Steve Goddard's History Wire

Book Alert / 15 Stars -- Eisenhower, MacArthur, Marshall

15 Stars -- Eisenhower, MacArthur, Marshall -- Three Generals Who Saved the American Century, Free Press '07, $30, 541 pages, ISBN #0-7432-7527-6. Index, source notes, no bibliography, grouping of b&w glossy images.

Until 1944, America's highest military rank was four-star general. But World War II was unlike any other war, and Congress felt it merited a super-rank, a status conferred that year on Douglas MacArthur, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and George C. Marshall. They became the rockstars of their age, as evidenced by the fact that all showed up in short order on the cover of Time Magazine.

MacArthur and Marshall were older than Eisenhower, who served for years as their deputy, languishing in obscurity under MacArthur and rocketing to success under Marshall. Ike, as European Supreme Commander, ended up on a par with Marshall. The careers of all three men intersected at many different junctures, and Weintraub, a historian of the two world wars, uses his background to portray Marshall's and MacArthur's early leadership during World War I when Eisenhower was a humble lieutenant, and the developments that followed.

The three men couldn't have been more dissimilar in personality. Weintraub characterizes MacArthur as "sweepingly imperial," Eisenhower as "genial and flexible," and Marshall as "self-effacing." Not surprisingly then, in later life, MacArthur dictated two flattering biographies of himself, then arranged to have them published under the authorship of two deputies. Ike received a fat advance for his memoir, and Marshall turned down $1 million to write his, "at a time when a million was real money."

While World War II was clearly the finest hour of all three men, they had varied degrees of success in the years after concluding their military careers. Ike headed Columbia University, then served two terms as U.S. President. While derided as "a do-nothing president," Eisenhower's foresight, especially on the issue of the "military-industrial complex," have won him plaudits in recent years. Marshall received credit for the Marshall Plan to rebuild postwar Europe (much of which credit should have gone to President Harry Truman). MacArthur's arrogance got him fired by Truman during the Korean War, after which he gave his public farewell: "Old soldiers never die, they just fade away."

Book Alert / The Infernal Machine -- A History of Terrorism

The Infernal Machine -- A History of Terrorism from the Assassination of Tsar Alexander II to Al-Qaeda, The New Press '07, $26.95, 410 pages, ISBN #978-1-59558-179-2. Index, selected bibliography, notes, unillustrated.

Conventional wisdom has it that international terrorism is biggest enemy of peace today. But when attempting to define terrorism, forget the stereotype of a masked bomber. In Lebanon, for instance, Hezbollah is a recognized political party whose members have been elected to the Lebanese Parliament in a free and open election, yet such world powers as the United States and Britain label it as a terrorist organization.

Carr, a British journalist and broadcaster, ranges back in time to the 1880s to profile the history of terrorism. Included in this narrative sweep are the attack by Russian revolutionaries upon Tsar Alexander II in St. Petersburg, the African vengeance of the Mau Maus, the Palestine Liberation Organization, Basque separatists and Ireland's IRA.

Rather than merely hanging labels around the necks of one's political enemies,  Carr believes it's more useful to examine the root causes of terrorism. "The present eruption of Islamist violence is perhaps a symptom of an imbalance of power," he says, "and the consequence of decades of manipulation, deceit and hypocrisy in Western foreign policy towards the Arab world." This is a work unlikely to show up on George W. Bush's reading list.

H.L. Hunley: The Confederacy's Secret Weapon

U.S.News.com:

"In a war filled with amazing stories, the H. L. Hunley's is one of the standouts. An invention born of desperation, the Confederacy's secret weapon was the first submarine ever to sink an enemy warship. The craft was an example of tremendous creativity and engineering under tremendously difficult circumstances.

"The Hunley is one of the biggest Civil War mysteries left. Since the conflict ended in 1865, an estimated 50,000 books have been published on nearly every aspect of its politics, strategies, daily life, combat, and civilian experiences—at least a book a day for a century and a half, or one for every 10 men killed in America's most costly war. But in that avalanche of words, the complete story of the Hunley submarine has never been told.

"That started to change in August 2000, when the submarine was raised from the bottom of the Atlantic near Charleston, S.C. Since then, researchers have been pulling together the story of the Hunley's final moments from the artifacts and remains preserved inside. 'It's a true time capsule, preserved intact from the Civil War,' says Maria Jacobsen, the archaeologist in charge of the Hunley project run by South Carolina. 'It's the entire crew, with everything they carried with them that day. It's a treasure for illuminating Civil War history and maritime archaeology.'

"Hunleytized. Today, that time capsule sits in a tank of near-freezing fresh water. It's not exactly on the beaten path for any of the hundreds of thousands of tourists who visit Charleston each year. Located on a decommissioned naval base 5 miles north of the city's famed waterfront, the Hunley can be viewed by visitors only on weekends. And yet thousands manage to find it, crowding the walkway above the tank to stare down at its debris-encrusted hull.

''When you stand over that tank and look at her, she speaks to you,' says Glenn McConnell, a South Carolina state legislator and the head of the Friends of the Hunley nonprofit. 'We like to say that's when you've been 'Hunleytized.'"

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Don't Tell Sinatra There Are No Second Acts

AtlanticMonthly.com:

"Frank Sinatra, the greatest vocalist in the history of American music, elevated popular song to an art. He was a dominant power in the entertainment industries—radio, records, movies, gambling—and a symbol of the Mafia’s reach into American public life. More profoundly than any figure excepting perhaps Elvis Presley, Sinatra changed the style and popular culture of the American Century.

"Frank Sinatra: The Man, the Music, the Legend, a long-awaited collection of essays gathered from a famed 1998 conference at Hofstra University and edited by Jeanne Fuchs and Ruth Prigozy, probes various aspects of Sinatra’s influence in his long career (he was a national figure from 1939 until his death, in 1998). But it insists, both explicitly and in its editors’ selection of subjects and themes, that the “proper historical setting” for its subject “is the fifties.”

"Although that point can be debated, the 1950s—more precisely, the period from 1953 to the mid-1960s—was clearly the era of Sinatra’s supreme artistic achievement and deepest cultural sway. It amounted to the most spectacular second act in American cultural history. In the early 1940s, following his break with the Tommy Dorsey band, Sinatra had emerged, thanks largely to swooning bobby-soxers, as pop music’s biggest star and a hugely popular Hollywood actor."

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Stripping Away Some Immigration Myths

Atlanta Journal Constitution:

"Myth: Opposition to immigration reform is rooted in racism. Historically, Americans have resisted large-scale immigration movements even when those coming to our shores were white Europeans. The opposition a century ago was built on fears that the poor and poorly educated migrants from Ireland, Italy, eastern Europe and Asia would drag down the national economy and would refuse to assimilate. There is an echo of that in the opposition aimed at Latino immigrants today.

"Reality:

"Still, it's unfair to characterize many of those opposed to comprehensive immigration reform as racist or anti-immigrant. Many Americans are furious that the nation's immigration laws have been so widely ignored, by the illegal immigrants, by the employers who use them and by the government. It is difficult for them to understand why government has allowed American employers to ignore the statutes.

"That abdication on Washington's part has exposed communities around the country, including many in Georgia, to a mass migration of illegal immigrants moving into cheap rental housing, crowding classrooms with special-needs students and showing up in hospital emergency rooms in need of medical attention with no way of paying for it. That frustration fuels the emotionalism behind the debate."

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Book Alert / Stalin's Ghost

Stalin's Ghost -- An Arkady Renko Novel by Martin Cruz Smith, Simon & Schuster '07,  $26.95, 333 pages, ISBN #0-7432-7672-8.

Death for Joseph Stalin, as for so many others, was a splendid career move. You murder from 5 to 20 million people (who's counting?), and you're bound to make an enemy or two. But 54 years has passed since the dictator's death, and author Martin Cruz Smith tells us some Russians are getting downright nostalgic for their favorite dictator.

Enter Arkady Renko. You remember meeting him in Gorky Park, the 1981 novel that really put Smith on the map. He's aged since then, but he's still reasonably athletic in bed. Or perhaps not. Why would his lover, Eva, feel the need to make him a cuckold and run off with none other than the suspect that investigator Renko is trying to nab as a contract killer?

But worry not, Renko's a survivor. It's a pretty good life appearing in all these novels, and he doesn't want to risk losing his job. In a recent radio interview Smith gave, a caller told him she named her dog Renko, so you see the detective has gained a kind of cult appeal.

But I digress  -- we were talking about Stalin. Seems a bunch of subway riders saw him recently standing on the platform of Moscow's Christye Prudy Station. Really--I wouldn't joke about a thing like that. One or two could have just had too much vodka, but there were a whole array of folks. And while most detectives get assigned to chase flesh and blood human beings, it's Renko's fate to pursue a ghost. As we've gotten used to from Smith, this is a ripping good read.

Book Alert / Mission Al Jazeera

Mission Al Jazeera -- Build a Bridge, Seek the Truth, Change the World by Josh Rushing with Sean Elder, Palgrave MacMillan '07, $24.95, 233 pages, ISBN #1-4039-7905-7. Index, grouping of b&w images.

In this media age of instant communication, geopolitical conflict becomes more than ever a battle for hearts and minds, with troop kills becoming less and less significant. Into this milieu jumps a young, blue-eyed Texan and former Marine, who becomes a correspondent for Al Jazeera, the respected Arab network. His new book tells of his role in explaining America to Arabs and Arabs to Americans.

Josh Rushing's message is highly significant at a time when the Bush administration believes that talking with one's enemy is a sign of weakness to be avoided at all costs. "Engaging the opposition needs to be standard operating procedure for our government in this new media battleground," says Rushing, "otherwise we are simply ceding the turf to the other side."

He describes Al Jazeera's goal: "to lay all facts and opinions on the table and give viewers the freedom to make an informed decision."  The network must be doing something right: "The U.S. government considers the network the mouthpiece of Al Qaeda, while the terrorist organization itself -- together with many Islamic nations -- accuses Al Jazeera of being a shill for the Zionists."

Rushing was first introduced to Al Jazeera as a junior Marine news spokesman in the days around the Iraq invasion of 2003. "My mentor noticed I had a good relationship with the 'Arab guys,' so he assigned me to the Arab press. Looking back on it, it also revealed how much strategic forethought the military had put into how we were going to address our action in the Arab world. Zero. They assigned the junior guy to be America's face on the Arabic network that had a near monopoly on the Arab world's attention."

"I hope to represent the best of what America stands for," Rushing says. "I want to see myself as a cultural bridge. Many Americans don't understand the rest of the world, and the rest of the world often doesn't understand America: its values, its heritage, its opportunities."

Book Alert / Her Way -- The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton

Her Way -- The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton by Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta, Jr., Little Brown '07, $29.99, 438 pages, ISBN #0-316-01742-6.  Index, bibliography, source notes, grouping of b&w glossy images.

Can you believe it? Bill and Hillary Clinton had "a secret pact" for her to help him reform the Democratic Party, then attain the presidency, after which he'd help her become the nation's first female president. This breathless revelation would be stunning if it weren't as so obvious.

It's admittedly tough for competing biographers to gain a foothold on the ladder of book sales in an election year, and New York Times veterans Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta, jr. are up against the redoubtable Carl Bernstein, who is hawking his own biography this season. But it's still annoying for readers to chase moonbeams only to learn that an alleged blockbuster is largely derivative or oversold.

The authors reveal that they spoke with Marla Crider, an old Bill Clinton girlfriend (who wasn't?), who stumbled on a letter from Hillary on Bill's Arkansas desk before their marriage, outlining their future plans. Crider makes the catty observation that the letter was all about their careers; "so unusual that there was no talk of a home, family and marriage." Even so, the authors concede in an endnote that Crider's account first appeared in a 2000 book by Jerry Oppenheimer. Crider says Oppenheimer's account "was not totally accurate," but the authors don't say in what way.

The authors, not surprisingly, find tension in the relationship between the former first lady and former Veep Al Gore, based on secondary sources and unattributed interviews. Both policy wonks were scrambling to gain the ear of the president on a range of issues. That tension will resemble a tea party if a reinvented Gore jumps into the presidential primary pool this fall, setting the stage for the battle of the two 800-pound gorillas.

Victory Over Communism -- An Overdue Memorial?

The Weekly Standard:

"THE SCRAPBOOK has long regretted the diffidence with which America's triumph in the Cold War was greeted. We never enjoyed a proper Victory over Communism day to match VE or VJ day. Monuments to the collapse of the Soviet empire and the triumph of the West have been few and far between.

"Last week, though, we saw a partial rectification of this regrettable amnesia with the dedication in Washington, just a few blocks north of the Capitol, of a memorial to the victims of communism. The monument itself (at right) is what you might call a third-generation Statue of Liberty, being modeled on the model of the original that was erected by art students in Beijing in 1989, days before that brief flowering of democracy was crushed by the tanks of the Communist government.

"President Bush was on hand and paid appropriate tribute to the two scholar-activists who were most responsible for the project, Amb. Lev Dobriansky and Lee Edwards. 'The men and women who designed this memorial,' said the president, 'could have chosen an image of repression for this space, a replica of the wall that once divided Berlin, or the frozen barracks of the Gulag, or a killing field littered with skulls. Instead, they chose an image of hope--a woman holding a lamp of liberty. She reminds us of the victims of communism, and also of the power that overcame communism. Like our Statue of Liberty, she reminds us that the flame for freedom burns in every ..."

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Remembering 1997 Hong Kong Handover Ten Years On

Newsweek:

On the rare days when Hong Kong's Victoria Peak isn't shrouded in smog, one of the world's great maritime hubs is on display from its heights. Northward in Kowloon, modern container ports—their giant cranes lined up like robotic elephants on parade—load waiting freighters. Barges scurry like worker ants, flags from every port of convenience flap in the breeze and jetfoils buzz back and forth from Macau.

"For decades, as East Asia's export economies rose to pre-eminence, the scene has grown more frenetic year by year. But sometime soon—or perhaps that day has already passed—the vast natural harbor that first attracted British opium traders to this spot on the South China Sea in the 1840s will reach its own peak, and start to fall.

"The big question in Hong Kong—and it's one that has echoed since the jittery pre-handover days back in 1997—is elemental: what's next? Official statistics suggest a port that's maxed out, a maritime hub that has slipped from number one in the world to number three and sometime next year will likely be overtaken by a city that didn't even exist until the final few years of British rule: neighboring Shenzhen.

"What will happen, many Hong Kongers justifiably worry, when shipping follows the manufacturing up the Pearl River Delta into mainland China? Will their city slip to the global economic periphery, as some analysts forecast, becoming the 21st-century equivalent of Venice?"

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