For reasons uncertain, I am fascinated by histories focused on geography, and in particular, ones about rivers. So the story of the world's 9th longest river, the only one in Siberia that drains to the Pacific and most importantly, forms the border between Russia and China, caught my attention. The Onon, in northeast Mongolia, is the tributary that is generally considered the head of the river. It is the land that eight hundred years ago gave the world Genghis Khan. The river flows north into Russia, where it is home to six of the world's fifteen species of crane. About 300 miles east of Lake Baikal is Chita, home to the Buryats and the only Buddhist community in Russia. The next major town down the Onon is Nerchinsk, where Nicholas I banished the Decembrists after their pathetic attempt at revolt in 1825, and also where in 1689, Russia and China, as equals, negotiated their shared border. As the river extends east, the author explores the many and different tales of those who came to colonize a wilderness beyond our comprehension. Along the river, the Trans-Siberian Railway was built in the 1890's. Blogoveshchensk is where the last of the tributaries join and form the Amur. There is also now in Siberia, from Lake Baikal to Vladivostok, dedicated by Vladimir Putin upon its completion in 2005, a paved road, a bona-fide macadam two lane highway. At Kabarovsk, further east, in 1969, the border clashes between the two communist behemoths took place. Hundreds of miles north, after the last turn, the river finishes with a whimper, a shallow estuary, blessed only by the vast kaluga that spawn there. It also is the site of some heavy fighting between the Japanese and the locals during the allied interventions at the end of WWI.
By definition, a book like this is sort of an indirect history. The stories it tells are limited to what transpired along its banks. Throughout Siberia, the story is pretty much the same. The Russians came seeking fur, and like we Americans, they overwhelmed the indigenous peoples. They struggled mightily with an extraordinarily difficult land, frozen, thick with flies and endless stretches of steppe and water lands. It is hard to process that Siberia is itself larger than all of Europe, including Russian Europe. It is 4,000 miles from one end to the other. There were conflicts with the Chinese and later, the Japanese. Siberia was populated with prisons and filled with the Gulag of the mid-twentieth century. The author also spends a considerable time on the uniqueness of Russian history, culture and traditions. Russia is different from the west because it is not of the west, having undergone an extensive occupation by the Mongols, who featured an autocracy that, the author suggests seems to suit the Russians well. He closes with no particular insight or conclusion. Just the observation, that other than to plunder Siberia's resources, Russia today looks west and not both ways, as the two-headed eagle standard of the Empire implied.
5.25.2016
5.21.2016
Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg And The Secret History Of The Vietnam War, Sheinkin - A
The title comes from Kissinger's characterization of Ellsberg as "the most dangerous man in America." Ironically, the Harvard grad, hard-core cold warrior and former Marine lt. went to work in a very high staff position at the Pentagon on the day of the Gulf of Tonkin attacks. Within days the 33-year-old knew McNamara had lied to Congress and the President to the American public. A year later, with the war escalating significantly, Ellsberg was sent on a 6-week tour of Vietnam. He later went back for two years as part of the Saigon Embassy staff. His knowledge and understanding of what was going on on the ground was extensive. He became more and more disillusioned as he watched Genl. Westmoreland and LBJ keep up the rhetoric, while completely ignoring the truth. He went to work at the Rand Corporation, a think tank with an extensive consulting relationship with the Pentagon. He had maintained his top-secret classification and asked Mort Halperin, Kissinger's deputy, if he could read the 'Pentagon Papers'. It was a project on crisis decision making, Ellsberg's academic specialty, initiated by MacNamara when Mac began to despair of our efforts in Vietnam. Ellsberg had actually worked on the project during his last tour in Washington. As he read through them in 1969, he later recalled "What I had in my safe at Rand was seven thousand pages of documentary evidence of lying, by four presidents and their administrations over twenty-three years." There were only fifteen copies. He began clandestinely photocopying number 16. Unable to get either Senator Fullbright or McGovern to hold hearings on the Papers, he brought the story to Neil Sheehan of the NYTimes. One weekend while Ellsberg and his wife were away, Sheehan and his wife entered the Ellsberg apartment, removed, copied and replaced Ellsberg's copy. The Times had their own copy and the commitment from the top to publish the "story of the century". The articles began on Sunday, June 13, 1971. When the Nixon administration obtained an injunction against the Times, Ellsberg gave a copy to the Washington Post. The Post was enjoined after one day of publication. Eventually, 17 newspapers received parts of and published the Pentagon Papers, while the matter went to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court heard the case on June 26th; Ellsberg surrendered on the 28th, the same day Sen. Mike Gravel of Alaska began reading from the Papers in the Senate and placed them in the Congressional Record. That same day, in a 6-3 decision the Court supported the newspapers. Hugo Black wrote, "In revealing the workings of the government that led to the Vietnam War, the newspapers nobly did precisely what the Founders hoped and trusted they would do." When Ellsworth went to trial in January, 1973, Watergate was unravelling and the burglary of his psychiatrist's office came to light. Then John Ehrlichman offered the presiding judge the top job at the FBI. In May, a motion to dismiss was granted and Ellsberg was free. He is one of the few principals of the era still alive today.
In July of 1971, I was at 22, unwillingly and because of my low draft number, in a six week R.O.T.C. training camp at Ft. Indiantown Gap, PA. I saw one of the officers painfully hunched over newspaper reports of the decision. We had a 3 day leave and I went back to NYC for a weekend. Reading about the falsehoods, misconceptions and deceits on our road to war, confirming the futility of it all was one of the most exhilarating moments of my life. I've long been a fan of Ellsberg and an admirer of the Times and the Post. This well-written book had me at page one.
In July of 1971, I was at 22, unwillingly and because of my low draft number, in a six week R.O.T.C. training camp at Ft. Indiantown Gap, PA. I saw one of the officers painfully hunched over newspaper reports of the decision. We had a 3 day leave and I went back to NYC for a weekend. Reading about the falsehoods, misconceptions and deceits on our road to war, confirming the futility of it all was one of the most exhilarating moments of my life. I've long been a fan of Ellsberg and an admirer of the Times and the Post. This well-written book had me at page one.
The New Tsar: The Rise And Reign Of Vladimir Putin, Myers - B -
Apparatchik is a word that was frequently used during the Soviet era. It implied a nameless, faceless non-entity with a meaningless job somewhere in the vast bureaucracy. And it safely and accurately described a 37-year-old KGB Lt. Col. in Dresden when the Berlin Wall fell. He had been an indifferent student, and then, at best, an adequate administrator in the system that unravelled in the Gorbachev era. He was known as a somewhat ascetic teetotaler with a fondness for the martial arts. His life was completely unremarkable.
Anatoly Sobchak, the man who would become the first elected mayor of St. Petersburg, was looking to add to his staff someone with a familiarity with the old system and thought that a younger KGB man might fit his needs. Thus began Putin's political career in 1990. He was on vacation during the 1991 putsch, during which Sobchak shined and returned in time to bask in his boss's success. Putin was unhappy with the demise of the USSR, but somehow had landed on his feet in the new Russian Federation. For the next five years, he was Sobchak's right hand man and because of his fluent German, the Deputy Mayor tasked with liaising with foreign investors. He gained invaluable experience and made a vast number of contacts. Economic and political turmoil riled Russia in the 90's, leading to Sobchak's loss at he polls and a volatile presidential election in 1996. In the aftermath of Yeltsin's victory, jobs were up for grabs in Moscow and the minister in charge of the Kremlin's vast wealth reached out to Putin. Within months, he was transferred to a position investigating corruption in the management of the government's affairs, and a year later was promoted by Yeltsin to a high-ranking political position. Putin was hard working, discreet, honest, competent and loyal. In 1998, Yeltsin, fearful that the KGB's successor, the FSB, was looking at him and his family, rewarded Putin with the top job there. The Russian Federation in the late 1990's was in a state of chronic crisis. None of the people or institutions were equipped to handle the freedom that the end of the USSR had created. Yeltsin was so ill that he would go for months without coming to the Kremlin and, after the abuse of the oligarchs, the inflation, the default on the nation's debt and the near collapse of the state, he was bereft of political capital. It's somewhat ironic that he was impeached by the Duma at the same point in time that Bill Clinton was by the House. Nonetheless, he was obsessed by who was to succeed him and, since everyone considered the PM the one who was next in line, he fired and appointed PMs constantly. Worried about his fate when he would be out of office, Yeltsin rewarded the loyal Vladimir Putin with the position in August 1999, ten months before the next election. Putin prosecuted the 2nd war in Chechnya with a new vigor that caught the attention of the public. On the last day of 1999, Yeltsin resigned. Vladimir Putin was President of Russia.
Putin consolidated power, was elected convincingly, and began to focus on his primary mission - restoring some sense of stability to the nation. He also sought some sort of accommodation with the US. He had hoped that the events of Sept. 11 would lead to an alignment against terrorists. He was facing an Islamic revolt in the south. He supported US efforts in Afghanistan and stopped complaining about NATO. In return, George Bush gave him a heads up when the US withdrew from the ABM pact. After the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, Putin came full circle in opposition to the US. He turned vehemently anti-American after the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. At home, the war in Chechnya ground on to no avail and fostered terrorist activity across the nation. Hundreds died in different terrorist events, including bombings of buildings, public transit facilities, a theater, a soccer stadium, an elementary school, and two planes blown out of the sky by suicide bombers. It was Afghanistan all over again, only closer to home and with domestic terrorism thrown in. The increase in the price of oil greatly enhanced the financial status of Russia and allowed Putin to crack down on dissent in the media, to eliminate western NGO's, and enhance the old Soviet-style police state. By 2005, it began to look as if the old days were back. He told the world that the dissolution of the USSR was "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century". Proud of the past, refusing to disavow Stalin, this ideological son of the Great Patriotic War was seeking to define a new nationalism. With the confiscation of Yukos, he began to turn back some of the abuses that led to the dispersion of Russia's wealth into the hands of the oligarchs. He became known as the CEO of Kremlin, Inc. And, as his second term continued, he doubled down on his animosity and contempt for US policy and George W. Bush. At a Davos presentation in 2007, he stunned the world with the depth of his feelings. As his second term wound down, he selected Dmitri Medvedev as his successor, divorced his wife of almost thirty years, had the good fortune to be designated the next Prime Minister, and was suspected by the CIA and some well-informed Russians to be worth $40B.
As PM, Putin was still in charge and very focused on the Sochi Olympics. He continued to manage the economy. Medvedev had hoped for better but as 2012 approached, Putin announced he would return as President (now a six-year term) and Medvedev would assume leadership of the United Russia party and then the Premiership. Opposition to this power grab was fierce and the Duma elections, which came first, were generally conceded to be fraudulent, a mockery of the concept. Hundreds of thousands took to the streets of Moscow to protest. Nonetheless, he was easily re-elected after presenting himself as Russia's protector of all things evil from the west, particularly the US. He cracked down on any and all dissent, was ferocious in response to Obama's attempt to reset, welcomed Edward Snowden, and basked in the glow of hosting an Olympiad. Olympic triumphs were immediately outweighed by the convulsions in Ukraine, in his mind attributable to the underhanded actions of the EU and the US. His response was to reverse Khruschev's transfer of the Crimea to Ukraine by annexing the peninsula. He followed with an invasion of eastern Ukraine. The west responded with very severe sanctions. The sanctions and the collapse in the price of oil hammered the Russian economy. The book closes in 2014 with Putin indisputably atop a nationalistic, totalitarian Russia, hating the west and according to Angela Merkel, no longer in touch with reality.
I've struggled with certain aspects of this book. For quite some time I've despised the Soviet bending of history, defilement of the truth and the Alice In Wonderland views articulated by their lying leaders. That Putin eventually fell into the same style of governing makes for disquieting reading, and a fear for the future. I also am very disappointed in the fact after fact presentation style of this book. I realize that biographers who muse over motivations and intentions can sometimes stray from the telling of a story. But, to never offer a single sentence or thought about something is being too descriptive for me. In the end, the style and the utterly demoralizing tale have worn me out.
Anatoly Sobchak, the man who would become the first elected mayor of St. Petersburg, was looking to add to his staff someone with a familiarity with the old system and thought that a younger KGB man might fit his needs. Thus began Putin's political career in 1990. He was on vacation during the 1991 putsch, during which Sobchak shined and returned in time to bask in his boss's success. Putin was unhappy with the demise of the USSR, but somehow had landed on his feet in the new Russian Federation. For the next five years, he was Sobchak's right hand man and because of his fluent German, the Deputy Mayor tasked with liaising with foreign investors. He gained invaluable experience and made a vast number of contacts. Economic and political turmoil riled Russia in the 90's, leading to Sobchak's loss at he polls and a volatile presidential election in 1996. In the aftermath of Yeltsin's victory, jobs were up for grabs in Moscow and the minister in charge of the Kremlin's vast wealth reached out to Putin. Within months, he was transferred to a position investigating corruption in the management of the government's affairs, and a year later was promoted by Yeltsin to a high-ranking political position. Putin was hard working, discreet, honest, competent and loyal. In 1998, Yeltsin, fearful that the KGB's successor, the FSB, was looking at him and his family, rewarded Putin with the top job there. The Russian Federation in the late 1990's was in a state of chronic crisis. None of the people or institutions were equipped to handle the freedom that the end of the USSR had created. Yeltsin was so ill that he would go for months without coming to the Kremlin and, after the abuse of the oligarchs, the inflation, the default on the nation's debt and the near collapse of the state, he was bereft of political capital. It's somewhat ironic that he was impeached by the Duma at the same point in time that Bill Clinton was by the House. Nonetheless, he was obsessed by who was to succeed him and, since everyone considered the PM the one who was next in line, he fired and appointed PMs constantly. Worried about his fate when he would be out of office, Yeltsin rewarded the loyal Vladimir Putin with the position in August 1999, ten months before the next election. Putin prosecuted the 2nd war in Chechnya with a new vigor that caught the attention of the public. On the last day of 1999, Yeltsin resigned. Vladimir Putin was President of Russia.
Putin consolidated power, was elected convincingly, and began to focus on his primary mission - restoring some sense of stability to the nation. He also sought some sort of accommodation with the US. He had hoped that the events of Sept. 11 would lead to an alignment against terrorists. He was facing an Islamic revolt in the south. He supported US efforts in Afghanistan and stopped complaining about NATO. In return, George Bush gave him a heads up when the US withdrew from the ABM pact. After the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, Putin came full circle in opposition to the US. He turned vehemently anti-American after the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. At home, the war in Chechnya ground on to no avail and fostered terrorist activity across the nation. Hundreds died in different terrorist events, including bombings of buildings, public transit facilities, a theater, a soccer stadium, an elementary school, and two planes blown out of the sky by suicide bombers. It was Afghanistan all over again, only closer to home and with domestic terrorism thrown in. The increase in the price of oil greatly enhanced the financial status of Russia and allowed Putin to crack down on dissent in the media, to eliminate western NGO's, and enhance the old Soviet-style police state. By 2005, it began to look as if the old days were back. He told the world that the dissolution of the USSR was "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century". Proud of the past, refusing to disavow Stalin, this ideological son of the Great Patriotic War was seeking to define a new nationalism. With the confiscation of Yukos, he began to turn back some of the abuses that led to the dispersion of Russia's wealth into the hands of the oligarchs. He became known as the CEO of Kremlin, Inc. And, as his second term continued, he doubled down on his animosity and contempt for US policy and George W. Bush. At a Davos presentation in 2007, he stunned the world with the depth of his feelings. As his second term wound down, he selected Dmitri Medvedev as his successor, divorced his wife of almost thirty years, had the good fortune to be designated the next Prime Minister, and was suspected by the CIA and some well-informed Russians to be worth $40B.
As PM, Putin was still in charge and very focused on the Sochi Olympics. He continued to manage the economy. Medvedev had hoped for better but as 2012 approached, Putin announced he would return as President (now a six-year term) and Medvedev would assume leadership of the United Russia party and then the Premiership. Opposition to this power grab was fierce and the Duma elections, which came first, were generally conceded to be fraudulent, a mockery of the concept. Hundreds of thousands took to the streets of Moscow to protest. Nonetheless, he was easily re-elected after presenting himself as Russia's protector of all things evil from the west, particularly the US. He cracked down on any and all dissent, was ferocious in response to Obama's attempt to reset, welcomed Edward Snowden, and basked in the glow of hosting an Olympiad. Olympic triumphs were immediately outweighed by the convulsions in Ukraine, in his mind attributable to the underhanded actions of the EU and the US. His response was to reverse Khruschev's transfer of the Crimea to Ukraine by annexing the peninsula. He followed with an invasion of eastern Ukraine. The west responded with very severe sanctions. The sanctions and the collapse in the price of oil hammered the Russian economy. The book closes in 2014 with Putin indisputably atop a nationalistic, totalitarian Russia, hating the west and according to Angela Merkel, no longer in touch with reality.
I've struggled with certain aspects of this book. For quite some time I've despised the Soviet bending of history, defilement of the truth and the Alice In Wonderland views articulated by their lying leaders. That Putin eventually fell into the same style of governing makes for disquieting reading, and a fear for the future. I also am very disappointed in the fact after fact presentation style of this book. I realize that biographers who muse over motivations and intentions can sometimes stray from the telling of a story. But, to never offer a single sentence or thought about something is being too descriptive for me. In the end, the style and the utterly demoralizing tale have worn me out.
The Fall Line: America's Rise To The Ski Racing Summit, Vinton - B +
This is a fabulous, exciting book about the two greatest American skiers: Bode Miller and Lindsay Vonn. It details the twelve months that ended with the Vancouver Olympics in 2010. Both had failed at Torino, Miller through apparent indifference and Vonn because of a crash. Miller's ambivalence about the Olympics stemmed from his inner philosophies. He thought America's obsession was fueled by tv and inherently simplistic. A skiers merit was weighed over a World Cup season, not on one day every fourth year.
Miller was pretty much written-off for Vancouver. Lindsay, though, was the apple of NBC's eye. Both had transformed America's place in the ski world. Vonn was bigger and faster than almost all of the women and skied recklessly without any regard for injury. She piled up World Cup victories. Miller was even more reckless, a sort of self-taught unorthodox skiing savant. They had both won World Cup Overall titles. The American men's team had sunk so low in the period between the Mahre's and Miller that there were years when we didn't get a single point on the World Cup circuit. Points are rewarded on a sliding scale from first to 30th and there are up to five events almost weekly from late October until March. The World Cup events preceding the Olympics were viewed as a tune up and for Lindsay Vonn, the 2009-10 tour was a rousing success. She nabbed victory after victory. Bode had left the circuit the previous March and no one knew if he would return. The two previous seasons he had not competed as a member of the US Ski team, but on his own. In September, after everyone else in the business had spent months preparing their equipment and their bodies, an overweight Bode got in touch with the US Ski team and asked back in. His progress was slow and he missed most of December with a sprained ankle. The Vancouver Olympics were the US Ski teams finest performance ever. They won 21 medals, including the Women's Downhill for Vonn and three for Bode including gold in the Combined. Afterwards, he'd learned that there small fractures in the 'sprained' ankle.
The author closes with a brief summary of the ensuing years, which for Bode included the death of his brother, a marriage and a second child, many injuries and his sixth Olympic medal in 2014. For, Vonn there has been divorce, an affair with Tiger, innumerable injuries, but so many World Cup wins that she now leads the all-time women's list. Unfortunately, both Vancouver and Sochi were weather-challenged, and Vinton points out that the next two Winter Olympics are also at altitudes where global warming could easily lead to a cancellation of the Alpine events. Thanks to my brother, Bill, for recommending this book.
Miller was pretty much written-off for Vancouver. Lindsay, though, was the apple of NBC's eye. Both had transformed America's place in the ski world. Vonn was bigger and faster than almost all of the women and skied recklessly without any regard for injury. She piled up World Cup victories. Miller was even more reckless, a sort of self-taught unorthodox skiing savant. They had both won World Cup Overall titles. The American men's team had sunk so low in the period between the Mahre's and Miller that there were years when we didn't get a single point on the World Cup circuit. Points are rewarded on a sliding scale from first to 30th and there are up to five events almost weekly from late October until March. The World Cup events preceding the Olympics were viewed as a tune up and for Lindsay Vonn, the 2009-10 tour was a rousing success. She nabbed victory after victory. Bode had left the circuit the previous March and no one knew if he would return. The two previous seasons he had not competed as a member of the US Ski team, but on his own. In September, after everyone else in the business had spent months preparing their equipment and their bodies, an overweight Bode got in touch with the US Ski team and asked back in. His progress was slow and he missed most of December with a sprained ankle. The Vancouver Olympics were the US Ski teams finest performance ever. They won 21 medals, including the Women's Downhill for Vonn and three for Bode including gold in the Combined. Afterwards, he'd learned that there small fractures in the 'sprained' ankle.
The author closes with a brief summary of the ensuing years, which for Bode included the death of his brother, a marriage and a second child, many injuries and his sixth Olympic medal in 2014. For, Vonn there has been divorce, an affair with Tiger, innumerable injuries, but so many World Cup wins that she now leads the all-time women's list. Unfortunately, both Vancouver and Sochi were weather-challenged, and Vinton points out that the next two Winter Olympics are also at altitudes where global warming could easily lead to a cancellation of the Alpine events. Thanks to my brother, Bill, for recommending this book.
The Nightingale, Hannah - B +
This is an excellent novel of the French Resistance recommended to me by Mike Connell. It is told through the eyes of two sisters, Vianne and Isabelle Mauriac. Vianne is older, has a daughter and a husband who is a POW. She teaches in the village and occupies a home her family has owned for generations, while her eighteen-year-old sister is a firebrand filled with anger. The Germans assign a polite, gentlemanly captain to billet at their home and Vianne complies. Isabelle treats him with disdain. While Vianne copes, Isabelle is off to Paris on fake paperwork and quickly is hip-deep in serious resistance activity. She remembers her mother's friend in the foothills of the Pyrenees and soon is leading an escape route from Paris to Spain for downed Allied pilots. She is also very pleased to learn that her dad is not a collaborator but a legendary forger. Vianne works with and convinces the local orphanage to take in fourteen Jewish children. Vianne, her husband and two children survive the war and remember.
Once again, a novel fulfills the role of filling in the blanks. No matter how many histories one has read, only in a well-done novel or in a movie can you get a feel for being in a column fleeing Paris, what it is like to have a stranger living in your home, the daily privations of rationing, the pain of starvation, waiting endlessly for word from your husband, traveling without the proper papers, watching a Jewish friend be sent away, losing a child and a sister and remembering it all - for as long as you live.
Once again, a novel fulfills the role of filling in the blanks. No matter how many histories one has read, only in a well-done novel or in a movie can you get a feel for being in a column fleeing Paris, what it is like to have a stranger living in your home, the daily privations of rationing, the pain of starvation, waiting endlessly for word from your husband, traveling without the proper papers, watching a Jewish friend be sent away, losing a child and a sister and remembering it all - for as long as you live.
Travelers, Pavone - B +
In this, his third book, Chris Pavone continues to prove that he is a very capable writer of diverse 21st century thrillers. Here, Will Rhodes is a writer for 'Travelers', a sort of Conde Nast Travel magazine that is at the top of the publishing pyramid, or at least appears to be. His wife just went freelance after spending ten years there. He's recruited (more like entrapped) to work for the CIA. Well, maybe it's not the CIA - but then again, who's who. This book is very good and full of plot twists and turns that keep you guessing and turning the pages. I will say though, not knowing who's who so deep into the book is unnerving. Since Marcella edits this blog and will read this book, I'll leave it at that.
Midnight Sun, Nesbo - B
This is a bit of an odd effort on the part of Jo Nesbo, author of the ten book series featuring Harry Hole, Oslo detective and alcoholic. It's his fourth non-Harry novel and is set in the far Arctic north of the country, approximately 750 miles from Oslo, about 40 years ago. A failed hit-man is on the run from his boss who has sent a posse all the way up to the Arctic circle. Nesbo explores the culture, people and religion of the community and helps the hit man find a new life. A pleasant, but not terribly engrossing tale.
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