My fascination for ancient Rome quickened in high school when four years of Latin added the literature through which we know so much of its history. Rome, more or less and in one shape or another, survived as a continual entity for over two millenia. The author has chosen to write about the ten most important emperors at the height of the empire's majesty. It is the era after conquest and expansion when the great accomplishments and construction took place, when the Rome that we can still physically see was built and the foundations of European civilization were laid.
Julius Caesar appointed as his successor and posthumously adopted Octavian, his young 19 year old great nephew. Facing the powerful Marc Antony, Octavian defeated Antony in battle and then invited him to join in a sharing of power. When Antony left and collaborated with Cleopatra, the forces of Octavian prevailed in 32 BC, making him the most powerful person in the world. He ended decades of civil war and ushered in an era of peace and tranquility as Augustus. He ruled for another 45 years. Trade flourished and the Mediterranean world prospered during the Pax Romana. He spread power away from the city of Rome and around the empire. He 'globalized' the empire and took its culture to Britain and Iraq. He converted Rome from a city of bricks to one of marble. Virgil, Horace, Ovid and Livy became famous under his rule. In his last decade, he adopted his wife Livia's son from her first marriage, Tiberius. He died peacefully in bed in the year 14.
Tiberius was a soldier handed a difficult political job and succeeding a newly proclaimed god. He maintained the monarchy he inherited, yet did so with a tyrannical touch. His most important contribution was to officially end the centuries of expansion. He had fought in central Europe for decades and knew there was no reward for crossing either the Rhine or the Danube. Nor did he wish to expand the army beyond the three hundred thousand men it took to defend the far flung borders. Instead of expanding the empire, he managed it. He failed in selecting his successor as the infamous Caligula followed him to the throne in 37.
We turn next to Nero, who was on the throne when the Great Fire destroyed most of the city in 64. He used the fire as an opportunity to dramatically rebuild the city, but is remembered as a sort of mad autocrat who was insecure, vain and a madman who ordered his own mother's death. He was a populist who provided the people with the finest entertainment and games in the long history of the empire but callously executed anyone who annoyed him. His debauched life and managerial incompetence led to a revolt against his rule. His suicide meant the end of rule by the noble house of Caesar.
Vespasian "was the equal of the great generals of old in everything but his greed." Upon Nero's death, there was fighting on the borders and even within the empire. There was a scramble for power which Vespasian won as he founded a new dynasty. The spring board for success was his suppression of the revolt in Judea. It was commemorated by construction in Rome, the most magnificent of which was the Colosseum. He democratized the ruling of the empire by creating a true meritocracy not reliant on the blue bloods of the senatorial class. After Nero's extravagances, he restored the empire's finances. He was a soldier-statesman who succeeded as emperor. He died in 69.
Trajan was neither royal nor Italian, but a shrewdly political general who became emperor in 98. He spent half of his time as emperor in the field with the army fighting and defending the borders. His greatest successes were in Dacia, modern Romania. It took a third of the army, 100,000 men, to succeed in the rough terrain, and the campaign captured 360,000 pounds of gold and three times as much silver. He was the only emperor to expand boundaries and he used the booty to entertain the people and the senate and to build in the center of Rome. Peace and prosperity followed for decades. Some scholars believe that the 2nd century achieved a GDP that was not matched until the 17th century in the Netherlands.The climate was perfect and it is believed the population peaked somewhere between 50 and 70 million. The empire stretched from London to Beirut. Trajan died while campaigning in the middle east. He was the first emperor to die outside of Rome and did so without naming an heir.
He was succeeded by his cousin Hadrian, known as the Greek and to history as the most travelled emperor ever. From Britain to Syria and everywhere in between, he went on horseback or by ship. He was charming, brilliant, a successful campaigner, and a firm believer in consolidating the empire, building up its finances and avoiding war. He focused on the east where he believed the future of the empire rested. He established and often built up a fixed defensive border. Although flawed, he left "the empire peaceful, prosperous and more open" and at its historical peak.
Marcus Aurelius is known as the philosopher and his book, 'Meditations', is still widely read. To the extent western culture idealizes the philosopher-king, it is Aurelius who epitomized its ideals. He was committed to justice and goodness, steered clear of cruelty and sought compromise. "He made duty his lodestar." His strength of character was a necessity as the empire was attacked on all sides and suffered a major epidemic.
Septimius Severus assumed the throne in 197, after a four year civil war. He was from Africa and founded a dynasty based in the middle east. "The House of Severus was the Roman army, and the army was the house of Severus." Like those before him, he succeeded at war and built temples and arches at home. He died campaigning against the Scots, and his son, Caracalla, followed him. Caracalla campaigned far and wide and is known for adopting a law in 212 that extended Roman citizenship to every free inhabitant of the empire. He was assassinated in 217. Severus Alexander continued the dynasty as an emperor-soldier to 235, when he was assassinated. "Violence began to spiral out of control in Severan Rome."
I have long been troubled by the perpetual violence that haunted regime change in Rome that now became constant war, thus making the political failures overwhelmingly more the story than the glory of Rome. Diocletian, a career soldier and the only emperor to abdicate, grew up an impoverished resident of the Balkans. He ruled for twenty-one years, ending the crisis of the third century wherein twenty men ruled in the fifty years preceding his ascension and the empire was attacked on all fronts. Rome had almost collapsed. Diocletian established the foundation for the future of the empire. "He reorganized the Roman Empire and, in a real sense saved it." He was proclaimed emperor in 284 by fellow soldiers on an eastern campaign. He added a co-emperor in the west, while he stayed in the more prosperous east. Each man was seconded by a Caesar and all four, all poor soldiers from the Balkans, ruled the empire in harmony. After their battles were won and they turned to the management of the empire, they decided to punish non-Roman religions, turning against the Manicheans and the Christians, who were particularly persecuted for a decade. He retired in 305 to his homeland in present day Croatia. He had had more impact on the empire than anyone since Augustus. The east-west division was established and Rome was no longer the center of the universe. "In retrospect, the reigns of Diocletian and Constantine amounted to one common enterprise to reform and thus save Rome."
Constantine's conversion to Christianity "changed the world." "He was a soldier, a statesman, a builder, ruthless, single-minded, ambitious, power hungry, brilliant, subtle, spiritual, violent, an administrator, a public relations genius, and a visionary. Constantine was one of history's great success stories." He prevailed in the west, but only after years of fighting. After his victory at the Milvian Bridge outside of Rome in 312, he announced he was a Christian and began the slow process of converting the empire as well. It took another decade for him to defeat his eastern counterpart and reign supreme. He closed pagan temples, confiscated their wealth and built churches. He elevated the status of bishops, made divorce more difficult, abolished crucifixion and made Sunday the sabbath. He concluded that the empire required an eastern capital and built Constantinople on the site of Byzantium. He died in 337. By the end of the century, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire.
The success of Rome, particularly the acknowledgement here that it probably took 1500 years to equal the quality of life in the second century, has always fascinated me. When you combine that, with the longevity of at least the name Rome for over two thousand years as a political entity, you have one of our great histories, and one worth returning to.
4.26.2019
Only To Sleep, Osborne - B
This is a delightful diversion set in 1988 and featuring a retired 72 year-old Phillip Marlowe. Pacific Mutual calls the Baja resident out of retirement to check on the veracity of a life insurance claim. He traipses all over Mexico, drinks too much, bemoans old age, oozes cynicism and concludes that there has been fraud and multiple murders committed.
4.20.2019
Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster, Higginbotham - A*
This magnificent book tells the epic horror story of the Chernobyl disaster that began in Reactor Number Four near midnight on April 25, 1986. In 1970, thirty-three year old Soviet engineer Viktor Brukhanov, was tasked with building the world's largest nuclear power station in Chernobyl, Ukraine. Fifteen years later, he was in charge of four 1,000 megawatt reactors and thousands of workers. There was a hospital, fifteen kindergartens, a cinema, beauty parlor, yacht club and fully stocked stores in the town of Pripyat, that supported the station. The reactors had been built during what came to be known as the Era of Stagnation, and corners had been cut. The quality of the staffing had materially declined from the early days. The Chief Engineer was taking courses in nuclear power through a correspondence course. Nonetheless, Chernobyl was the pride of the USSR. Brukhanov was slated to receive the Order of Lenin on May 1, 1986.
To control a nuclear reaction, create electricity and not trigger an explosion, there must be control rods, neutron moderators and a coolant to remove excess heat. Graphite/water coolant systems were the oldest, easiest, cheapest, and the default in the Soviet system. Nuclear programs derived from military projects adopted ultra-secrecy as a fundamental policy. This was true in the west but more so in the USSR. The USSR's paranoid commitment to secrecy meant that when scientists discovered design flaws in the reactors, no one was told and no steps were taken to fix the mistakes of the past. It meant sweeping matters under the rug, even when 14 men were boiled to death in one night at a plant in Balakovo, Russia.
Number Four had gone on line in 1983 without its final safety inspection, as the goal of finishing on time was more important than the required tests. Delay after delay meant that the deferred safety test finally would happen the 25th of April three years later. In order to satisfy electricity demand in the Kiev region, the test was pushed off until late in the night. The engineers began to "power down" the reactor, a step was missed and at 28 minutes after midnight, the unit powered down too quickly to 1% of its thermal capacity. Rods were pulled up and and power restored, but the coolant system was overwhelmed. The reactor was then properly shut down. Overheating led to a power surge, and within seconds, the system was at 100 times thermal capacity. Temperatures of 3000 degrees centigrade melted the protective shields, the building began to shake and at 1:24 AM, an explosion equal to 60 tons of TNT blew the reactor and its housing apart. What was left of an unshielded nuclear reactor lay exposed to the atmosphere.
The para-military firefighters stationed just outside the plant and first responders as far away as Kiev rushed to the scene. The operators attempted to put out fires and tirelessly worked to assure that the burgeoning disaster did not spread to the other three reactors. Even while those at Number Four began to fall from astronomical doses of radiation, Brukhanov and other managers failed to order an evacuation of Pripyat and its 50,000 residents because they did not believe a meltdown could occur. By the morning, the visible fires were out but the reactor was gone. "In its place was a simmering volcano of uranium fuel and graphite - a radioactive blaze that would prove all but impossible to extinguish."
Within the Soviet system, a General Radiation Alert was the maximum possible emergency, and in response, the system reacted quickly and according to plan. Specialists from around the country were mobilized to go to Chernobyl. Unfortunately, Soviet politics slowed down the decision to evacuate Pripyat. Saturday evening saw a second explosion as the core of Number Four exposed to the air turned a ruby red and sent white geysers into the night sky. The evacuation of the seriously injured and the atomgrad of Pripyat began on Sunday. Helicopter pilots began circling the reactor, hovering over it as it emitted deadly doses of radiation while soldiers dropped bags of clay, sand, lead, dolomite and boron to stop the spread of a modern nuclear nightmare.
Twenty million curies of radioactivity were alight and spreading northwest toward Scandinavia. That began to set off alarms on Sunday in Sweden. Although there was a 26 word admission of an accident announced on Monday, the USSR, notwithstanding the new era of glasnost, went into full secrecy mode. A week into the containment effort, 4600 tons had been dropped on Reactor Four, the radiation levels had not abated. Effort after effort, innumerable committees, heroic pilots, civil defensemen, firefighters, literally anyone who could be mobilized was thrown at the Reactor and nothing improved. The government was concerned about poisoning and evacuating the entire western half of the USSR. People began to flee Kiev. On May 8th, the water under the reactor was drained away, thus eliminating the potential of a steam explosion. Nonetheless, the fear of the reactor boring down into the earth, the hypothetical China syndrome, remained the number one concern. At the Moscow hospital where the worst had been taken, the deaths began on May 10th. The temperatures in Number Four were coming down, and in late May, the country began to plan to build a sarcophagus over the reactor. "By the beginning of June, the thirty-kilometer exclusion zone had become had become a radioactive battlefield encircled by a besieging army." A fifth of Kiev's population, including 363,000 children, were evacuated to the east in June.
The Soviet state was quick to investigate the calamity and equally quick to assess blame. Those in high places responsible for the design of the reactors were dismissed from their jobs, all planned future reactors were cancelled, and directions were given for the modification of any reactors in service. Most of the blame was heaped on the operators, many of whom were already dead, and Viktor Brukhanov was relieved of his job and party card. Before the sarcophagus over Four could be closed, the highly radioactive debris that had been blown onto the roof of Three had to be removed. Helicopters and robots had failed. The only solution was to order men up there to sweep the waste into Four. Over three thousand men participated and accomplished the task. The general overseeing it from too proximate a location collapsed after completion. Nonetheless, Reactor One* was turned on and nuclear generated electricity flowed into the system. On Nov. 30th, Reactor Number Four was officially sealed off.
In September, the official and final bodycount was announced at 31. Throughout the fall, almost 30,000 people were allowed back into Pripyat to recover personal belongings. In one of the final show trials in the USSR's long history, Brukhanov and five colleagues were tried and convicted. Penalties ran from two years in prison to ten in a penal colony. Amazingly, by the end of 1987, Reactors One, Two and Three were back up and running. And, the reactionary managers of the decaying empire continued to deny, denigrate, dismiss and blame the west for the ongoing political and economic fallout occasioned by the USSR's seventy years of incompetence and deceit. The state staggered to its knees and soon collapsed. Over half-a-million men and women were officially designated as 'liquidators' for their role in the cleanup, and like the veterans of the The Great Patriotic War, promised lifetime medical attention. It was never provided and tens of thousands died in middle age. Around the world, nuclear projects were abandoned.
Thirty years later, the exclusion zone had been reconquered by nature and had been stripped of anything of value by looters. A skeleton work force still monitors the facilities. For years after the accident, scientists explored the sarcophagus in an effort to find out what had happened and where the uranium was. They eventually concluded that the combination of materials in Number Four formed a hideous lava that came within feet of penetrating the floor of the building and entering the earth. Eventually, an international commission spread the blame for the fiasco well beyond some of the operators' mistakes and added the design of the plant and the dishonest system that pushed middle management to meet absurd goals and cut corners. By 2004, Ukraine and Belarus expanded the exclusion zone to 4,700 square kilometers. The consequences throughout Europe have been severe, with some meat and dairy products still not fit for consumption today. Because there is no one in the zone to hunt, it has become a sort of sanctuary and wildlife refuge where species prosper, and in many cases, have robustly survived the experience. Notwithstanding Chernobyl and Fukushima, nuclear power is increasingly viewed as a viable alternative to fossil fuels and is being aggressively researched in the US and China. Financed by the European Bank of Construction and Development, the New Safe Confinement enclosed Reactor Four last year in the hope of keeping the area safe for a hundred years.
Within the last month, I read an op-ed in the NYTimes extolling nuclear powered electricity as the answer to climate change. I understand that some of the minerals being researched have half-lives in the hundreds of years. But when uranium and plutonium have half-lives in the tens of thousands of years, I personally have little faith in our species' ability to safely marshal these materials for hundreds of more years, if ever.
*All three reactors were eventually put back in service, but closed down permanently by Ukraine in 2000
To control a nuclear reaction, create electricity and not trigger an explosion, there must be control rods, neutron moderators and a coolant to remove excess heat. Graphite/water coolant systems were the oldest, easiest, cheapest, and the default in the Soviet system. Nuclear programs derived from military projects adopted ultra-secrecy as a fundamental policy. This was true in the west but more so in the USSR. The USSR's paranoid commitment to secrecy meant that when scientists discovered design flaws in the reactors, no one was told and no steps were taken to fix the mistakes of the past. It meant sweeping matters under the rug, even when 14 men were boiled to death in one night at a plant in Balakovo, Russia.
Number Four had gone on line in 1983 without its final safety inspection, as the goal of finishing on time was more important than the required tests. Delay after delay meant that the deferred safety test finally would happen the 25th of April three years later. In order to satisfy electricity demand in the Kiev region, the test was pushed off until late in the night. The engineers began to "power down" the reactor, a step was missed and at 28 minutes after midnight, the unit powered down too quickly to 1% of its thermal capacity. Rods were pulled up and and power restored, but the coolant system was overwhelmed. The reactor was then properly shut down. Overheating led to a power surge, and within seconds, the system was at 100 times thermal capacity. Temperatures of 3000 degrees centigrade melted the protective shields, the building began to shake and at 1:24 AM, an explosion equal to 60 tons of TNT blew the reactor and its housing apart. What was left of an unshielded nuclear reactor lay exposed to the atmosphere.
The para-military firefighters stationed just outside the plant and first responders as far away as Kiev rushed to the scene. The operators attempted to put out fires and tirelessly worked to assure that the burgeoning disaster did not spread to the other three reactors. Even while those at Number Four began to fall from astronomical doses of radiation, Brukhanov and other managers failed to order an evacuation of Pripyat and its 50,000 residents because they did not believe a meltdown could occur. By the morning, the visible fires were out but the reactor was gone. "In its place was a simmering volcano of uranium fuel and graphite - a radioactive blaze that would prove all but impossible to extinguish."
Within the Soviet system, a General Radiation Alert was the maximum possible emergency, and in response, the system reacted quickly and according to plan. Specialists from around the country were mobilized to go to Chernobyl. Unfortunately, Soviet politics slowed down the decision to evacuate Pripyat. Saturday evening saw a second explosion as the core of Number Four exposed to the air turned a ruby red and sent white geysers into the night sky. The evacuation of the seriously injured and the atomgrad of Pripyat began on Sunday. Helicopter pilots began circling the reactor, hovering over it as it emitted deadly doses of radiation while soldiers dropped bags of clay, sand, lead, dolomite and boron to stop the spread of a modern nuclear nightmare.
Twenty million curies of radioactivity were alight and spreading northwest toward Scandinavia. That began to set off alarms on Sunday in Sweden. Although there was a 26 word admission of an accident announced on Monday, the USSR, notwithstanding the new era of glasnost, went into full secrecy mode. A week into the containment effort, 4600 tons had been dropped on Reactor Four, the radiation levels had not abated. Effort after effort, innumerable committees, heroic pilots, civil defensemen, firefighters, literally anyone who could be mobilized was thrown at the Reactor and nothing improved. The government was concerned about poisoning and evacuating the entire western half of the USSR. People began to flee Kiev. On May 8th, the water under the reactor was drained away, thus eliminating the potential of a steam explosion. Nonetheless, the fear of the reactor boring down into the earth, the hypothetical China syndrome, remained the number one concern. At the Moscow hospital where the worst had been taken, the deaths began on May 10th. The temperatures in Number Four were coming down, and in late May, the country began to plan to build a sarcophagus over the reactor. "By the beginning of June, the thirty-kilometer exclusion zone had become had become a radioactive battlefield encircled by a besieging army." A fifth of Kiev's population, including 363,000 children, were evacuated to the east in June.
The Soviet state was quick to investigate the calamity and equally quick to assess blame. Those in high places responsible for the design of the reactors were dismissed from their jobs, all planned future reactors were cancelled, and directions were given for the modification of any reactors in service. Most of the blame was heaped on the operators, many of whom were already dead, and Viktor Brukhanov was relieved of his job and party card. Before the sarcophagus over Four could be closed, the highly radioactive debris that had been blown onto the roof of Three had to be removed. Helicopters and robots had failed. The only solution was to order men up there to sweep the waste into Four. Over three thousand men participated and accomplished the task. The general overseeing it from too proximate a location collapsed after completion. Nonetheless, Reactor One* was turned on and nuclear generated electricity flowed into the system. On Nov. 30th, Reactor Number Four was officially sealed off.
In September, the official and final bodycount was announced at 31. Throughout the fall, almost 30,000 people were allowed back into Pripyat to recover personal belongings. In one of the final show trials in the USSR's long history, Brukhanov and five colleagues were tried and convicted. Penalties ran from two years in prison to ten in a penal colony. Amazingly, by the end of 1987, Reactors One, Two and Three were back up and running. And, the reactionary managers of the decaying empire continued to deny, denigrate, dismiss and blame the west for the ongoing political and economic fallout occasioned by the USSR's seventy years of incompetence and deceit. The state staggered to its knees and soon collapsed. Over half-a-million men and women were officially designated as 'liquidators' for their role in the cleanup, and like the veterans of the The Great Patriotic War, promised lifetime medical attention. It was never provided and tens of thousands died in middle age. Around the world, nuclear projects were abandoned.
Thirty years later, the exclusion zone had been reconquered by nature and had been stripped of anything of value by looters. A skeleton work force still monitors the facilities. For years after the accident, scientists explored the sarcophagus in an effort to find out what had happened and where the uranium was. They eventually concluded that the combination of materials in Number Four formed a hideous lava that came within feet of penetrating the floor of the building and entering the earth. Eventually, an international commission spread the blame for the fiasco well beyond some of the operators' mistakes and added the design of the plant and the dishonest system that pushed middle management to meet absurd goals and cut corners. By 2004, Ukraine and Belarus expanded the exclusion zone to 4,700 square kilometers. The consequences throughout Europe have been severe, with some meat and dairy products still not fit for consumption today. Because there is no one in the zone to hunt, it has become a sort of sanctuary and wildlife refuge where species prosper, and in many cases, have robustly survived the experience. Notwithstanding Chernobyl and Fukushima, nuclear power is increasingly viewed as a viable alternative to fossil fuels and is being aggressively researched in the US and China. Financed by the European Bank of Construction and Development, the New Safe Confinement enclosed Reactor Four last year in the hope of keeping the area safe for a hundred years.
Within the last month, I read an op-ed in the NYTimes extolling nuclear powered electricity as the answer to climate change. I understand that some of the minerals being researched have half-lives in the hundreds of years. But when uranium and plutonium have half-lives in the tens of thousands of years, I personally have little faith in our species' ability to safely marshal these materials for hundreds of more years, if ever.
*All three reactors were eventually put back in service, but closed down permanently by Ukraine in 2000
The Miernik Dossier, McCarry - B +
This is the actual first novel published by the author I recently discovered and posted about earlier this month. This one is absolutely great, and now I understand the references to LeCarre. There is so much duplicity that it's hard to follow the story. The book is in a dossier format; it's a transcript being reviewed by the Committee consisting of reports by an American agent as well as inputs from the British, Soviet, French, and Sudanese agencies that partook in the attempt to subvert the efforts of the Anointed Liberation Front. It is set in 1959, and for those who believe history rhymes or repeats itself, here is the proof. We, of course, have our fingers everywhere. The British and French are interested, but peripheral, and the Russians are hip deep in sponsoring the bad guys. The scene is the Sudan; the story feels like it is from today's news, not from sixty years ago. I suspect I will read more of McCarry's offerings.
4.07.2019
The Merchant of Power: Sam Insull, Thomas Edison and The Creation of the Modern Metropolis, Chasik - B
This book tells the story of Samuel Insull "the premier financier-entrepreneur of his time". He was one of the richest and most powerful men in America in the 1920's and his fall from grace was so extreme that he died an outcast in Paris in 1938. It is also a vivid reminder of how quickly the world changed in the three or four decades preceding WWI, when a world lit by fire was introduced to electricity and the great cities of the world blossomed with the majestic skylines we know today.
In 1881, the young Englishman went to work in NY as secretary to Thomas Edison. He had previously worked in Edison's London office. Edison's goal was to build a power plant at Pearl St. to electrify lower Manhattan. A year later, 400 bulbs would bring light to the financial district. Edison's businesses were far-flung, disorganized and uncoordinated. Insull became their CFO, responsible for raising capital and cutting costs. The companies produced and sold power, manufactured light bulbs, wired the buildings, and built the transmission infrastructure. Soon, Edison had 300 plants around the country. Edison utilized DC which was capable of transmitting power for only a few blocks. George Westinghouse and Nikola Tesla fostered AC, which by the end of the century could transmit electricity 100 miles. Edison's visions were doomed for failure. As Edison's businesses floundered, JP Morgan consolidated and refinanced them when he incorporated General Electric in 1892. The Wizard took a 14% share and retreated to his labs. Insull did not wish to work for Morgan's team, moved to Chicago and became the CEO of Chicago Edison. It was one of many small energy producers in the fastest growing city in the world. Soon, he built it into Commonwealth Edison by providing power to the city's elevated subway system, the 'L'. Electrified railways, owned and supplied by Insull, were running throughout the city and deep into the suburbs. The best known were the South and North Shore Lines. They created Chicago's suburbs and Insull built beautiful train stations in each town for his commuters. Insull's empire moved just about everyone who worked in Chicagoland and then built beaches for them to travel to on summer weekends. His companies were enlightened providers of pay and benefits well ahead of their time. There were turkeys at Christmas, work for the coloreds pouring into the north, jobs for the returning WWI vets, pensions, and educational subsidies. He sold electrical appliances to household customers. In 1925, Commonwealth Edison sold appliances that added $1.4 million to their sales income. Irons, hair curlers, electric heaters, radiators and coffeepots were the top sellers. Chicago had the highest per-capita electrical usage in the world.
In order to fend off a potential greenmail attack on his companies, Insull set up a leveraged holding company that increased significantly in value in the late 20's. Insull rid himself of Cyrus Eaton of Cleveland by paying the greenmail at the top of the market. He lived by an impeccable set of rules, never paid a bribe in Chicago and never touted his stocks. He personally guaranteed the loans for Chicago's new Civic Opera House, which opened 11 days after the market crash in 1929. As the market swooned, Insull kept buying stock in order to continue to avoid losing control of his companies. He made a second deal with Eaton that left his companies low on cash and heavily in debt. Overly leveraged, but still running profitable companies, Insull's companies were put into receivership and he was asked to resign. He was financially impoverished and lurking on the horizon were the potential consequences of encouraging thousands of his employees and customers to buy the shares of Commonwealth Edison, People's Gas and his other companies. "With more than 600,000 people sitting on worthless stock, surely some legerdemain was involved. Insull, and his brokers, and bankers and directors would be called to account." Insull fled to Paris and on to Athens, while at home he became public enemy #1 as FDR made the utilities the bane of democracy and Insull the chief robber baron. The administration was able to bring him home and he faced a federal trial in Chicago in the same courtroom and before the same judge who had tried Al Capone. The incredibly complex trial took a month-and-a-half. The transcript alone was 9,500 pages. After a 54 day sequestration, the jurors found for all of the defendants in a matter of minutes. Everything that he and his wife owned was auctioned off at the Lyric Opera building he had built. They returned to Paris penniless. He had a heart attack entering the Metro and was buried in London.
This is a brief well-written and good book. The author is certainly sympathetic to Sam Insull, whose accomplishments were extraordinary. My conclusion, without any further research, is that he was enlightened for the era and succumbed to hubris when disaster struck in the Depression. Thanks Lauren for the gift of the book.
Tears of Autumn, McCarry - B
This novel was written in the mid-70's and came to my attention in a NYTimes obit about the author. He was a former CIA agent turned writer referred to as the American Le Carre and I'd never heard of him. I do not think the praise should be heaped that high, but he wrote here a fun diversion, as any exploration of the world of the 60's seems at this long remove. Paul Christopher, an agent with a cover as a writer, believes the Vietnamese were behind the JFK assassination. It was simple payback for the killing of the Diems. He travels the world to Vietnam, Europe and Africa confirming his thesis that they enlisted the Cubans to find the unwitting and dim witted killer. Throw in the mob taking care of Jack Ruby to close the circle. As mentioned above, it stretches the mind to return to the world of the Diems, Soviets, and all African revolutionaries of the era.
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