship with each president he served.  A number of surprising things emerged.  Hoover had a very unique relationship with FDR.  Historians usually describe the New Deal leader as a progressive, however his approach to civil rights in many cases was in line with Hoover and they come across as allies in a number of situations according to Cage.  Hoover’s relationship with Harry Truman was poor and Cage quotes a number of derogatory comments by Hoover pertaining to the man from Missouri.  Hoover greatly enjoyed working with Dwight Eisenhower, in large part because his good friend and ideological soulmate Richard Nixon was Vice President.  Hoover’s relationship with the Kennedy’s was fraught with negativity due to the actions of Attorney General Robert Kennedy who he despised.  As far as John F. Kennedy is concerned, Hoover thought very little of him and was not beyond using intelligence he gathered against the president to remain as head of the FBI.  Lyndon Johnson and Hoover got along well, except for Civil Rights legislation, but they had been friends and neighbors going back to the 1930s.  Richard Nixon was a special case.  They were very close friends and Hoover shared intimate information with him.  By 1968 they became more than friends but political allies as Nixon was trying to resurrect his presidential ambitions and Hoover was fighting off calls for his retirement after the King and Robert Kennedy assassinations.  Once Nixon became President Hoover was ecstatic as his “red baiting” past lined up well with the new occupant of the White House. 

One of the most fascinating aspects of Cage’s narrative is her discussion of the image and policies Hoover projected.  His belief in “gentlemen” law enforcement types like lawyers and accountants as opposed to officers with guns.  His credo concerning agents with guns would change as time went on and crime and violence dominated American society in the 1930s and after World war II.  Hoover’s goal of a professional bureaucracy dealing with crime would be altered and Cage does a wonderful job integrating Hoover’s policies with that of the larger society.  Apart from the political implications that surrounded Hoover’s tenure in office, Cage delves into social and cultural aspects that affected FBI policies.  A prime example is how Hoover appointed his close friend Clyde Tolson to head up the public relations office at the FBI to promote certain policies and images.  For Hoover, Tolson’s job was to promote Hoover as the moral leader of the country, though when one digs deeply as Cage has done, hypocrisy was more Hoover’s calling card.  The Tolson-Hoover relationship is explored in detail, keeping away from any salacious stories and sticking to opinions that rely mostly on facts and not conjecture.

J Edgar Hoover and Richard Nixon

(FBI director J Edgar Hoover with Richard Nixon in 1968).

Cage stresses Hoover’s popularity among politicians and the American people that lasted for decades.  As she summarizes the course of Hoover’s career she correctly argues that “If the period from 1924-1945 had been one of institution building – and of constructing Hoover’s national reputation – the period from 1945-1959 was when he learned to wield power as an independent political force, no longer subordinate to other man’s agendas.”  Despite his role in the Red Scare, McCarthyism, the rise of Castro, and his actions in dealing with southern white racism his popularity seemed to increase.

One of the more interesting chapters entitled “Atomic Drama” explores the period when the Soviet Union successfully tested the atomic bomb, the Chinese Communists were victorious, North Korea attacked the south, and Russian spies infiltrated Britain’s MI6.  Cage offers portraits of Elizabeth Bentley, Kim Philby and others and digs into the poor relationship between Hoover and British intelligence which had a very low opinion of the FBI head.  This chapter also includes a step by step analysis of how the Soviets infiltrated the Manhattan Project and how the Harry Gold network was uncovered which led to the trials mentioned earlier.

1953 was a watershed year for Hoover’s career with the arrival of Eisenhower in the White House and the weakening of Joseph McCarthy on the American political scene.  From this point on it appears that American presidents were wary of the intelligence Hoover had accumulated over the decades, i.e.; JFK’s sexual liaisons, anyone who might have even the most minute link to communism and on and on.

The breadth of Cage’s research is on full display throughout the narrative.  She did not stop with traditional areas of historical research and includes the application of other social sciences.  A case in point was her discussion of Hoover’s possible homosexuality in the midst of the “Lavender Scare” (that coincided with the post-World War II Red Scare) and integrates the ideas of psychoanalyst Karen Horney’s work in trying to understand a number of Hoover’s motives and inner guilt to the point that Hoover pushed for and gained legislation keeping suspected homosexuals from being employed by the federal government.

Martin Luther King, Jr., J. Edgar G. Hoover (AP)

(Martin Luther King….J. Edgar Hoover)

What is interesting is that Hoover’s career began red baiting the left after World War I, going after supposed anarchists, members of the Communist party and others.   The result was the Palmer raids and intolerance toward immigrants.  Hoover’s work came full circle in the late 1960s and early 1970s  as he went after the evolving “New Left,” and instituted elements of COINTELPRO against Martin Luther King and groups like the SDS, SCLC, and the Black Panthers.  Clearly Hoover’s career had evolved 360 degrees.

Cage is very succinct in her analysis and her attention to detail is amazing.  She concludes that Hoover finally had difficulties in the 1960s as “he departed more and more from his vision of the FBI as a professional, apolitical institution and a bastion of upright, objective government men.  The contradictions that he had negotiated for so long – between liberalism and conservatism, between his faith in apolitical governance and his commitment to an ideological cause – finally collapsed in on themselves.  So did the American consensus that had once sustained him….He began the 1960s widely celebrated as the nation’s greatest living public servant.  He ended it as one of the country’s most polarizing and controversial men.”  No matter what your opinion of Hoover might be after reading Cage’s excellent work, it is clear that his impact in most areas of American society for over five decades cannot be denied.   Jennifer Szalai conclusion put forth in her ­New York Times review of November 19, 2022, is dead on in that “this is a humanizing biography, but I wouldn’t call it a sympathetic one — as Gage shows, Hoover accrued too much power and racked up too many abuses for him to be worthy of that. What she provides instead is an acknowledgment of the complexities that made Hoover who he was, while also charting the turbulent currents that eventually swept him aside. Today, the once mightiest of G-men “has few admirers and almost nobody willing to claim his legacy,” she writes, “even within the F.B.I.”

(FBI director J. Edgar Hoover is seen in his Washington office, May 20, 1963. The 1971 burglary of one of the bureau’s offices revealed the agency’s domestic surveillance program).

THE REVOLUTIONARY: SAMUEL ADAMS by Stacy Schiff

szfreiberger American Revolution, Biography, British History Leave a comment
Samuel Adams

(Samuel Adams)

What criteria should be used to determine if a person can be labeled a “founding father?”  We all know that John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, George Washington and a host of others qualify, however each has their own foibles and when examined they may detract from their reputations.  Do other members of the American Revolutionary generation qualify?  If so, whom?  In Stacy Schiff’s latest work, THE REVOLUTIONARY SAMUEL ADAMS the author makes the case for the cousin of John Adams to join this elite company.  Schiff, a Pulitzer Prize winner is also the author of THE WITCHES OF SALEM, 1692, A GREAT IMPROVISATION: FRANKLIN, FRANCE, AND THE BIRTH OF AMERICA, and biographies of Cleopatra, Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov, and Saint-Exupery.  Schiff  explores the birth of the American Revolution in Boston and the artful and elusive instigator and master of misinformation whose contributions made it all happen – Samuel Adams.

Adam Gopnik in his review of Schiff’s work in The New Yorker, October 31, 2022, characterizes Adams’ role in the revolution as almost invisible, “but his fingerprints are everywhere.  He shaped every significant episode in the New England run up to war.  Yet how he did it, or with what confederates, or even with what purpose – did he believe in American independence from the start, or was it forced on him by the wave of events, as it was on others? – is muddied by an absence of diaries or letters or even many firsthand accounts.”  It is a credit to Schiff that lacking documentary evidence she constructs her book “from a pleasant tapestry of incident and inference.  She has a fine eye for the significant detail and knows how to compose that lovely thing the comic-comprehensive catalogue.”

After reading Schiff’s narrative it is clear that Samuel Adams should be labeled the “instigator-in-chief” of the American Revolution.  Adams was an opportunist, a purveyor of half-truths, but in the end truly idealistic.  Schiff explores Adams’ role in the American political theater of the day as he “employed unreliable rumormongering, slanted news writing, misleading symbolism, even viral meme-sharing” – all of which was evident from the outset of his revolutionary role.  He inaugurated the American tradition of show-business politics but was also a realist realizing that his goals could not be achieved without colonial unity.

ThomasHutchinsonByEdwardTruman.jpg

(British Governor Thomas Hutchinson)

Schiff’s focus centers on a few major events and significant personalities.  The author does an exceptional job in these areas as she dissects the Land Bank Committee, the Stamp Act, the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, and the growth of the Committees of Correspondence, and what transpired at Lexington and Concord.  As far as individuals, she sets Adams against Governor Thomas Hutchinson and General Thomas Gage who also served as Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.  Other influential figures include Dr. James Warren, John Dickinson, Thomas Paine, James Otis, John Adams, Thomas Cushing, John Hancock, Paul Revere, and Benjamin Franklin.

Schiff’s approach is chronological as she follows Adams’ actions from 1751 through the onset of revolution.  It is not a traditional biography as Schiff zeroes in on Adams’ “words” and his ability to rile the British and bring about an inclusive colonial network that pushed against Britain’s attempt to control the colonies and use them as a “monetary source” in order to pay for its large debt dating to the French and Indian War. 

Adams’ radicalization stems from the 1751 Land Bank Committee whose currency policies and trade imbalance increased the debts of many Boston residents including Samuel Adams.  Adams would develop the Boston Gazette in order to disseminate his views as a result, and ironically he was appointed a tax collector in 1758.  In her discussion Schiff provides an excellent description of pre-revolutionary Boston and the Massachusetts Bay Colony in general.

Up until 1764 Adams personal situation consisted of debt, loss of family, the collapse of his malt business, fighting with creditors, etc.  But 1764 would become a watershed year in his career as an agitator for less British control of the colonies because of the imposition of the Sugar Act as London sought increased revenues from colonies undergoing tremendous economic growth.  That summer Schiff points out that Adams marriage to Elizabeth Wells was as significant as British actions as her ambitions and strengths mirrored those of her husband.

Schiff’s insightful commentary is on full display with the issuance of the Stamp Act in 1765 as Adams argued that London’s actions actually benefitted the colonies as it awoke in them their desire for the rights and privileges of Englishmen and helped unite the colonies.  Further, it would spawn the creation of the Sons of Liberty.

Throughout, Schiff develops the back and forth between Adams and Hutchinson.  The British governor believed that Adams was the devil and was responsible for everything that went wrong during his reign from the destruction of his house to the dumping of tea in Boston Harbor.  The author provides the letters, articles, and speeches of each highlighting her extensive research.  Schiff also does admirable job delving into personalities, viewpoints, and actions of members of the Massachusetts Legislature and their overall relationship with the crown. Governor Francis Bernard, who preceded Hutchinson in office, Otis, Adams, Cushing, Hancock, and the role of others are all stressed.

John Singleton Copley Art Print featuring the painting General Thomas Gage by John Singleton Copley

(British General and Governor Thomas Gage)

Schiff concentrates on Boston and all the major events that took place in the city, but also how these events affected Philadelphia and New York including their response.  Adams’ most important creation may have been the Committees of Correspondence which can be considered an 18th century “twitter” which allowed the colonies to communicate with each other and be kept up to date with the latest news and movements or as one reviewer described as “a patriot espionage network.”  Adam’s action helped unify the colonies, with major help from London whose imposition of the Townshend Acts which imposed new taxes on paper, paint, nails, and tea in 1767, the Quartering Act which stated colonists had to house British troops, British troops firing on Boston citizens in 1770, the Port Act, and blockading Boston after the Tea Party in 1773 made Adam’s task that much easier.

Periodically, Schiff shifts her focus to Adam’s writing style and strategy.  Words came easily to Adams, who could “turn a small grievance into an unpardonable insult before others had arrived at the end of a sentence.”  It was the golden age of the printed word with six newspapers in Boston alone.  One of Adam’s most effective tools was the use of “pseudonyms” be it Vindex, Candius, A Chatterer, A Son of Liberty, over thirty in all which was quite successful and allowed Adams to seem as if he were everywhere.  Other tools in the toolbox included lies, facts, imagery, comments by royalists, and of course his creativity, i.e.; exploiting vocabulary by applying words such as inalienable and unconstitutional.

Schiff’s research provides a roadmap into Adam’s thoughts.  She dissects his arguments and admires his ability to create havoc and develop support for his cause throughout the colonies against London.  In each instance she explains the actions and opinions of major events as they develop and how the important personalities coped with them.  One of Schiff’s strengths is her ability to discuss the role of each player in any situation.  A case in point is whether the Boston Tea Party would have occurred without his leadership.

John Hancock

(John Hancock)

It is clear from Schiff’s narrative that Samuel Adams was the prime mover in prodding the colonists from loyalty to rebelliousness against England in less than a decade.  The text deals very little with Adam’s pre-revolutionary career and post-revolutionary life zeroing in on a 15 year period from 1764 on.  As historian Amy Greenburg writes in her October 22, 2022, New York Times Review, arguing that lessening Adam’s role in the revolution was a mistake and “Stacy Schiff redresses this oversight by celebrating the man who “wired a continent for rebellion.” There is a lot to admire about this rabble-rouser. He was utterly incorruptible; colonial authorities tried to buy him off with public office (“the time-honored method”), but Adams could be neither bribed nor intimidated. He cared nothing for personal gain, and, in his own words, gloried “in being what the world calls a poor man.” He was deeply idealistic, had great personal equanimity and was a gifted orator. He promoted public education for women long before it was fashionable. He was a tender father to his two children and, although his financial mismanagement forced his wife into manual labor while he was at the Second Continental Congress, he was also a loving husband. Readers are reminded more than once that Adams abhorred slavery, and when offered the gift of an enslaved woman, he insisted that she be freed before joining his household. Schiff paints a vivid portrait of a demagogue who was also a decorous man of ideals, acknowledging Adams’s innovative, extralegal activities as well as his personal virtues.” After digesting Schiff’s arguments, It is clear that Samuel Adams deserves to be labeled as part of that august group of “founders.”

Samuel Adams (1722-1803)

(Samuel Adams)

MR PUTIN: OPERATIVE IN THE KREMLIN by Fiona Hill and Clifford G. Gaddy

szfreiberger Biography, Russian History Leave a comment
Vladimir Putin news:
(Vladimir Putin through the ages!)

As of today, Ukrainian forces have launched a successful counter-offensive against Russia in the northeastern part of the country and have liberated the key city of Izyum and have had success throughout the Kharkiv region.  For the first time there may be rumblings in Moscow concerning how the war is evolving – the question is how Vladimir Putin will respond.  An excellent source to consult is Fiona Hill and Clifford G. Gaddy’s thorough study MR. PUTIN: OPERATIVE IN THE KREMLIN.  The book was originally published in 2013 and updated shortly after the Russian seizure and annexation of Crimea in 2014.  The authors dispel certain misconceptions about Putin and offer an analysis of where Putin’s ideas originate, how he perceives the outside world, and how far he is willing to go.  Though the book is seven years old its conclusions are very prescient and offers a psychological, political, diplomatic, and economic approach to try and understand Putin and in many cases their observations have been quite accurate.

Hill and Gaddy have written a perceptive account of what Putin really wants for Russia and how it could possibly be undone.  As David Hearst writes in The Guardian, May 2013;  “The many sources of the system he has created are amply and brilliantly clarified in this book. Mr Putin, Operative in the Kremlin (note the mister, not comrade) is a readable and informed portrait painted by two students of Russian history who had, at various times in their careers, a front-row view. Fiona Hill, a Brookings Institution academic, spent 2006-9 as national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia at the US National Intelligence Council. The economist Clifford Gaddy once advised the Russian finance ministry on regional tax and has investigated how Putin’s financial dealings relate to his KGB past.” 

Vladimir Putin news:
(Vladimir Putin, age 8)

From the outset the authors argue there is very little information regarding Putin that is “definitive, confirmable, or reliable.”  However, there are observations that seem appropriate.  First, Putin has shaped his overall fate.  Second, there is little documentary evidence to support the idea of Putin’s extensive wealth.  Even if Putin did enrich himself, the authors argue they do not believe that “a quest for personal wealth is primarily what drives him.”  Third, Putin likes to employ misinformation and contradictory information to create an image that is unknowable and unpredictable, and therefore dangerous – keep people guessing and fear what he might do.  Fourth, Putin likes to stage a number of outfits and scenarios to portray himself as the ultimate Russian action man, capable of dealing with every eventuality.  Each outfit and scenario are designed to pay a degree of respect for certain goals and validates their place in Russian society and history.  The authors present numerous examples to support these observations.

r/ANormalDayInRussia - Putin with his daughters and wife, early 90's
(Putin with his wife and daughters in the early 1990s)

The key to the analysis presented rests on the authors breaking down Putin’s six identities which explain his actions from his rise to power, reinvigorating the Russian economy in the 2000-2012 period, controlling the oligarchs, returning to the presidency in 2013, to an aggressive foreign policy in dealing with Georgia, Ukraine and the west in general designed to restore Russia’s rightful place in the world balance of power.  These identities are; Statist, History Man, Survivalist, Outsider, Free Marketeer, and Case Officer.  After explaining the context of each in a succinct and thoughtful manner the authors have provided important perceptions and insights into what Putin thinks and why he does what he does. 

The 1990s, a period of chaos, corruption, and economic decline form the basis of the Statist, History Man, and Survivalist identities, and Putin’s personal narrative.  The next three identities the Outsider, Free Marketeer, and Case Officer are more personal.  The authors center on Putin growing up in a working class neighborhood of Leningrad, a city which survived the Nazi siege, starvation, and 750,000 deaths, a situation which greatly impacted Putin’s psychological and emotional development.  Further, the authors point to Putin’s years in the KGB at home and abroad, particularly his 1985-1989 years in Dresden where he missed Gorbachev’s policies of glasnost and  perestroika and the dissolution of the Soviet Union.  Importantly, the authors develop Putin’s post-Soviet St. Petersburg activities as a participant in local government and in a series of below-the-radar positions in the Kremlin in the late 1990s allowing him to develop  a unique combination of skills and experiences that propelled him to the presidency in 1999-2000.  But, overall, Putin’s persona was as an Outsider as he was outside of Russia or ensconced in St. Petersburg away from policy makers in Moscow.

Putin old and young

An excellent example of how the authors analysis works is to point to Putin’s world view through his speeches.  The first, March 18, 2014, and the speech he made yesterday on September 21, 2022.  Remarkably, both speeches support the conclusion that Putin’s perception of the outside world has not changed in eight years and probably from previous decades.  The March 2014 speech came on the heels of the Russian annexation of Crimea a belief that he was restoring  Russia’s position as a great power and world civilization.  This was part of the Statist role for Putin in addition to that of the History Man internationally as he staked out a place for the Russian people in the great sweep of global history and has rewritten the narrative of Russia’s interactions with the outside world.  He has acted as a Survivalist who sets out to ensure that Russia can protect itself against all external threats, by preparing and deploying “every reserve or resource-even history itself-in the state’s defense.  The author’s insights are on the mark as they argue, “the operative in the Kremlin has projected himself abroad by drawing on his firsthand experiences and insights as an Outsider and the Free Marketeer, and by applying the professional tools of the Case Officer.”

putin-FE03-main
(Judo training)

Putin’s rationale for his invasion of Georgia in 2008, the annexation of Crimea, and the current invasion of Ukraine are all similar.  The European Union is a stalking horse for the West, the expansion of NATO, and western opposition to Russian actions are all designed to destroy Russia from within and without.  Putin believes that containing Russia has been a western priority since the 1700s and continues in the case of Ukraine.  Putin’s speech yesterday is a rerun arguing that Russia only pursues defensive actions to counteract western support for Ukraine.  Threats of nuclear war, calling up 300,000 reservists to complete his “special operation” emanate from the same place in Putin’s psyche.

Putin’s disenchantment with the United states developed from 1999.  The importance of NATO bombing of Yugoslavia over Kosovo in 1999 deeply impacted Putin.  He saw it as a threat to Slavs and highlighted Russian weakness and distrust of the west.  Putin claims that he tried to improve relations with the United States by helping after 9/11 and the war against al-Qaeda.  But he was put off by the Bush administration who invaded Iraq, pulled out of nuclear arms treaties, allowed for Baltic states becoming NATO members, all reflecting America’s lack of respect for Russia.  Putin’s true feelings emerge publicly in his 2007 speech at the Munich Security Conference where he lambasted the United States where he stressed how NATO actions were an American provocation that reduced the level of trust Russia had toward the west.  Even when the Obama administration sought a reset with Russia, Congress passed the Sergei Magnitsky Act which imposed sanctions against Russian officials who were complicit in the death of the crusading lawyer, further Putin was angered by US actions in Libya and Syria.

The authors correctly argue that the invasion of Georgia was a dress rehearsal for events that would take place in Ukraine in December 2013.  With Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych fleeing to Moscow in February 2014 after refusing to move closer to the European Union and joining Putin’s Eurasian Union protestors took to the streets in Kyiv’s Maidan (Independence) Square – the Russian autocrat would have visions of Dresden in December 1989.  Putin’s assessment of developments was seen through the lens of his experiences in Dresden in 1989 when East Germany fell without a fight as did the Soviet Union upending Moscow’s position in Europe destroying the entire Soviet bloc.  In Putin’s mind if Ukrainian protests were allowed to continue then Kyiv would push toward the European Union and eventually NATO membership circumventing his economic plans for the east. 

Vladimir Putin pictures over the years.

Putin believed Western and European leaders encouraged protestors and the opposition and once again the United States and its EU allies had overthrown a regime without firing a shot.  Since Putin strongly believed that “Ukrainians and Russians were not just fraternal peoples: there were one single, united people” events were devastating to Moscow’s goals.  Putin reached into his Case Officer’s bag of tricks to punish Ukraine – cutting off $10 billion worth of trade, turning off the energy spigot, demanding Kyiv pay off its debts to Russia, the usual misinformation surrounding Ukraine’s role in World War II, and played on the fears of ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine.   Based on events and Putin’s raison d’etre it is not surprising that Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, and subsequently invaded all of Ukraine eight years later.

The concise analysis and extensive research based on academic and government experience and delving into Putin’s speeches and writings serve the authors well in developing their narrative.  It is clear from their analysis that Putin believes his personal destiny is that of the Russian state and its past – for him it provides legitimacy.  This is Putin the Statist as he rejects autocracy and claims Russia is a “sovereign democracy.”  In addition, Putin wraps himself in the Orthodox church, and the collective people of Russia – nationalism.  Putin hates social upheaval and identifies himself as a Survivalist as he and his parents survived World War II in Leningrad.  The Survivalist moniker is very apt when one examines Putin’s life.  First, his childhood and the politics in St. Petersburg.  Second, his career as Deputy Mayor when he bungled the food crisis in St. Petersburg.  Third, the chronic food shortages throughout the 1990s.  Fourth, dealing with the economic crisis of 2008-2010. 

There are many more examples, but in all cases he emerged intact politically with a strengthened ego.  He learned new strategies particularly how to manipulate Russian natural resources to achieve his goals, something he continues to do today by cutting off energy supplies to Western Europe as a means of changing the course of the war in Ukraine.  Putin’s Survivalist actions comport with historian, Masha Gessen’s analysis in that he is proud of his “thuggish” reputation, and it is central to his public persona dating back to his childhood “courtyard culture,” and “outsider” status, i.e.., treatment of Chechnya in 1999,  today’s Ukraine, blackmailing oligarchs to submit to his will etc.

  • New Russian President Vladimir Putin takes the presidential oath on the Constitution of the Russian Federation in Moscow's Kremlin Palace on May 7, 2000. Former president Boris Yeltsin looks on during the inauguration ceremony after having resigned on December 31, 1999.(
  • New Russian President Vladimir Putin takes the presidential oath on the Constitution of the Russian Federation in Moscow’s Kremlin Palace on May 7, 2000. Former president Boris Yeltsin looks on during the inauguration ceremony after having resigned on December 31, 1999.AFP/AFP/Getty Images) (Below, Anatoli Sobchak and Putin)
  • Vladimir Putin, then St. Petersburg deputy mayor, standing with former mayor Anatoly Sobchak in 1994. Putin helped orchestrate Sobchak's escape to Paris when he was under criminal investigation in 1997.

If there is an area that the authors could have made clearer is when they get bogged down in the minutia of Putin’s approach to the Russian economy and industrial production.  Putin’s mantra is “strategic planning,” a concept he plagiarized from the works of David Cleland and William King’s book, STRATEGIC PLANNING AND POLICY which he lifted to write his supposed “dissertation.”  Either way the author’s final analysis is spot on – the strategic model Putin has put in place cannot work.  Putin runs Russia like a corporation, Russia, Inc., but it is a country.  Putin sees himself as a CEO, but he can never be fired.  The system he has created is built on mistrust and all decisions run through Putin as he does not accept anything but total loyalty.  People are bought off, but not in the traditional way.  First they are compromised, and loyalty is created through blackmail – Putin as Case officer! 

Corruption is the glue that keeps Putin’s informal system afloat.  With no strategic reserve of qualified people, Putin just moves people around to keep them guessing and under his control.  This hyper personalized system is a failure, and the Russian people are paying the price.  Russia has come full circle.  With his misinformation onslaught in 2013-14 (the rhetoric is similar to today) Putin managed to move Russia psychologically back to the 1980s and the Cold War with perceptions, threat, and fears of an American attack.  By engaging in this type of former KGB head and Soviet president Yuri Andropov thinking, Putin has moved Russia closer to the world view of the 1980s more than outside observers realized.  Putin’s Russia is a very different country from the 1990s and the west in general.

The book should be read by anyone seeking to understand Putin’s modus operandi, what he hopes to achieve, and the threat he presents to those who favor the rule of some type of “international accommodation,” (notice I did not say law!)  Interestingly, the section where the authors allude to future Putin actions and rationales as of today seem quite accurate.

July caused global shortages

Vladimir Putin at the plenary session of the 2022 Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok

SAVING FREUD: THE RESCUERS WHO BROUGHT HIM TO FREEDOM by Andrew Nagorski

szfreiberger Biography, psychology Leave a comment
Sigmund Freud (1856 –1939), medical doctor, neuropathologist and founder of psychoanalysis.  
(Sigmund Freud)

There are numerous biographies of Sigmund Freud, the best ones I have read include Peter Gay’s FREUD: A LIFE FOR OUR TIMES, Joel Whitebrook’s FREUD: AN INTELLECTUAL BIOGRAPHY, and an earlier work, Ronald W. Clark’s FREUD: THE MAN AND THE CAUSE.  The latest monograph SAVING FREUD: THE RESCUERS WHO BROUGHT HIM TO FREEDOM by Andrew Nagorski is not a complete biography but one that focuses on how Freud and fifteen of his followers managed to escape Austria in 1938 as Hitler and his Nazis achieved their Anschluss with Austria triggering a wave of anti-Semitic violence.  While Nagorski provides biographical details of Freud’s life, his main thrust is the years leading up to World War II.  Nagorski tells an engrossing tale of how there was little margin for error for Freud as he escaped Nazi persecution.

Nagorski a former Newsweek correspondent has written a number of excellent works dealing with 1930s and World II, including HITLERLAND: AMERICAN EYEWITNESSES TO THE NAZI RISE TO POWER, THE NAZI HUNTERS, 1941: THE YEAR GERMANY LOST THE WAR, and THE GREATEST BATTLE: STALIN, HITLER AND THE DESPARATE STRUGGLE FOR MOSCOW THAT CHANGED THE COURSE OF WORLD WAR II.  In all instances Nagorski’s works reflect superb command of his material based on extensive research of secondary and primary materials, including significant interviews with his subject’s contemporaries and descendants.  His latest effort is no exception.

(Sigmund Freud and his daughter Anna)

When the Nazis took over Austria Freud was eighty two years old having spent most of his life in Vienna.  The founder of psychoanalysis found himself in the middle of an unfolding nightmare.  Many have asked why Freud and his family did not leave Vienna earlier as the Nazi handwriting was on the wall and early on it was relatively easy to do so.  After his apartment and publishing house were attacked, his daughter Anna’s arrest and interrogation by the Gestapo, Freud still hoped to ride out the storm expecting “that a normal rhythm would be restored, and honest men permitted to go on their ways without fear.”  Struggling with cancer, Freud was in denial knowing that he had little time left and did not want to go through the upheaval of relocating.  It would take an ad hoc rescue squad to arrange his escape from Vienna that included sixteen people, made up of family members and his doctor and family.

If it were not a true story Freud’s escape to live out his last fifteen months in London would make a superb spy novel.  After presenting useful biographical chapters where Nagorski focused on the development of Freudian theories, he concentrated on his relationships with contemporaries like Carl Jung and Ernest Jones.  This was important to Freud because as he  developed a psychiatric following he worried they were dominated by Jews.  Freud was very concerned that his life’s work was becoming a target for anti-Semites who screamed it was a “Jew science.”  Freud would cultivate promising non-Jewish psychoanalysts as Nagorski points out his relationships with Carl Jung and Ernest Jones were partly fostered because they were  Christians.  Of the two, Jones would become a lifelong friend and colleague and would play a prominent role in Freud’s escape from Austria in 1938.

Ernest Jones Photo
(Sigmund Freud and Ernest Jones)

Nagorski delves deeply into the Freud-Jung relationship which at one point saw Freud anoint his friend the heir to his leadership in the psychoanalytic community.  As time progressed Freud’s opinion of Jung declined believing he had become a man of “mystical tendencies” that prevented a clear scientific approach to his work.  Further he believed Jung had developed a “confused mind,” and may have had anti-Semitic tendencies.  By 1914 their break was complete.

Nagorski provides an important window into what Vienna experienced before, during and after World War I in addition to the 1920s leading to the eventual Anschluss with Germany in 1938.  He delves into the intellectual and cultural life of the city and the important personalities involved.  An additional  key to Nagorski’s narrative is how the lives and beliefs of Freud’s “rescue squad” evolved.  The most important seems to be Ernest Jones, the Englishman who became Freud’s closest friend, biographer, and a psychoanalyst in his own right.  Others include William C. Bullit, an American journalist and ambassador to Russia and France who developed an important relationship with Freud.  Both men despised President Woodrow Wilson seeing him as an egotistical personality whose actions at the Versailles Conference they opposed.  In addition, they co-wrote a psychohistory of the former president which was not published until 1967 long after Freud’s death.  Marie Bonaparte, a former patient of Freud’s plays a significant role as Napoleon’s great grandniece who had many important contacts and funds to help finance Freud’s escape and like many of his patients went on to be a psychotherapist in her own right.  Dr. Max Schur, Freud’s doctor during the last decade of his life and a man who kept him on an even keel.  Anton Sauerwald, a Nazi trustee in charge of dealing with the Freud family after the Anschluss was a rather mysterious character.  Lastly, and most importantly Freud’s daughter Anna, who became his lifelong caretaker and developed her own career in psychiatry focusing on the mental health of children.  All pursued interesting lives and the mini biographies presented enhance Nagorski’s narrative.

Marie Bonaparte, © IMAGNO/Sigm.Freud Priv.Stiftung
(Marie Bonaparte)

Most people are unaware of Freud’s disdain for the United States.  He visited America in 1909 and was taken aback by American materialism and lack of intellect.  As noted previously he opposed the policies of Woodrow Wilson, and he would not consider the United States as a place to emigrate after the Anschluss.  Nagorski points out that Freud was a German nationalist whose predictions pertaining to World War I were off base.  He believed it would be devastating to both sides, but for him it became more bloody and destructive than anyone could have imagined.  Freud came to realize the consequences of the war and was rather prophetic in his comments based on events in the 1930s.

William C. Bullitt
(William C. Bullit)

Rachel Newcomb in her September 2, 2022 , Washington Post review of Nagorski’s work addresses why it took Freud so long to agree to leave Austria arguing, “Freud continued to believe that Austria would maintain its independence from Germany, right up until March 1938, when Hitler made his final push into Vienna, cheered on by a mob of rabid supporters. Gangs ransacked Jewish businesses, including the psychoanalytic publishing house managed by Freud’s son Martin, while brownshirts paid a visit to the Freud household and had to be bribed the equivalent of $840 to leave them alone. Yet Freud continued to refuse his colleagues’ entreaties to leave. Suffering from cancer of the jaw, acquired from a habit of smoking 20 cigars a day, he was already in his 80s and knew he did not have much time left. When asked later why he had delayed his departure so long, his daughter Anna Freud blamed his illness as well as his inability to “imagine any ‘new life’ elsewhere. What he knew was that there were only a few grains of sand left in the clock — and that would be that.” But once Anna was arrested and interrogated by the Gestapo, Freud realized that to ensure her future, he would have to leave Austria.” 

(Dr. Max Schur)

Newcomb is correct in her analysis and nicely sums up the overall impact of the book writing, “readers looking for an in-depth exploration of the tenets of psychoanalysis will not find that here, but SAVING FREUD contains just enough about the central themes of Freud’s professional life to give a sense of his impact on the discipline he is largely credited with inventing. Unlike other, more critical biographies, the Freud that emerges from these pages is warm, avuncular and excessively fond of Anna, who he knew would carry on his legacy. The narrative pace and Nagorski’s fluid writing give this book the character of an adventure story. It is an engrossing but sobering read that reminds us how many others without the resources of the Freud family had no similar options to make an exodus.”

Sigmund Freud
(Sigmund Freud)