Download or read book Some of It Was Fun Working with RFK and LBJ written by Nicholas deBelleville Katzenbach and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2008-10-14 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "As legal counsel and deputy attorney general under Bobby Kennedy and then attorney general and under secretary of state for Lyndon Johnson, Nicholas deB. Katzenbach found himself at the center of the defining issues of the 1960s: the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War. In this engaging memoir, he treats readers to a ringside seat for episodes including his confrontation with segregationist governor George C. Wallace over the integration of the University of Alabama as well as his successful efforts to steer the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Bill through Congress. The lively, intimate narrative then follows Katzenbach's transition to LBJ's State Department, where he and other members of the administration came to realize the devastating costs of the Vietnam War." "Some of It Was Fun is as much a fresh and candid perspective on a decade that continues to captivate Americans as it is a memoir of one man's eight years in Washington. Yet one of the book's greatest revelations is the voice of a natural storyteller. Winningly self-deprecating and charmingly matter-of-fact, Katzenbach depicts moments of intense drama with compassion, and his assessments of the strengths and shortcomings of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations are measured and discerning. At the heart of this story is the belief shared by Katzenbach and his colleagues that they could truly change the world. Stirring, funny, and, above all, deeply relevant, Some of It Was Fun challenges Americans to once again believe this of themselves."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book Marigold written by James Hershberg and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2012-01-11 with total page 936 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marigold presents the first rigorously documented, in-depth story of one of the Vietnam War's last great mysteries: the secret peace initiative, codenamed "Marigold," that sought to end the war in 1966. The initiative failed, the war dragged on for another seven years, and this episode sank into history as an unresolved controversy. Antiwar critics claimed President Johnson had bungled (or, worse, deliberately sabotaged) a breakthrough by bombing Hanoi on the eve of a planned secret U.S.-North Vietnamese encounter in Poland. Yet, LBJ and top aides angrily insisted that Poland never had authority to arrange direct talks and Hanoi was not ready to negotiate. This book uses new evidence from long hidden communist sources to show that, in fact, Poland was authorized by Hanoi to open direct contacts and that Hanoi had committed to entering talks with Washington. It reveals LBJ's personal role in bombing Hanoi as he utterly disregarded the pleas of both the Polish and his own senior advisors. The historical implications of missing this opportunity are immense: Marigold might have ended the war years earlier, saving thousands of lives, and dramatically changed U.S. political history.
Download or read book Presidents Secrets written by Mary Graham and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2017-02-20 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “succinct and well-written” look at how presidents use secrecy to protect the nation, foster diplomacy—and gain power (The Wall Street Journal). Ever since the nation’s most important secret meeting—the Constitutional Convention—presidents have struggled to balance open, accountable government with necessary secrecy in military affairs and negotiations. For the first one hundred and twenty years, a culture of open government persisted, but new threats and technology have long since shattered the old bargains. Today, presidents neither protect vital information nor provide the open debate Americans expect. Mary Graham tracks the rise in governmental secrecy that began with surveillance and loyalty programs during Woodrow Wilson’s administration, explores how it developed during the Cold War, and analyzes efforts to reform the secrecy apparatus and restore oversight in the 1970s. Chronicling the expansion of presidential secrecy in the Bush years, Graham explains what presidents and the American people can learn from earlier crises, why the attempts of Congress to rein in stealth activities don’t work, and why presidents cannot hide actions that affect citizens’ rights and values. “Engrossing . . . chilling and fascinating.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Download or read book The Long Reach of the Sixties written by Laura Kalman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-04-05 with total page 489 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Warren Court of the 1950s and 1960s was the most liberal in American history. Yet within a few short years, new appointments redirected the Court in a more conservative direction, a trend that continued for decades. However, even after Warren retired and the makeup of the court changed, his Court cast a shadow that extends to our own era. In The Long Reach of the Sixties, Laura Kalman focuses on the late 1960s and early 1970s, when Presidents Johnson and Nixon attempted to dominate the Court and alter its course. Using newly released--and consistently entertaining--recordings of Lyndon Johnson's and Richard Nixon's telephone conversations, she roots their efforts to mold the Court in their desire to protect their Presidencies. The fierce ideological battles--between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches--that ensued transformed the meaning of the Warren Court in American memory. Despite the fact that the Court's decisions generally reflected public opinion, the surrounding debate calcified the image of the Warren Court as activist and liberal. Abe Fortas's embarrassing fall and Nixon's campaign against liberal justices helped make the term "activist Warren Court" totemic for liberals and conservatives alike. The fear of a liberal court has changed the appointment process forever, Kalman argues. Drawing from sources in the Ford, Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton presidential libraries, as well as the justices' papers, she shows how the desire to avoid another Warren Court has politicized appointments by an order of magnitude. Among other things, presidents now almost never nominate politicians as Supreme Court justices (another response to Warren, who had been the governor of California). Sophisticated, lively, and attuned to the ironies of history, The Long Reach of the Sixties is essential reading for all students of the modern Court and U.S. political history.
Download or read book True Believer written by James Traub and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2024-02-13 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A celebrated historian recounts Hubert Humphrey’s role as a liberal hero of twentieth-century America Hubert Humphrey was liberalism’s most dedicated defender, and its most public and tragic sacrifice. As a young politician in 1948, he defied segregationists and forced the Democratic Party to commit itself to civil rights. As a senator in 1964, he made good on that commitment by helping pass the Civil Rights Act. But as Lyndon B. Johnson’s vice president, his support for the war in Vietnam made him a target for both Right and Left, and he suffered a shattering loss in the presidential election of 1968. Though Humphrey’s defeat was widely seen as the end of America’s era of liberal optimism, he never gave up. Even after his humiliation on the most public stage, he crafted a new vision of economic justice to counter the yawning political divisions consuming American politics. This biography reveals a deep-dyed idealist willing to compromise and even fight ugly in pursuit of a better society. Elegantly crafted and strikingly relevant to the present, True Believer celebrates Hubert Humphrey’s long struggle for justice for all.
Download or read book Media Management in the Age of Lyndon B Johnson written by Benjamin W. Quail and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-01-01 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book looks broadly at how the contentious relationships between the media and US President Lyndon B. Johnson affected the national consciousness during the turbulent period of his leadership. Johnson had to deal with a particularly difficult and divisive period in American history and his relationship with the press undoubtedly contributed to an atmosphere of friction within the United States. A more specific purpose of this research monograph is ultimately to shine a light on the trials and tribulations that Johnson faced as a president dealing with new forms of communication in the 1960s. It aims to show the difficulties that he had in adapting a very personal style of leadership – which had served him well in the Senate – in the role he undertook as leader of a nation. Further to this, it builds on this foundation to argue that Johnson developed a reactive, passive stance to dealing with the media, one that ultimately contributed to a loss in popularity and status as leader – a blow he never recovered from during his time in office.
Download or read book Bending Toward Justice written by Gary May and published by . This book was released on 2013-04-09 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Celebrated historian May describes how activists surmounted long-standing obstacles for the African-American vote, overcoming centuries of bigotry to secure--and preserve--the right of black citizens to full participation in American democracy in a vivid narrative history.
Download or read book Our Man written by George Packer and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2020-05-26 with total page 626 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Biography* *Winner of the Los Angeles Times Prize for Biography* *Winner of the 2019 Hitchens Prize* "Portrays Holbrooke in all of his endearing and exasperating self-willed glory...Both a sweeping diplomatic history and a Shakespearean tragicomedy... If you could read one book to comprehend American's foreign policy and its quixotic forays into quicksands over the past 50 years, this would be it."--Walter Isaacson, The New York Times Book Review "By the end of the second page, maybe the third, you will be hooked...There never was a diplomat-activist quite like [Holbrooke], and there seldom has been a book quite like this -- sweeping and sentimental, beguiling and brutal, catty and critical, much like the man himself."--David M. Shribman, The Boston Globe Richard Holbrooke was brilliant, utterly self-absorbed, and possessed of almost inhuman energy and appetites. Admired and detested, he was the force behind the Dayton Accords that ended the Balkan wars, America's greatest diplomatic achievement in the post-Cold War era. His power lay in an utter belief in himself and his idea of a muscular, generous foreign policy. From his days as a young adviser in Vietnam to his last efforts to end the war in Afghanistan, Holbrooke embodied the postwar American impulse to take the lead on the global stage. But his sharp elbows and tireless self-promotion ensured that he never rose to the highest levels in government that he so desperately coveted. His story is thus the story of America during its era of supremacy: its strength, drive, and sense of possibility, as well as its penchant for overreach and heedless self-confidence. In Our Man, drawn from Holbrooke's diaries and papers, we are given a nonfiction narrative that is both intimate and epic in its revelatory portrait of this extraordinary and deeply flawed man and the elite spheres of society and government he inhabited.
Download or read book Fight House written by Tevi Troy and published by Regnery History. This book was released on 2020-02-11 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Fight House looks juicy as all hell" - National Review "Troy seamlessly weaves West Wing gossip with significant moments in modern history." - Jewish Insider THE WHITE HOUSE HAS ALWAYS BEEN A FIGHT HOUSE President Trump’s White House is famously tumultuous. But as presidential historian and former White House staffer Tevi Troy reminds us, bitter rivalries inside the White House are nothing new. From the presidencies of Harry S. Truman, when the modern White House staff took shape, to Donald Trump, the White House has been filled with ambitious people playing for the highest stakes and bearing bitter grudges. In Fight House, you’ll discover: -The advisor to President Harry Truman that General George Marshall refused to acknowledge -How the supposed “Camelot” Kennedy White House was rife with conflict -How Dr. Henry Kissinger displaced other national security advisors to gain President Richard Nixon’s ear -Why President Jimmy Carter’s personal pettiness and obsession with detail led to a dysfunctional White House—and played a role in his losing the 1980 election -How the contrasting management styles of President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan led to some epic White House staff clashes -Why the “No Drama Obama” White House was anything but no drama Insightful, entertaining, and important, Tevi Troy’s Fight House will delight and instruct anyone interested in American politics and presidential history.
Download or read book Blowtorch written by Frank L Jones and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2013-03-15 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: History has not been kind to Robert Komer, a casualty of bad historical analysis and inaccurate information. A Cold War national security policy and strategy adviser to three presidents, Komer was one of the most influential national security professionals of the era. The book begins with a review of his early life that helped shape his worldview. It then examines Komer’s influence as a National Security Council staff member during the Kennedy administration, where he helped set its activist course regarding the Third World. Upon Kennedy’s death, Lyndon Johnson named Komer his “point man” for Vietnam pacification policy, and later General Westmoreland’s operational deputy in Vietnam. The author highlights Komer’s activities during the three years he strove to fulfill the president’s vision that Communism could be repelled from Southeast Asia by economic and social development along with military force. Known as “Blowtorch” for his abrasive personality and disdain for bureaucratic foot dragging, Komer came to be seen as the right person for managing that effort, and in 1968 was rewarded with an ambassadorship to Turkey. The book analyzes Komer’s work during the Carter administration as special adviser to Secretary of Defense Harold Brown and Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and credits him for reenergizing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s conventional capability and forging the military instrument that implemented the Carter Doctrine in the Persian Gulf—the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force. It also explores his final role as a defense intellectual and critic of the Reagan administration’s defense policies. The book concludes with a useful summary of Komer’s impact on American policy and strategy and his contributions to counterinsurgency practices, a legacy now recognized for its importance in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Download or read book Ted Kennedy written by John A. Farrell and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-10-25 with total page 785 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: LONGLISTED FOR THE 2022 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR NONFICTION An enthralling and ground-breaking new biography of one of modern America’s most fascinating and consequential political figures, drawing on important new sources, by an award-winning biographer who covered Kennedy closely for many years John A. Farrell’s magnificent biography of Edward M. Kennedy is the first single-volume life of the great figure since his death. Farrell’s long acquaintance with the Kennedy universe and the acclaim accorded his previous books—including his New York Times bestselling biography of Richard Nixon, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize—helped garner him access to a remarkable range of new sources, including segments of Kennedy’s personal diary and his private confessions to members of his family in the days that followed the accident on Chappaquiddick. Farrell is, without question, one of America’s greatest political biographers and a storyteller of deep wisdom and empathy. His book does full justice to this famously epic and turbulent life of almost unimaginable tragedy and triumph. As the fourth son of the close-knit but fiercely competitive Kennedy clan, Ted was the runt of the litter. Expelled from Harvard University for cheating, he was a fun-loving playboy who nevertheless served his brothers loyally and effectively. It was easy to take Ted lightly, and many did. But when he was elected to the United States Senate at the age of thirty to fill his brother Jack’s seat, something unexpected happened: he found his home and his calling there. Over time, Ted Kennedy would build arguably the most significant senatorial career in American history. His life was buffeted by heartbreak: the violent deaths of his three older brothers, his own terrible plane crash, his children’s bouts with cancer, and the hideous self-inflicted wounds of Chappaquiddick and stretches of drinking and womanizing that caused irreparable damage to an already fragile first marriage. Those wounds scarred Ted deeply but also tempered his character, and, eventually, he embarked on a run as legislator, party elder, and paterfamilias of the Kennedy family that would change America for the better. John A. Farrell brings us the man as he was, in strength and weakness, his profound but complicated inheritance and his vital legacy, as only a great biographer can do. Without the story this book tells, no understanding of modern America can be complete.
Download or read book Justice Rising written by Patricia Sullivan and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2021-06-08 with total page 561 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “In most accounts of the tumultuous 1960s, Robert Kennedy plays a supporting role...Sullivan corrects this and puts RFK near the center of the nation’s struggle for racial justice.” —Richard Thompson Ford, Washington Post “A profound and uplifting account of Robert F. Kennedy’s brave crusade for racial equality. This is narrative history at its absolute finest.” —Douglas Brinkley, author of Rosa Parks “A sobering analysis of the forces arrayed against advocates of racial justice. Desegregation suits took years to move through the courts. Ballot access was controlled by local officials...Justice Rising reminds us that although he was assassinated over 50 years ago, Kennedy remains relevant.” —Glenn C. Altschuler, Florida Courier “A groundbreaking book that reorients our understanding of a surprisingly underexplored aspect of Robert Kennedy’s life and career—race and civil rights—and sheds new light on race relations during a pivotal era of American history.” —Kenneth Mack, author of Representing the Race “Brilliant and beautifully written...could hardly be more timely.” —Daniel Geary, Irish Times Race and politics converged in the 1960s in ways that indelibly changed America. This landmark reconsideration of Robert Kennedy’s life and legacy reveals how, as the nation confronted escalating demands for racial justice, RFK grasped the moment to emerge as a transformational leader. Intertwining Kennedy’s story with the Black freedom struggles of the 1960s, Justice Rising provides a fresh account of the changing political alignments that marked the decade. As Attorney General, Kennedy personally interceded to enforce desegregation rulings and challenge voter restrictions in the South. Morally committed to change, he was instrumental in creating the bipartisan coalition essential to passing the 1964 Civil Rights Act. After his brother’s assassination, his commitment took on a new urgency when cities emerged as the major front in the long fight for racial justice. On the night of Martin Luther King’s assassination, two months before he would himself be killed, his anguished appeal captured the hopes of a turbulent decade: “In this difficult time for the United States, it is perhaps well to ask what kind of nation we are and what direction we want to move in.” It is a question that remains urgent and unanswered.
Download or read book Senator James Eastland written by Maarten Zwiers and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2015-06-15 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the years following World War II, the national Democratic Party aligned its agenda more and more with the goals of the civil rights movement. By contrast, a majority of southern Democrats remained as committed as ever to a traditional, segregationist ideology. Through the career of Senator James Eastland, one of the mid-century's most prominent politicians, author Maarten Zwiers explores the uneasy, yet mutually beneficial relationship between conservative southerners and the increasingly liberal party to which they belonged. Mississippi Democrat James "Big Jim" Eastland began an influential four-decade career in the United States Senate in 1941, ultimately rising to become president pro tempore of the Senate, a position that placed him third in the line of presidential succession. His reputation for toughness developed from his unfailing and ruthless opposition to greater civil rights and his concern over the global spread of communism, as he believed participants in the two movements were working together to undermine the American way of life. Zwiers contends that despite Eastland's extreme positions, he still managed to maintain influence through productive relationships with his Senate colleagues-liberal as well as conservative. Though the progressive wing of the Democratic Party continued to push for stronger civil rights legislation, they valued compromise with southern senators like Eastland in order to ensure support from a region the Democrats could ill afford to lose. While Eastland's campaigning rhetoric was inflammatory, his ability to operate within the national political structure by leveraging moderate concessions contributed to his lengthy and effective career. Drawing on recently opened archival records, Maarten Zwiers offers a nuanced portrait of a man frequently portrayed as a southern zealot. Senator James Eastland provides a case study of the complicated relationship between party and party members that allowed Democrats to maintain power in the South for much of the twentieth century.
Download or read book Bad Blood written by Jeffrey K. Smith and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2010-11 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The tumultuous decade of the 1960s began with promise and hope when John F. Kennedy (JFK) became the youngest elected President in American history. Kennedy's "New Frontier" promised youthful and dynamic leadership, heading into the latter half of the century. A thousand days into the Kennedy presidency, an assassin's bullets shattered the dreams of an idealistic generation. After the Kennedy assassination, Vice-President Lyndon Johnson (LBJ) was catapulted into the Oval Office, much to the chagrin of JFK's younger brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy. His idyllic life disrupted by fate, RFK viewed Johnson as a petty interloper, who had seized JFK's rightful place in history. Ever fearful that Robert Kennedy would attempt to regain the presidential throne, LBJ's paranoia ultimately compromised his judgment and contributed to his downfall. "Bad Blood: Lyndon B. Johnson, Robert F. Kennedy, and the Tumultuous 1960s" chronicles the personal and political feud between two powerful and controversial twentieth century icons.
Download or read book Murder Inc written by James H. Johnston and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2022-03 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A chronological narrative of the CIA’s assassination operations during the Kennedy administration.
Download or read book Bobby Kennedy written by Larry Tye and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2017-05-09 with total page 626 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A multilayered, inspiring portrait of RFK . . . [the] most in-depth look at an extraordinary figure whose transformational story shaped America.”—Joe Scarborough, The Washington Post NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Soon to be a Hulu original series starring Chris Pine. Larry Tye appears on CNN’s American Dynasties: The Kennedys. “We are in Larry Tye’s debt for bringing back to life the young presidential candidate who . . . almost half a century ago, instilled hope for the future in angry, fearful Americans.”—David Nasaw, The New York Times Book Review Bare-knuckle operative, cynical White House insider, romantic visionary—Robert F. Kennedy was all of these things at one time or another, and each of these aspects of his personality emerges in the pages of this powerful and perceptive biography. History remembers RFK as a racial healer, a tribune for the poor, and the last progressive knight of a bygone era of American politics. But Kennedy’s enshrinement in the liberal pantheon was actually the final stage of a journey that began with his service as counsel to the red-baiting senator Joseph McCarthy. In Bobby Kennedy, Larry Tye peels away layers of myth and misconception to capture the full arc of his subject’s life. Tye draws on unpublished memoirs, unreleased government files, and fifty-eight boxes of papers that had been under lock and key for forty years. He conducted hundreds of interviews with RFK intimates, many of whom have never spoken publicly, including Bobby’s widow, Ethel, and his sister, Jean. Tye’s determination to sift through the tangle of often contradictory opinions means that Bobby Kennedy will stand as the definitive biography about the most complex and controversial member of the Kennedy family. Praise for Bobby Kennedy “A compelling story of how idealism can be cultivated and liberalism learned . . . Tye does an exemplary job of capturing not just the chronology of Bobby’s life, but also the sense of him as a person.”—Los Angeles Review of Books “Captures RFK’s rise and fall with straightforward prose bolstered by impressive research.”—USA Today “[Tye] has a keen gift for narrative storytelling and an ability to depict his subject with almost novelistic emotional detail.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times “Nuanced and thorough . . . [RFK’s] vision echoes through the decades.”—The Economist
Download or read book A Companion to Lyndon B Johnson written by Mitchell B. Lerner and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2012-02-13 with total page 617 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This companion offers an overview of Lyndon B. Johnson's life, presidency, and legacy, as well as a detailed look at the central arguments and scholarly debates from his term in office. Explores the legacy of Johnson and the historical significance of his years as president Covers the full range of topics, from the social and civil rights reforms of the Great Society to the increased American involvement in Vietnam Incorporates the dramatic new evidence that has come to light through the release of around 8,000 phone conversations and meetings that Johnson secretly recorded as President
