SEYMOUR HERSH GOT IT RIGHT IN 1997! DARK SIDE OF CAMELOT

Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh received heavy criticism for his 1997 book The Dark Side of Camelot ,which is filled with assertions regarding the sexual exploitations of JFK , both in and outside the White House. Some of his critics went so far as to say  Hersh “ made it up.”   Well, it appears not that he was right on!

Mimi Alford’s Once Upon a Secret: My Affair with President John F. Kennedy and its Aftermath largely substantiates  Hersh’ s reporting in The Dark Side of Camelot, including the pool parties and the interns.   Hersh’ s writing also includes much inside detail on more substantative political subjects including the Bay of Pigs Invasion and  Kennedy’s  relationships with mob boss Sam Giancana.  

Hersh may be best known when in 1969, he broke the story of the My Lai Massacre, in which hundreds of unarmed Vietnamese civilians were murdered by US soldiers in March 1968. The report prompted widespread condemnation around the world and reduced public support for the Vietnam War in the United States.  He received the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting.

So if you have doubts about Mimi Alford’s account and want to establish a  base line reference add The Dark Side of Camelot to your reading. Truthfully, in The Dark Side of Camelot the sexual exploits are a side bar to a very well written inside look at the Kennedy Administration and all of the players in the cast.  A “ good read.”

 

 

TOM CLANCY/ LOCKED ON/HARD TO PUT DOWN!

Locked On by Tom Clancy  with Mark Greaney  jumps into the action  literally on page one!  There is no waiting to begin another Clancy journey and all of the familiar characters assume their roles as the saga continues!  What other spy novel gets you up at 4 A.M. to see if Sam Driscoll gets extracted from prison in  Waziristan?  John Kelly becomes an enemy of the state in a bitter dispute with President Kealty whom Ryan is about to unseat.  While the re-election of Jack Ryan Sr. as president is a given, nuclear war heads in the hands of Islamic Terrorists is a drama played out from beginning to end.  All of Clancy’s high-tech innovations and cleaver and pointed tie-ins to current political events and themes permeate this new Clancy novel.  The India-Pakistan conflict escalates and there is even a love interest for Jack, Jr and that too becomes a cliff hanger for the next edition.  Did Mary Pat Foley make a good choice at as match-maker?  we will have to wait for that answer.

I am happy to place Locked On  in my library next to my hard cover collection of his fifteen previous novels. If you are a Clancy fan I think you will feel them same way.

UNFULFILLED EXPECTATIONS/THE PRESIDENCY THE NATION URGENTLY NEEDED

In Destiny of the Republic Candice Millard has composed a work of non-fiction on the assassination  of the nation’s 20th president, James Garfield.  In a book that reads like a historical novel, Millard weaves the  true story of a man who never sought the presidency,  but accepted the Republican nomination in 1880 with a sense of responsibility to the nation. 

Garfield, born into abject poverty, was the last of the  “log cabin” presidents. He came into office at a time when the nation sorely needed a person with the vision to bring the country together and move on from the lingering tragedy of the Civil War’s division. Garfield rose to that challenge and was welcomed by the citizenry as a healer.

Millard carefully combines the promise of the Garfield presidency with the tragedy of  the bullet of  deranged assassin Charles Guiteau that left Garfield clinging to life over four months. The author uncovers the fear of Vice President Chester Arthur, placed in that position by New York power broker Roscoe Conkling, who after Garfield’s death sought to return to the levers of power through Arthur.  You will discover a positive turn of hand in this relationship.

Destiny of the Republic also exposes the ignorance within the country’s medical community by it’s refusal to adopt the standards of modern antiseptic medicine developed in England by Joseph Lister. Tragically, Garfield did not die from Guiteu’s gunshot wound but rather from infection caused by the ignorance and ego of Dr. D. Willard Bliss, who’s unclean hands and instruments  along with his enormous ego, caused the deadly infection that killed Garfield.  Millard tells the story of Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone and admirer of Garfield, trying desperately to develop an instrument to find the bullet in Garfield’s body.

Yes, it reads like a novel, but every word is true ,including the revelation of the little known fact that Todd Lincoln was the only person present at the death of three of the four assassinated American presidents, his father,  Garfield and McKinley.  

I believe that Pulitzer Prize winning author  Debby Applegate  who wrote The Most Famous Man in America correctly summarizes  Destiny of the Republic in her dust cover quote, ” Candice Millard has rediscovered one of the great forgotten stories in American history. Millard has turned Garfield’s story into a crackling tale of suspense and a panoramic picture of a fascinating but forgotten era.”

Millard also wrote River of Doubt which was named best book of the year by the New York Times Book Review in 2006. River of Doubt is the story of Theodore Roosevelt’s journey into an uncharted part of the Amazon. For you Roosevelt fans, this is another great recommendation to add to the Roosevelt postings on Gordon’s Good Reads.

Gordon’s Good Reads /January-February Issue of VENU Magazine

Gordon’s Good Reads starts the New Year in VENU MAGAZINE with a look at five great suggestions for your library. A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh, That Used To Be Us by Tom Friedman,  Rules of Civility by Amor Towles, Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne and Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand.  You  will find VENU at leading retail establishments, hotels and venues throughout Fairfield and Westchester Counties.  Enjoy!

Osawatomie, Kansas/ Colonel Roosevelt/Edmund Morris

Gordon’s Good reads is an Edmund Morris fan!  We have recommended all of his TR books and in addition placed him among the historians suggested for Obama’s ” Kitchen Cabinet” of writers!  So here we go to Osawatomie, Kansas, magnificently researched by Morris in Colonel Roosevelt under the banner of TR’s The New Nationalism.  It all begins on page 100 and if you wish to see where President Obama’s campaign is heading Colonel Roosevelt may be a good road map.

Gordon’s Good Reads Christmas Picks

Classic books make thoughtful Christmas gifts. They can be paired to the personality and interests of the recipient and the  loves and likes of family and friends.  Classic books are unique gifts and will likely not be duplicated. You can find them in paperback for stuffing in Christmas stockings,  in original hard cover, collectors signed copies and of course digitally!  Some have been reviewed here in Gordon’s Good Reads.

To Kill a Mockingbird , Harper Lee

The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck

East of Eden, John Steinbeck

Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden

The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver

The Sun also Rises, Ernest Hemingway

Death in the Afternoon, Ernest Hemingway

Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry

Sons and Lovers ,D.H. Lawrence

The Wings of the Dove, Henry James

As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner

To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf

Elmer Gantry, Sinclair Lewis

There are classics for all ages

Spark  young persons interest in reading good books with Jack London’s Call of the Wild or Patricia Rawlings The Yearling  or Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird?  It is well worth the try!  

Any further suggestions? Let me here from you and I will be happy to post.

NON ZERO SUM- WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER!

Conversations with friends can quickly lead to  book recommendations. A discussion of Tom Friedman’s That Used To Be Us, resulted in  a recommendation and  a gift copy of Robert Wright’s  NON ZERO SUM THE LOGIC OF HUMAN DESTINY. 

Heavy duty subject? Yes indeed! However, Wright presents the subject matter in a logical and understandable progression.  The basic  premise is that throughout the development of civilization, Non- Zero Sum cooperation, just the opposite of  Zero- Sum with only winners and losers, is what advanced our civilization from savages, barbarians, chiefdoms and tribes to a cooperative civilization.  Take a look at this quote from Wright. “Judging by history, the current turbulence will eventually yield to an era of relative stability, an era when global political, economic and social structures have largely tamed the new forms of chaos. The world will reach a new equilibrium. Or on the other hand, we could blow up the world.”

Or, “As history progresses, humans find themselves playing non-zero-sum games. Interdependence expands, and social complexity grows in scope and depth.”

“Innovate or die! Population density drives technological and social development not by creating opportunities, but by creating problems. Problems that must be solved  for the greater good!”

Not at all unlike many of Tom Friedman’s theories so ably expressed in The World is Flat,  Hot Flat and Crowded. and That Used To Be Us. Wright, like Friedman has the ability to take sweeping concepts and break them down into logical elements. He outlines how throughout history  man has managed to turn acute need and chaos into opportunity, not with a Zero-Sum  I win you lose approach, but with the concept of working together for a common good or what he calls Non-Zero!

Non-Zero is a tremendous exploration of how we have become who we are and the implication is clearly that the evolution of our civilization as a cooperative society will play a key role in what we become. 

Zero -Sum has no winners! With Non-Zero  everyone can win.  There are  many lessons here , especially in today’s political climate domestically and around the globe. If you have a friend in the U.S. House of Representatives or the U.S. Senate send them a copy!