Conversations with American Writers: The Doubt, the Faith, and the In-Between by Dale Brown

Reviewed by William Wade

 Conversations with American Writers:  The Doubt, the Faith, and the In-Between by Dale Brown is a collection of ten interviews between Brown and a number of contemporary American writers.  This is the second such set which Brown has put together, and they are remarkably charming pieces, indicative of his knowledge of American literature and his ability to draw from these writer significant conversations about their work.

Brown gently guides these interviews through a number of different topics, generally following the lead of his authors.  He explores the reasons why they write, the relationships that develop between them and their publishers as well as those who buy their books.  A significant part of the conversations deal with the religious positions held by the writers and how those views have been shaped from childhood.  Brown lets his authors speak freely as to their convictions, and he never expresses any judgment about what they have to say.  And although all of them can be thought of as individuals with serious Christian viewpoints, the way in which they live and express their faiths may vary sharply.

These interviews should be read when there is ample time for relaxation and consideration of what it being said.  It might be best if any interview could be read when the author’s books are readily available for comparison and study.  Fortunately, the Bristol Public Library has books by all these individuals.

Authors included in this book are the following:  Eleanor Taylor Bland, David James Duncan, Terence Faherty, Ernest Gaines, Philip Gulley, Ron Hansen, Silas House, Jan Karon, Sherri Reynolds, and Lee Smith.

It needs to be noted that Dale Brown served for many years as a Professor of English at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and director of the Festival of Faith and Writing.  During this time he also came to be recognized as the leading American authority on the theologian Frederick Buechner.  Brown left Calvin and joined the faculty at King University where he also instituted a program to bring Christian writers and speakers to King.

The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House

Reviewed by William Wade

The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House, by Kate Anderson Brower, is a splendid introduction to a world we all presume must exist, though we know little about it – the intimate private world that runs the White House.  Brower is an experienced reporter on the national scene and  knows what she writes about.  This is not a book about national politics, foreign relations, or political scandals.  It is a book about the inner staff that manages the national mansion and keeps things in order (most of the time!).

An introductory chapter describes just what makes up the White House and its staff.  Roughly one hundred individuals work in a building of 55,000 square feet which appears on the outside to be a two-story structure, but it really has six floors – 132 rooms, 28 fireplaces, eight staircases, and three elevators.  It sits on a campus of eighteen acres, and those one hundred workers strive to remain anonymous and unseen; the typical tourist seeing only a handful of guides and attendants who conduct groups through the building.

The various chapters in the book describe in detail some of the more interesting aspects of the work of the staff.   “Controlled Chaos”  focuses upon the event that may happen once each four years when there is a change in the presidency,  The outgoing incumbent and his family enjoy a normal breakfast on January 20, but when they walk out the door to attend the inaugural festivities all bedlam breaks loose in the mansion.  Every stitch of furniture or personal belongings of the incumbent must be removed and sent away; similar possessions of the new presidential family are brought in and put in place, pictures are hung, personal items are set in their special places, and when the new first family arrives about 5:00 pm they are given a warm and cordial greeting by a staff which struggles to conceal their harried exhaustion.  Only when a president returns for a second term is there escape from this quadrennial day of madness.

As you would expect, the chapter titled “Discretion” lets you in on one absolute rule governing all White House staffers. You simply DO NOT talk or write about what you see regarding the principal families dwelling there.  And for the most part this rule is scrupulously obeyed.  Ms Brower even had difficulties loosening up some of the staffers to give interviews.  “Devotion” becomes another aspect of life at the White House; the presidential family and the workers often develop a quiet and deep devotion to each other, something that never seems to make it into the news media.  Presidential families do make hospital visits to relatives of their staffs and are present at funerals.  “Devotion” also means that a cardinal rule is to serve the president; if he wants breakfast at 3 AM some morning, he gets it.  As a result of the demands, the divorce rate among staff members is above normal.  But so is the marriage rate; so close is the relationship among the staff that an unmarried pastry cook is likely to develop an attachment to a male member of the maintenance staff.  Above all, the president rules. One staffer was told by his superior that his relationship to the president was not of the best.  “What does this mean?” asked the staffer.  “That this is your last day working in the White House,” was the response of the supervisor.

“Race and the Residence” deals with the tricky question of equal rights.  African Americans have always made up a large percentage of the servants in the White House.  And it may surprise you to discover that equal access and pay for various job levels did not exist among the staff even as late as the Lyndon Johnson administration.  And there was some bitterness among the black workers.

This book is filled with many anecdotes and stories; they abound on every page.  And that is what gives this book such charm.  It will not put you to sleep!  Above all, one guiding principle for all staffers is  the ability to handle the unexpected – no matter how large or small, no matter how consequential or trivial.  One day in 1970 Elvis Presley showed up unexpectedly at the West Wing office.  He wanted to see the president with a request, a yen to be sworn in as an undercover Federal agent.  The staff handled the matter with aplomb.  After requesting that his body guard surrender his weapon, they ushered him into Nixon’s presence.  But they neglected to give Elvis a pat-down, and he carried a Colt 45 into the Oval Office as a present for Nixon.  Many colored photographs are a delightful garnish to this volume.

Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program That Brought Nazi Scientists to America, by Annie Jacobsen

Reviewed by William Wade

When World War II in Europe came to an end with German surrender in the spring of 1945 hundreds, even thousands, of German scientists and technologists suddenly emerged from the secret laboratories and factories where they had been devising weapons of war.  The fact that the Soviet Union was vigorously recruiting these individuals for their own purposes caused Britain and the United States to energize themselves in attempting to round up as many scientists as possible lest they fall into the hands of Stalin. 

But this matter of recruiting those who had very recently been our vigorous enemies raised many questions and doubts among American leaders, particularly as postwar revelations told of horrendous activities perpetrated in Nazi concentration camps.  It was felt that many of these men should be put on trial for violations of human rights rather than courted for their expertise.  After the American army had seized some of these scientists, General Eisenhower asked the War Department for guidance as to how they should be treated.  No answer was forthcoming from the Pentagon, for the fact of the matter was that high government leaders were themselves hopelessly divided over the issue, and the result was that decisions were made on an ad hoc basis.  Often the army acted quietly and secretly without informing political leaders of what they were doing, and by 1946 over two hundred German scientists were in the United States working on weapons development, generally unknown to the public.

Operation Paperclip is the story of this program, based on documents residing in the Pentagon for over half a century and only recently brought to light through the Freedom of Information Act.  Many of these scientists were from a technical standpoint illegal aliens, never documented according to the prescribed laws of the land.  Some had been very clever.  Werner von Braun, realizing that the German Reich was doomed, fled to the West taking vital documents about the German rocketry program. These he secreted in a cave, allowed himself to be taken by the Americans with whom he negotiated a deal – his status in exchange for revealing the trove of documents.

These German experts brought to the United States a wealth of information in varied specialties – rocket research, jet engines, advanced aircraft, poison gas, nasty little secrets of biological warfare, considerable knowledge about the human body and its ability to withstand torture and suffering, information gained from research with inmates of the concentration camps.  Much of it was of a gruesome nature, but some Americans appeared to be interested in it use because Japan had not yet surrendered.

This is not an easy book to read; it details activities of individuals and whole governmental programs which seem to go beyond the limitations we like to think apply to civilized conduct.  You may learn things you would just as soon not know.  But it is important, not simply because it reveals what happened seventy years ago, but because  it asks us today whether a civilized people can effectively establish ethical positions of such firmness and rigor that we would draw the line on barbarous activities that transcend those limits.

Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program That Brought Nazi Scientists to America, by Annie Jacobsen.  New York: Little, Brown, and Company, 2014. 575 pages.

Note:  Holly's review of Owlknight will be posted the first Friday in February.

Engineers of Victory: The Problem Solvers Who Turned the Tide in the Second World War by Paul Kennedy

Reviewed by William Wade

This is not your usual narrative history of World War II, which begins with the September 1939 attack of Germany on Poland and concludes a few hundred pages later with the final surrender of German and Japanese forces in 1945.  Kennedy’s book is highly analytical and selects a few crucial themes for a full evaluation.

He begins his study in early 1943: the United States has become fully engaged with Britain, the Soviet Union, and other nations known as the Allied powers in a truly world-wide conflict.  The Allies have the opportunity to win this war, but there are serious problems that stand in the way of an assurance of victory.

·         The U.S. has enormous military and industrial potential, but German submarines pose a great threat in the Atlantic.  Unless the submarine menace can be overcome, the ability to get American troops and military equipment to the various fronts will fatally diminish its contribution. 

·         U.S. and British bombers have struck at German cities and industries but it has become evident that bombers without fighter escorts are being destroyed at an unacceptable number.  Unless an answer can be found, the air attack upon Germany will be a failure.

·         German troops have been formidable in the use of the blitzkrieg; in the early stages of the war they seemed invincible.  Unless tactics and strategy can be found to thwart the blitzkrieg, Allied troops will be in trouble.

·         It is clear to Allied planners that their move toward victory will require many attacks upon enemy-held shores, both in Europe and in the Far East.  There has been very little study at the higher military ranks as to the necessities for assuring victory in such attacks.

These issues become the focus of Kennedy’s book, and chapter by chapter he shows how solutions are gradually found and put to use, often with intense trial and error efforts, but sometimes through serendipity.  He writes with great technical skill, and the reader is pulled into the narrative, eagerly awaiting a happy solution to a difficult problem.  I would rank this as one of the best books on World War II, though it presumes some prior knowledge of the general story of the conflict.

Hot Dogs and Cocktails by Peter Conradi

Hot Dogs and Cocktails: When FDR Met King George VI at Hyde Park on Hudson, by Peter Conradi.  London: Alma Books, 2013.  280 pages.  Classification: 941.084/CON.

Reviewed by William Wade

The month was June, the year 1939.  The news media had announced that George VI, king of Great Britain, and Queen Elizabeth would be touring their royal province of Canada.  This encouraged President Franklin D. Roosevelt to send a friendly invitation to the royal couple to include the United States in their itinerary.

They responded eagerly, and for a few days that summer Franklin and George, two heads of state, enjoyed each other’s company both in Washington, D.C., and at the Roosevelt estate of Hyde Park on the Hudson.  The American press and the news reels producers were beside themselves to film and describe every little detail in the meetings that transpired.  That was the social event of the year!  But were those meetings just matters of folksy chit-chat?  Before you answer, remember that within two months World War II had engulfed Europe.  Did Roosevelt and the king share more serious concerns?

And this becomes the theme of Hot Dogs and Cocktails, a recent book which reveals the real reasons why the royal couple came to Canada and the United States and what were the private discussions never reported in the newspapers.  All of this Peter Conradi, the author, describes in a relaxed and easy-to-read style.  A Brit, he is also the author of The King’s Speech, the well known book which recounts the efforts of George to overcome a stuttering problem.  Conradi begins with a full accounting of both Roosevelt and George, their personal backgrounds and their capabilities as well as inherent faults.  He recounts in an engaging and humorous style all the myriad details that had to be worked out to entertain the first British monarch to visit America, a blend of the serious and the comic.  The book’s title comes from FDR’s insistent that his visiting royals must eat the great American food delicacy, the hot dog – which they did using only their hands.

On the serious side, the British sought assurances from Roosevelt that America might enter the war against Hitler, but FDR, fully aware of the powerful sentiments for isolationism that prevailed throughout the country, could only promise that he would seek to have America send material aid to Britain in the coming conflict.  While the discussions that June failed to reach a firm promise as to the extent of American help, it did mark the beginning of a growing friendship between the two nations, and it would be not too many Junes in the future until American and British soldiers would fight together in their efforts to storm the German held beaches at Normandy.  You’ll find this a very engaging book, easy to read, and filled with interesting stories that give it a sparkle.

(There was an earlier review of this book by Jeanne, but this is an excellent review with a different perspective.)