This superbly written, brief book is an overview of the abysmal consequences of the Trump team's total failure to transition and manage three relatively low profile federal departments. The fifth risk of the title is 'project management', which is a widespread fear of many former managers occasioned by the incompetence and neglect of the current administration. The Bush administration prepared for and handed off their responsibilities with the utmost professionalism. The Obama administration did the same, but realized there was no one to hand off to in 2017. Chris Christie was in charge of the transition when Trump called him in and screamed that he "wanted his fucking money" back and not wasted on transition planning. Christie's efforts were to no avail because he was fired the day after the election. When he asked Bannon why, he was told Jared. After all, Christie had put Jared's father in jail a decade earlier. The entire transition team was fired. Bannon's reaction was, "Holy fuck, this guy doesn't know anything. And, he doesn't give a shit."
Both the previous two administrations sent 30-40 prepared professionals to each department the day after the election. At the Department of Energy, no one showed up for over a month. All of the top managers left on January 20th without talking to anyone on the Trump team. The outgoing DOE Secretary was a nuclear physicist. The incoming Secretary, Rick Perry, did not know what the department did and was characterized by Trump as someone "who should be forced to take an IQ test." Most people believe the department has something to do with oil and gas, but it really is about nuclear energy. It manages the three labs, Sandia, Livermore and Los Alamos, that are responsible for our nuclear arsenal. It works on overseas nuclear non-proliferation and on the clean up of nuclear waste in the US. It is currently trying to clean up Hanford in Washington, where two-thirds of all our plutonium was manufactured. In essence, the department deals with some of the most consequential risks the nation faces. Lewis interviewed the top 20 managers in the department and if they had been replaced, it was by someone totally unqualified, one example of whom was Eric Trump's brother-in-law. At the Dept. of Agriculture, the story repeated itself with unknowing, young critics showing up a month after the election. Two high level appointments were a country club cabana attendant and the owner of a scented candle company. Wilbur Ross, the new head at Commerce, was one of only three people in history to ever deceive Forbes about getting on their 400 richest list. Most people wanted to avoid it like the plague.The other two were a Saudi prince and of course, Donald Trump. The department is mislabeled, and according to a former higher up there, it should be called Technology and Science. NOAA takes up 60% of its budget. The man put in charge of NOAA was the former CEO of Accu Weather, the company that packaged NOAA's free weather information and charged for it. Even though NOAA pioneered weather forecasting and is considered the best in the world, he had lobbied for it to stop dealing with the public.
I'm afraid this simply is not up to the usual standards of Michael Lewis. It feels like it was haphazardly put together, and apparently it was. There are two Vanity Fair articles here along with an audiobook original.
3.29.2019
Stalker, Kepler - B +
Once again, the Swedish couple who write under the pen name of Lars Kepler have delivered another Joona Linna page turner. Stalking leads to a spree of killings and a city wide effort to find and stop a serial killer. The killer films the victims from outside their windows and later uploads and sends the film to the police as the killer enters each victim's home. Absolutely no clues emerge until a psychiatrist notices the similarities to a nine year old murder. The twists, turns, afrantic chase and a flat-out crazy surprise leads to an intriguing read. If you can handle some over the top plots and violence, this is a series worth pursuing.
Holy Ghost, Sandford - C-
Notwithstanding the author's superb and prolific record as a writer, this story did not work for me. It just felt dragged out. Three friends in a dying small Minnesota town create a Marian apparition at the local RC church that propels Wheatfield onto the national stage. The tourists restore the town's economy until someone starts shooting at them. There are some fun insights into rural life in southern Minnesota, but not enough to sustain an entire book.
3.13.2019
Rise And Kill First: The Secret History Of Israel's Targeted Assassinations, Bergman - B-
If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first.
The Babylonian Talmud
"Since World War II, Israel has assassinated more people than any other country in the western world." Stemming from the revolutionary roots of the Zionist movement, the horror of the Holocaust, and Arab animosity, Israel has felt alone in a dangerous world and comfortably reliant on targeted assassinations. The early Zionists were not reluctant to defend the pioneer settlers and they established a defense force known as the Haganah in the early 20's. They took on an aggressive posture, assassinating British officers during WWII. The Jews knew that they could rely on only themselves. In Palestine, they adopted assassination, guerilla warfare, and terrorism as tools to establish and defend the state.
When Israel was established, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion set up the security forces - the Shin Bet for internal matters and the Mossad for foreign - as off the books, and beyond the reach of Parliament. They reported to him alone. Taking clandestine operations against any opponent at any level became part of the strategy of the state. In the 1950's, fedayeen sponsored by Egypt and Jordan wreaked havoc in Israel. The response was the establishment of a highly trained group under Ariel Sharon that responded and did so effectively and violently. As the intrusions continued, two high up Egyptian officers were targeted and killed in 1956. A few years later, The Mossad earned international admiration for finding and kidnapping Eichmann in Argentina. When Egypt's 'Germans' built a missile system, Mossad kidnapped and killed the lead scientist. They then proceeded to totally undermine the missile effort by subterfuge. Mossad continued to build and strengthen.
In the late 1950's, two Palestinians, Yasser Arafat and Abu Jihad, formed an organization they called Fatah (later commonly referred to as the PLO) with the purpose of waging terror against the Israeli state. By the mid-60's, they were behind dozens, sometimes hundreds, acts of violence against Israel and its citizens every year. The Israeli victory in the Six Day War did not change the dynamic of Fatah's mission or methods. They now operated in the expanded Israel behind the lines and continued to wage aggressive guerrilla war. Palestine now had a leader, and one increasingly recognized around the world. Gaza was a source of consistent PLO violence. Shin Bet teamed with the IDF and between 1968 and 1972 neutralized the PLO. Israel was now utilizing extra-judicial assassination on its own soil. In 1968, the PLO hijacked its first plane and created a new, effective method of terrorism. Four years later, they killed Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. The response from Mossad was immediate. They killed the PLO leader in Rome a month later. Within a year, they had killed 14 people they believed were part of the Olympic slaughter. Mossad teamed with the IDF for the first time in 1973 when they took out three of the top five leaders of the PLO in a coordinated action in Beirut. The war between Israel and the PLO continued to escalate year in and year out. The Israelis successfully stopped the PLO hijacking of a plane in Uganda with the famous Entebbe Raid. Throughout the late 70's and into the 80's the war escalated in southern Lebanon until the IDF invaded the country in 1982 and surrounded Beirut. Under pressure from the US, Israel allowed Arafat to leave Beirut and go to Tunis. The invasion and occupation of Lebanon was a strain for the Israeli security services to such a degree that Shin Bet leadership broke every conceivable law in a cover-up of murders, the senior leadership was removed.
In 1987, the spontaneous eruption against the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza that became known as the Intifada forever changed the dynamics of the Israeli - Arab struggle. Israel was no longer the David to the Arab's Goliath. The Israeli's were now the Goliath crushing the peoples of the occupied territories. Long years of arbitrary military rule and encroachment on Arab land sparked the revolt. The Israelis did not view it as an organic revolt, but as another PLO operation, particularly after Arafat claimed to have given the order for it. The Mossad and IDF were able to assassinate Abu Jihad, the PLO's number two, in Tunis, over twenty years after his assassination had been approved by Golda Meir. Soon thereafter and although both sides kept up their attempts to kill each other and the Intifada raged on, diplomatic discussions opened up in Oslo. The Oslo Accords saw the PLO and Israel recognize each other and turn the management of the occupied territories over to the Palestinian Authority.
Iraq joined the list of nations that swore to destroy Israel when Saddam Hussein gained control in the 1970's. With French assistance, he began a nuclear power development program and almost immediately, his scientists began getting killed when they traveled to Europe or Egypt. Nonetheless, the Iraqis made progress and Israel began to consider bombing the Osirak reactor. In June of 1975, Israeli planes flew 600 miles to Osirak and obliterated Hussein's ambitions. He redoubled his efforts. Another nation committed to Israel's destruction rose out of the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Iran sponsored Hezbollah in Syria and Lebanon, and Hezbollah introduced the technique of the suicide bomb. The Israeli's invented and put to work the first drones to observe and, eventually, kill with. The endless circle of violence and retaliation continued.
A second Intifada began around the turn of the century when the Arabs relentlessly tore Israel apart with suicide bombings. On and on the war of attrition, the murderous merry-go-round continued. In 2002, Israel decided to wipe out every leader of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The Israelis successfully dismantled the leadership and soon thereafter, Arafat died of natural causes. To the north, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran created what the Israeli intelligence community called the Radical Alliance. The IDF invaded southern Lebanon but once again, failed. Hamas turned on Fatah and completely controlled Gaza. Iran was pouring money into Gaza, Hezbollah and Syria. Strategically, Israel was as threatened as it ever had been. In 2007, Mossad learned that Syria had been working on a nuclear reactor they had purchased from N. Korea six years earlier with Iranian money. Israel destroyed the facility a few months later, but did not publicize it. A joint US/Israeli action killed the number two man at Hezbollah and an IDF sniper team killed the number one general in Syria. The allies worked on stuxnet, the computer virus that destabilized Iranian centrifuges and Israel began killing Iranian scientists.
The book closes with the details of a battle between the head of the Mossad and the PM. Meir Dugan quit his job because he believed Bibi Netanyahu has forsaken the Zionist dream of a Jewish democracy in the desert and replaced it with a right wing suppression of millions of Arabs in a country in which Jews would be a minority.
The ending of this ridiculously long book is quite inadequate because it brings this philosophical divide to the table in the last two pages without any preliminaries and leaves the reader hanging about the status of strategic affairs in general. The one conclusion you come to is that the last seven decades of endless fighting is pointless. But, the problems are apparently incapable of resolution. Each side seems as intractable as they did in 1947.
The Babylonian Talmud
"Since World War II, Israel has assassinated more people than any other country in the western world." Stemming from the revolutionary roots of the Zionist movement, the horror of the Holocaust, and Arab animosity, Israel has felt alone in a dangerous world and comfortably reliant on targeted assassinations. The early Zionists were not reluctant to defend the pioneer settlers and they established a defense force known as the Haganah in the early 20's. They took on an aggressive posture, assassinating British officers during WWII. The Jews knew that they could rely on only themselves. In Palestine, they adopted assassination, guerilla warfare, and terrorism as tools to establish and defend the state.
When Israel was established, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion set up the security forces - the Shin Bet for internal matters and the Mossad for foreign - as off the books, and beyond the reach of Parliament. They reported to him alone. Taking clandestine operations against any opponent at any level became part of the strategy of the state. In the 1950's, fedayeen sponsored by Egypt and Jordan wreaked havoc in Israel. The response was the establishment of a highly trained group under Ariel Sharon that responded and did so effectively and violently. As the intrusions continued, two high up Egyptian officers were targeted and killed in 1956. A few years later, The Mossad earned international admiration for finding and kidnapping Eichmann in Argentina. When Egypt's 'Germans' built a missile system, Mossad kidnapped and killed the lead scientist. They then proceeded to totally undermine the missile effort by subterfuge. Mossad continued to build and strengthen.
In the late 1950's, two Palestinians, Yasser Arafat and Abu Jihad, formed an organization they called Fatah (later commonly referred to as the PLO) with the purpose of waging terror against the Israeli state. By the mid-60's, they were behind dozens, sometimes hundreds, acts of violence against Israel and its citizens every year. The Israeli victory in the Six Day War did not change the dynamic of Fatah's mission or methods. They now operated in the expanded Israel behind the lines and continued to wage aggressive guerrilla war. Palestine now had a leader, and one increasingly recognized around the world. Gaza was a source of consistent PLO violence. Shin Bet teamed with the IDF and between 1968 and 1972 neutralized the PLO. Israel was now utilizing extra-judicial assassination on its own soil. In 1968, the PLO hijacked its first plane and created a new, effective method of terrorism. Four years later, they killed Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. The response from Mossad was immediate. They killed the PLO leader in Rome a month later. Within a year, they had killed 14 people they believed were part of the Olympic slaughter. Mossad teamed with the IDF for the first time in 1973 when they took out three of the top five leaders of the PLO in a coordinated action in Beirut. The war between Israel and the PLO continued to escalate year in and year out. The Israelis successfully stopped the PLO hijacking of a plane in Uganda with the famous Entebbe Raid. Throughout the late 70's and into the 80's the war escalated in southern Lebanon until the IDF invaded the country in 1982 and surrounded Beirut. Under pressure from the US, Israel allowed Arafat to leave Beirut and go to Tunis. The invasion and occupation of Lebanon was a strain for the Israeli security services to such a degree that Shin Bet leadership broke every conceivable law in a cover-up of murders, the senior leadership was removed.
In 1987, the spontaneous eruption against the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza that became known as the Intifada forever changed the dynamics of the Israeli - Arab struggle. Israel was no longer the David to the Arab's Goliath. The Israeli's were now the Goliath crushing the peoples of the occupied territories. Long years of arbitrary military rule and encroachment on Arab land sparked the revolt. The Israelis did not view it as an organic revolt, but as another PLO operation, particularly after Arafat claimed to have given the order for it. The Mossad and IDF were able to assassinate Abu Jihad, the PLO's number two, in Tunis, over twenty years after his assassination had been approved by Golda Meir. Soon thereafter and although both sides kept up their attempts to kill each other and the Intifada raged on, diplomatic discussions opened up in Oslo. The Oslo Accords saw the PLO and Israel recognize each other and turn the management of the occupied territories over to the Palestinian Authority.
Iraq joined the list of nations that swore to destroy Israel when Saddam Hussein gained control in the 1970's. With French assistance, he began a nuclear power development program and almost immediately, his scientists began getting killed when they traveled to Europe or Egypt. Nonetheless, the Iraqis made progress and Israel began to consider bombing the Osirak reactor. In June of 1975, Israeli planes flew 600 miles to Osirak and obliterated Hussein's ambitions. He redoubled his efforts. Another nation committed to Israel's destruction rose out of the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Iran sponsored Hezbollah in Syria and Lebanon, and Hezbollah introduced the technique of the suicide bomb. The Israeli's invented and put to work the first drones to observe and, eventually, kill with. The endless circle of violence and retaliation continued.
A second Intifada began around the turn of the century when the Arabs relentlessly tore Israel apart with suicide bombings. On and on the war of attrition, the murderous merry-go-round continued. In 2002, Israel decided to wipe out every leader of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The Israelis successfully dismantled the leadership and soon thereafter, Arafat died of natural causes. To the north, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran created what the Israeli intelligence community called the Radical Alliance. The IDF invaded southern Lebanon but once again, failed. Hamas turned on Fatah and completely controlled Gaza. Iran was pouring money into Gaza, Hezbollah and Syria. Strategically, Israel was as threatened as it ever had been. In 2007, Mossad learned that Syria had been working on a nuclear reactor they had purchased from N. Korea six years earlier with Iranian money. Israel destroyed the facility a few months later, but did not publicize it. A joint US/Israeli action killed the number two man at Hezbollah and an IDF sniper team killed the number one general in Syria. The allies worked on stuxnet, the computer virus that destabilized Iranian centrifuges and Israel began killing Iranian scientists.
The book closes with the details of a battle between the head of the Mossad and the PM. Meir Dugan quit his job because he believed Bibi Netanyahu has forsaken the Zionist dream of a Jewish democracy in the desert and replaced it with a right wing suppression of millions of Arabs in a country in which Jews would be a minority.
The ending of this ridiculously long book is quite inadequate because it brings this philosophical divide to the table in the last two pages without any preliminaries and leaves the reader hanging about the status of strategic affairs in general. The one conclusion you come to is that the last seven decades of endless fighting is pointless. But, the problems are apparently incapable of resolution. Each side seems as intractable as they did in 1947.
American Prison: A Reporter's Undercover Journey Into The Business Of Punishment, Bauer - B +
The author applied, and went to work in Louisiana as a guard for the Corrections Corporation of America, the private prison company. This, even though he had spent two years and four months in solitary a decade earlier in an Iranian prison. He ties in today's prison profit motive with slavery to make the point that incarcerating people has always been about money. Indeed, before the Civil War, seven of the eight wealthiest states in the Union were in the south. The 13th amendment prohibition against involuntary servitude or slavery states "except as punishment for a crime", thus allowing over a century and a half of prison populations in the south picking cotton, while being called nigger and subject to physical abuse. The tradition, thoughh goes back much further in American history. A fourth of 18th century British migrants to America were convicts transported to work in the new world. In the 19th century, most states established penitentiaries and prison labor was contracted out for profit. The Louisiana convict leasing system that flourished after the Civil War had an annual death rate of 20%, only slightly below the Siberian Gulag of the 1940's. In neighboring Alabama, the majority of the men in the coal mines and steel mills were convict labor. The conditions were horrific, but the 19% mortality rate was blamed on "the debased moral condition of the negro whose systems are poisoned beyond medical aid by the loathsome diseases incident to the unrestrained indulgence of lust now that they are deprived of the control and care of a master." Texas decided to run their own businesses and by the early 20th century, owned a dozen prison plantations. The last two states to use prisoner leasing were Alabama and Florida. Prisoner leasing was followed by a new system of abuse, one necessary to improve roads in the 20th century, the chain gang. By the early 20's, 88% of Georgia's prisoners were in chain gangs. State and federal officials reported that outdoor work was good for the physical well being of the convicts and improved their character. Until the 1970's, the southern states used inmates as much as possible to supervise the other prisoners because they were free labor. The private prison system was next in a long line of abusive treatment and an attempt to hold costs down.
This book is simply shocking. I knew nothing about the institutionalizing of Jim Crow in the prison system. The brutality and harshness of it is appalling. The chapters on the author's experience are not quite as surprising and more or less what I expected. Mixing criminals, many of them violent, with $9 per hour guards is not a recipe for a constructive exchange. The most striking thing about CCA is that it is a for profit entity focused exclusively on making ends meet, and the place where they scrimp the most is health care. CCA is paid $34 per day per prisoner and any hospital time is profit crushing. There are innumerable examples given of the denial of medical treatment that is criminal, including two stories of pregnant woman being treated so indifferently that their infants died. After the publication of an article by the author in Mother Jones, he was threatened by CCA, but was never sued. The DOJ interviewed him as they were preparing for and dropping CCA from managing any federal prisons. CCA has rebranded itself as Core Civic and substantially increased its federal business under Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions. Thurgood Marshall, Jr. is on the Board of Directors. This book is certainly not an advertisement for privatizing anything. Thanks DG for the loan of another good read.
This book is simply shocking. I knew nothing about the institutionalizing of Jim Crow in the prison system. The brutality and harshness of it is appalling. The chapters on the author's experience are not quite as surprising and more or less what I expected. Mixing criminals, many of them violent, with $9 per hour guards is not a recipe for a constructive exchange. The most striking thing about CCA is that it is a for profit entity focused exclusively on making ends meet, and the place where they scrimp the most is health care. CCA is paid $34 per day per prisoner and any hospital time is profit crushing. There are innumerable examples given of the denial of medical treatment that is criminal, including two stories of pregnant woman being treated so indifferently that their infants died. After the publication of an article by the author in Mother Jones, he was threatened by CCA, but was never sued. The DOJ interviewed him as they were preparing for and dropping CCA from managing any federal prisons. CCA has rebranded itself as Core Civic and substantially increased its federal business under Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions. Thurgood Marshall, Jr. is on the Board of Directors. This book is certainly not an advertisement for privatizing anything. Thanks DG for the loan of another good read.
Can't Anybody Here Play This Game?: The Improbable Saga of the New York Mets First Year : Breslin - B -
In the introduction, Bill Veeck says "Jimmy Breslin has written a history of the Mets, preserving for all time a remarkable tale of ineptitude, mediocrity and abject failure."
"The Mets is a very good thing. They give everybody a job. Just like the WPA." Billy Loes, the only pitcher in the history of baseball to be defeated in a World Series game because he lost a ground ball in the sun.
Ebbets Field had had a sign that said "Hit sign and win a suit". The Polo Grounds, in 1962, had two signs offering the award of a boat at the end of the season. Marvelous Marv Throneberry, the Mets first baseman from landlocked Tennessee, won the prize and was advised by the League that he had to pay income taxes on the value of the boat. During the season when Marv hit a triple, and was called out, it was because he had missed both first and second base. The man considered the epitome of the team's failure had a boat he didn't need, and not the money to pay the taxes on it.
Soon after the Dodgers and Giants left town, Mayor Wagner called attorney Bill Shea and asked him to start an effort to bring a NL team to town. After taking a run at the Reds, Pirates and Phillies, he decided expansion was the route. The Mets and Houston were to be the 9th and 10th teams in the league. Joan Whitney Payson was the owner and she demanded that two men who had worked for the Yankees become Mets. Thus GM George Weiss and manager Casey Stengel joined the team. As for players, the NL set up the expansion draft to ensure that the new teams were going to draft from a pool of unwanted old-timers and occupy the second division for years. Casey's inspiring first team speech was "We got rich owners. They got plenty of money. If anybody does any good around here, I'll see to it that we get money off the owners. There's a lot of money around here. You got to go and get it." They certainly did not get it. They had two pitchers who lost 20 games and gave up 192 home runs on their way to a team ERA of 5.04. They committed 210 errors. They lost their 120th game on a triple play at Wrigley. They were simply 'amazin'. The most important and closing point that Breslin makes is that they were loved, seldom booed and drew almost a million fans because they were in the NL. They appealed to the former Dodger and Giant fans who simply could never root for the Yankees. As the son of a Giant's fan who played in the Dodger minor league system and the grandson of a man who took me to Ebbetts Field in 1955, I completely get it.
"The Mets is a very good thing. They give everybody a job. Just like the WPA." Billy Loes, the only pitcher in the history of baseball to be defeated in a World Series game because he lost a ground ball in the sun.
Ebbets Field had had a sign that said "Hit sign and win a suit". The Polo Grounds, in 1962, had two signs offering the award of a boat at the end of the season. Marvelous Marv Throneberry, the Mets first baseman from landlocked Tennessee, won the prize and was advised by the League that he had to pay income taxes on the value of the boat. During the season when Marv hit a triple, and was called out, it was because he had missed both first and second base. The man considered the epitome of the team's failure had a boat he didn't need, and not the money to pay the taxes on it.
Soon after the Dodgers and Giants left town, Mayor Wagner called attorney Bill Shea and asked him to start an effort to bring a NL team to town. After taking a run at the Reds, Pirates and Phillies, he decided expansion was the route. The Mets and Houston were to be the 9th and 10th teams in the league. Joan Whitney Payson was the owner and she demanded that two men who had worked for the Yankees become Mets. Thus GM George Weiss and manager Casey Stengel joined the team. As for players, the NL set up the expansion draft to ensure that the new teams were going to draft from a pool of unwanted old-timers and occupy the second division for years. Casey's inspiring first team speech was "We got rich owners. They got plenty of money. If anybody does any good around here, I'll see to it that we get money off the owners. There's a lot of money around here. You got to go and get it." They certainly did not get it. They had two pitchers who lost 20 games and gave up 192 home runs on their way to a team ERA of 5.04. They committed 210 errors. They lost their 120th game on a triple play at Wrigley. They were simply 'amazin'. The most important and closing point that Breslin makes is that they were loved, seldom booed and drew almost a million fans because they were in the NL. They appealed to the former Dodger and Giant fans who simply could never root for the Yankees. As the son of a Giant's fan who played in the Dodger minor league system and the grandson of a man who took me to Ebbetts Field in 1955, I completely get it.
In The Hurricane's Eye: The Genius of George Washington and the Victory at Yorktown, Philbrick - B+
Notwithstanding the standard American texts, "a naval battle fought between the British and the French was largely responsible for the independence of the United States." Washington had worked for years to take advantage of France's assistance to the colonies, but the French fleet never engaged the British. They did so in 1781 in the Battle of the Chesapeake. A year later, Washington wrote "that there never was a people who had more reason to acknowledge a divine interposition in their affairs than those of the United States."
When the French entered the war, they focused their naval forces where Britain's were, and where Britain's American wealth was concentrated - in the Caribbean. In October of 1780, three different hurricanes killed over 22,000 in the tropics and the French concluded that their navy might be safer much further north the following year. By 1780, the war was being fought exclusively in the south and there were two British armies that Washington hoped to trap with the assistance of the French. Lord Cornwallis was in North Carolina and Benedict Arnold was in Virginia. A French fleet defeated the British at the Battle of Cape Henry in March, 1781, but did not capitalize upon their victory by attacking Arnold at Portsmouth. On land, Cornwallis had decided to charge north and seek out the enemy. He boldly burned his wagons and lived off the land to make his force quicker in his pursuit of the soldiers under American Maj. Gen. Nathaniel Greene. Unfortunately for the UK, Cornwallis could not catch the Americans and was lured further and further into the inhospitable American interior. On March 15, the two armies fought an inconclusive battle at Guilford Courthouse where Cornwallis' army was "eviscerated" by the Americans. He retreated to Wilmington and headed north a month later. Regardless of any strategic considerations, he wanted to fight. Soon he was at Petersburg with almost seven thousand men. After five years of war, neither side had an advantage and Washington was concerned about France's commitment to the cause.
Washington was hoping the French would assist him in an attack on NYC. But Adm. de Grasse decided to head for the Chesapeake, where Gen. Clinton had ordered Cornwallis to head for Yorktown. When Washington learned of the location of Cornwallis' army, he realized that the end might be near. He and Rochambeau marched south and were in Philadelphia when he learned that De Grasse had arrived in the Chesapeake with 28 ships and over 3,000 soldiers. On Sept. 5, the French engaged the British and held them off. Unable to relieve Cornwallis by entering the bay, the British returned to NY. Outnumbered and without relief in sight, Cornwallis was also low on provisions. The British killed their horses and dumped the carcasses in the river. The British and German soldiers were packed into a small space and were pounded by the American and French artillery. Infantry began to penetrate Cornwallis' outer lines and he decided to escape across the York River at night. Rain and wind prevented the effort from succeeding and surrender became the only choice. Thus, on Oct. 17, Cornwallis sought terms and surrendered two days later on the 19th. No one knew it at the time, but the war was over. Washington returned to Newburgh and held the army together for a few more years. When the Treaty of Paris was signed, he bid his officers adieu at Fraunces Tavern in New York. He resigned his commission at Annapolis where Congress had assembled and rode home to Mount Vernon on Christmas Eve in 1783.
When the French entered the war, they focused their naval forces where Britain's were, and where Britain's American wealth was concentrated - in the Caribbean. In October of 1780, three different hurricanes killed over 22,000 in the tropics and the French concluded that their navy might be safer much further north the following year. By 1780, the war was being fought exclusively in the south and there were two British armies that Washington hoped to trap with the assistance of the French. Lord Cornwallis was in North Carolina and Benedict Arnold was in Virginia. A French fleet defeated the British at the Battle of Cape Henry in March, 1781, but did not capitalize upon their victory by attacking Arnold at Portsmouth. On land, Cornwallis had decided to charge north and seek out the enemy. He boldly burned his wagons and lived off the land to make his force quicker in his pursuit of the soldiers under American Maj. Gen. Nathaniel Greene. Unfortunately for the UK, Cornwallis could not catch the Americans and was lured further and further into the inhospitable American interior. On March 15, the two armies fought an inconclusive battle at Guilford Courthouse where Cornwallis' army was "eviscerated" by the Americans. He retreated to Wilmington and headed north a month later. Regardless of any strategic considerations, he wanted to fight. Soon he was at Petersburg with almost seven thousand men. After five years of war, neither side had an advantage and Washington was concerned about France's commitment to the cause.
Washington was hoping the French would assist him in an attack on NYC. But Adm. de Grasse decided to head for the Chesapeake, where Gen. Clinton had ordered Cornwallis to head for Yorktown. When Washington learned of the location of Cornwallis' army, he realized that the end might be near. He and Rochambeau marched south and were in Philadelphia when he learned that De Grasse had arrived in the Chesapeake with 28 ships and over 3,000 soldiers. On Sept. 5, the French engaged the British and held them off. Unable to relieve Cornwallis by entering the bay, the British returned to NY. Outnumbered and without relief in sight, Cornwallis was also low on provisions. The British killed their horses and dumped the carcasses in the river. The British and German soldiers were packed into a small space and were pounded by the American and French artillery. Infantry began to penetrate Cornwallis' outer lines and he decided to escape across the York River at night. Rain and wind prevented the effort from succeeding and surrender became the only choice. Thus, on Oct. 17, Cornwallis sought terms and surrendered two days later on the 19th. No one knew it at the time, but the war was over. Washington returned to Newburgh and held the army together for a few more years. When the Treaty of Paris was signed, he bid his officers adieu at Fraunces Tavern in New York. He resigned his commission at Annapolis where Congress had assembled and rode home to Mount Vernon on Christmas Eve in 1783.
November Road, Berney - B
Thanks to Dennis Grindinger for the loan of this hardcover novel. It features Frank Guidry, a small-time New Orleans hood in the local mob. He drops off a car in Dallas a few blocks from the School Depository and realizes on November 22nd that he is in the middle of a very big problem. A few days later, he is told to go to Houston, pick up the Eldorado at a specific place and dump it in the Ship Canal. Afterwards, on his way to his hotel, he realizes just how expendable he is and runs. He heads west on Route 66. On the way to a possible way out in Las Vegas, he runs into a housewife from Oklahoma and her two daughters, also on the run. He falls for Charlotte and starts to believe in a future together. Of course, men like Frank don't have futures, a fact that he eventually accepts. This is a classic fun beach read.
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