The Wall Street Journal-20080112-WEEKEND JOURNAL- Books- Five Best
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WEEKEND JOURNAL; Books: Five Best
[For the presidential-primary season, writer Thomas W. Evans nominates exemplary books about the role of commander in chief]
1. George Washington in the American Revolution, 1775-1783
By James Thomas Flexner
Little, Brown, 1968
In this second installment of James Thomas Flexner's multivolume life of George Washington, we see Gen. Washington at a dinner in his honor in Philadelphia in 1775. After the meal came the first toast, to "the Commander in Chief of the American armies." Hours earlier, the Continental Congress had unanimously elected Washington to the newly created post. A confident, accomplished man, Washington nevertheless confided to Patrick Henry that "from the day I enter upon the command of the American armies, I date my fall and the ruin of my reputation." As others have observed, Flexner makes "the statue come alive." Challenged only by Douglas Freeman for pre-eminence as Washington's biographer, this Pulitzer Prize-winning author does not let his commanding scholarship intrude on his ability to relate a lively, riveting story.
2. Commander in Chief
By Eric Larrabee
Harper & Row, 1987
Eric Larrabee, who died in 1990 at age 68, is remembered as a man of culture and the arts. But before a career of deanships, editing jobs and administrative posts, he fought in World War II in an Army tank- destroyer battalion and in military intelligence. He was awarded a Bronze Star medal. This book about his commander in chief is subtitled "Franklin Delano Roosevelt, His Lieutenants, and Their War." Larrabee studies the president in wartime performing his constitutional duty to "command the commanders," to borrow a phrase from Edward Bates, Lincoln's attorney general. FDR's "lieutenants" are nine generals -- including Marshall, Eisenhower, MacArthur and Lemay -- who are each given chapter-length consideration. Clearly, the book was a labor of love. Larrabee once said, "I read for 30 years and wrote for three and a half," and it shows: In addition to displaying the results of deep research, "Commander in Chief" is gracefully written. One section begins: "For the Army, the water is forbidding barrier, for the Navy, a broad and inviting highway." It's no wonder that experts in the field -- John Keegan and Drew Middleton among them -- regard "Commander in Chief" so highly.
3. The Hidden-Hand Presidency
By Fred I. Greenstein
Basic Books, 1982
Who was better prepared for the job of commander in chief than Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of Allied forces in World War II? And yet, as president, he was a detached, avuncular character given to garbled answers at press conferences -- or at least that's the conventional perception, handed down by his critics in the 1950s. Political scientist Fred I. Greenstein's dogged pursuit of "recently declassified confidential diaries, letters and memoranda" two decades after the conclusion of the Eisenhower presidency overturned received ideas about Ike, elevating his standing with historians and doing much to change the way we study our leaders. "On the assumption that a president who is predominantly viewed in terms of his political prowess will lose public support by not appearing to be a proper chief of state, Eisenhower went to great lengths to conceal the political side of his leadership," writes Greenstein. He proceeds to reveal the real Eisenhower: an aggressive leader operating beneath a mask of statesmanlike nonpartisanship. Even the president's seemingly garbled statements could be tactical, prepared in advance to avoid taking firm official positions. While commander in chief, Eisenhower did not start a major war, but he ended one -- in Korea -- without fanfare. Ike's own writing confirms that he moved through back channels to tell North Korea's ally, the People's Republic of China (with which we did not have formal diplomatic relations), to end the conflict immediately or risk the use of nuclear weapons. A truce was soon in place.
4. Turmoil and Triumph
By George Shultz
Scribner's, 1993
Margaret Thatcher said that Ronald Reagan "won the Cold War without firing a shot." But how? George Shultz -- with his Marine service in the Pacific in World War II and his extensive cabinet experience, including his years as Reagan's secretary of state -- is superbly equipped to answer that question. The high point of Shultz's memoirs is his detailed description of the four
U. S.-Soviet summits in the mid-1980s. Shultz emphasizes a particular weapon in the commander in chief's arsenal, the ability to use finesse as well as power. He writes: "Reagan saw himself as an experienced negotiator, going back to his days as president of the Screen Actors Guild." Reagan was a visionary who "had a strong and constructive agenda, much of it labeled impossible and unattainable in the early years of his presidency." The need to balance firmly held objectives with points that can be conceded is a persistent theme in "Turmoil and Triumph." America's right to build the Strategic Defense Initiative, for example, could "never be compromised," Shultz reports, but in the course of negotiations "it became the ultimate bargaining chip. And we played it for all it was worth."
5. The Treaty Trap
By Laurence W. Beilenson
Public Affairs, 1969
How does a person without substantial military or foreign-policy experience prepare for the role of commander in chief? George Shultz was an eyewitness as Ronald Reagan grew into the role, but Laurence Beilenson was present at the creation. A lawyer, he represented the Screen Actors Guild, where Reagan was president for several years, and MCA, Reagan's Hollywood agency. The two men met often, and together they seem to have come to an understanding about the essence of negotiation and leadership. Beilenson, a highly decorated Army intelligence officer in China in World War II, had studied Mao, Lenin and communist doctrine generally -- study that, along with Reagan's thinking, informs "The Treaty Trap," the first of Beilenson's three books on international negotiations. In 1981, Reagan gave the commencement address at the United States Military Academy at West Point and singled out his friend's book for praise: "It makes plain that no nation that placed its faith in parchment or paper, while at the same time it gave up its protective hardware, ever lasted long enough to write many pages in history." Spoken like a commander in chief.
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Mr. Evans, a Marine platoon infantry leader in the Korean War, is the author of "The Education of Ronald Reagan: The General Electric Years and the Untold Story of His Conversion to Conservatism" (Columbia). A paperback edition is planned for the fall.
