Followers of The PassionateReader.blog may be wondering if I have abandoned it, but I have just been reading this laudatory door stopper biography of the title American right-wing pol who could nowadays be considered a master «influencer », using any excuse like watching the Canadian curling Olympic trials to take a break.
From his aristocratic birth in 1925, to his death in 2008, the life and influence he wielded is documented in exquisite detail. He used his remarkable oratory skills and writing to maximum benefit to push for the right wing agenda in American political life. The book documents his interactions with a host of friends and enemies alike, with more than a hundred household names. These include in no particular order, McGeorge Bundy, E. Howard Hunt, Sylvia Plath, Wm. Sloan Coffin, Ayn Rand, George McCarthy, Alger Hiss, Dean Acheson, Whittaker Chambers, Henry Kissinger, T.S. Elliot, Robert Penn Warden, Adam Clayton Powell, Booker T. Washington, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., John Kenneth Galbraith, Arthur Schlesinger, John Birch, David Niven, Charle Chapman, Ronald Regan, Marshall McLuhan, Dag Hammarskjold, Truman Capote, Spiro Agnew, George Romney, Gore Vidal, John Mitchell, Daniel Ellsberg, Richard Nixon, Ronald Regan and Oliver North.
Self-assured to the point of cockiness, he was a segregationist and racist, and a Red-baiter willing to believe many outlandish conspiracy theories and was willing to overlook the criminal activities of many of his friends, including the Watergate burglar E. Howard Hunt.
The homosexuality of some opponents is mocked and used to maximum benefit, with insinuations of sexual deviance sometimes advanced to discredit opponents.
The accomplishments of many Democratic politicians including JFKs handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis (not even mentioned) are given short shift while Carter’s fumbling of the Iranian hostage crisis is criticized, but the illegal intervention of the Iranian Contra affair is not.
This book amply documents the massive influence that one handsome, skilled orator and writer can have on diverse political events and as such should be taken seriously, but not in the way that the author seems to want it to be.
Next, a break for a lighter novel.
3.5/5
Thanks, The Economist.
The Passionate Reader 