Southern Lady, Yankee Spy: The True Story of Elizabeth Van Lew, A Union Agent in the Heart of the Confederacy, Varon - B

    She was born in Richmond in 1818 to a conventional family that both owned slaves and hoped for abolition. She was well-educated, refined, and sympathetic to the plight of the enslaved she saw all around her. She believed in the Union and was heartbroken when Virginia seceded. She considered it “madness,” and the whole secession crisis “radicalized” her. “For the next four years, Van Lew would make a series of public displays intended to divert Confederate suspicion while she prayed, hoped, and worked for the Union.”

   She convinced Confederate authorities, in the spirit of Christianity, to let her minister to ill Union prisoners. She also assisted the Confederate wounded. She stayed in touch with Richmond’s Unionists, who had begun to help Union prisoners escape, and her home became a safe house for those fugitives. She then began running a modern intelligence network on behalf of the hated Union Gen. Benjamin Butler. Her couriers—black and white, free and enslaved—risked their lives to carry messages. As Grant advanced south in 1864, Van Lew received inquiries from the Union army, sent her agents to gather information, and passed it back to the Grand Army. In late 1864, Confederate authorities investigated her activities. The idea that a “frail spinster lady” from a wealthy family could act treasonably was a leap no one was willing to make.

    Richmond fell on April 3, 1865. She was thanked by many in the victorious army, including Grant, who visited her home “because she had rendered valuable service to the Union.” The joy of Richmond’s Unionists was short-lived, however, as they saw secessionists return to local offices and new constraints imposed on the formerly enslaved. When Grant became president, he rewarded Van Lew by appointing her postmaster general in Richmond. By then her espionage activities were known, and her appointment outraged the city’s establishment. She proved successful in the role and earned the admiration of the northern suffragette movement. Her skills as an administrator secured her a second term after Grant’s reelection, but her open support for, and hiring of, Black employees enraged the white establishment. With few friends in the Hayes administration, she lost both her position and her primary source of income in 1877. A decade later she briefly served, unhappily, in a civil service job in Washington before returning to Richmond.

   Her final years were marked by isolation and humiliation as the Lost Cause myth overwhelmed her Republican ideals and belief in Reconstruction. She died in 1900. Throughout much of the 20th century, she was ridiculed as “Crazy Bet,” an aberration among her people. In recent decades, however, she has been honored by women’s and civil rights groups.  Thank you, Wendell, for the recommendation.

The Doorman, Pavone - B

   The setting of this novel is today’s Manhattan, at the fictional Bohemia, a prestigious building on Central Park West. The principal characters are Emily Whitworth of 11C-D and Chicky Diaz, the doorman. Like Bonfire four decades ago, the story satirizes the excesses of the city’s very rich. Emily is a classy woman—educated, unselfish, stunningly beautiful—yet trapped in a marriage to a first-class skunk who happens to be extremely wealthy. She concludes the only thing she can do is carry on for the sake of her two children. Chicky is a stand-up guy whose life has fallen apart after the death of his wife and the unending bills that have left him impoverished. She appreciates his loyalty, and he is thankful that she is one of the few residents who treat the staff with genuine respect. On the night the city explodes in racial tensions and violence, the building is invaded by gun-carrying professional thieves—and one of the apartments on their hit list is 11C-D. It becomes a night of terror, but in the chaos, Emily and Chicky are able to help each other survive.

A History of the Jews I, Johnson - B

    The history of the Jewish people spans the known history of mankind and begins in the caves of Hebron, about twenty miles south of Jerusalem. Genesis describes how Abraham purchased the cave and the lands around it. Its "stones are mute witnesses to constant strife and four millennia of religious and political disputes." "No race has maintained over so long a period so emotional an attachment to a particular corner of the earth's surface." And this land has been promised to them by God, who elected them the Chosen People. Moses has been deemed the founder of the first ethical monotheistic religion, from which both the Christian and Muslim religions derive. The Mosaic Code made no distinction between the secular and the religious, rendering all crimes sins and all sins crimes.

    The Israelites unified their kingdom around 1000 BC. In the 10th century BC, "David became the most successful and popular king Israel ever had." He established "a national and religious capital" in Jerusalem and passed the kingdom on to his son, Solomon, who built the First Temple. Two centuries later, most of Israel was occupied and crushed by the Assyrians. Jerusalem survived but was captured by the Babylonians in 597 BC, and the Temple was destroyed. Many of Israel’s people were forced into captivity, and Judaism entered a phase when more Jews lived in the diaspora than in the Promised Land. The Babylonian Exile was brief, and the returnees built the Second Temple. Alexander’s Greeks occupied Judea but were ultimately expelled. A century of expansion followed, but the looming Roman Empire soon appeared, and in 63 BC, Israel became a Roman client state.

     For the thirty years prior to the Christian era, the state was ruled by Herod the Great, a ruthless, aggressive Jew who expanded the state and greatly enhanced the Temple. It is believed that as many as two and a half million of the world’s eight million Jews lived in Palestine during his reign. "The death of Herod the Great ended the last phase of stable Jewish rule in Palestine until the mid-twentieth century." The ensuing Roman oppression led to uprisings in 66 AD and 135 AD. This era coincided with the spread of the new religion of Jesus Christ, which rejected the strictures of the Mosaic Code and focused on salvation through belief and grace. Rome’s unhappiness was fueled by the Jews’ rebelliousness and their unwillingness to treat with people of other religions or adhere to Roman ways.

    "The Great Revolt of 66 AD and the siege of Jerusalem constitute one of the most important and horrifying events in Jewish history." The protracted war led to the siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD, when it fell to the Romans, who destroyed the Temple and most of the city. Seven decades later, the Jews again rebelled and were once again crushed. "The two catastrophes effectively ended Jewish state history in antiquity." It also ended the cooperative relationship between Judaism and Christianity, which had shared much but ultimately broke over Christ’s divinity. The Jewish population was decimated, but they survived because their leaders were able to make the Torah into "a system of moral theology and a community of extraordinary coherence." Judaism was no longer centrally focused but more localized in synagogues and led by rabbis. The religious themes remained the same as they spread throughout the Middle East and into central Europe. External peace and internal harmony "were essential for a vulnerable people without the protection of a state." The faith, as embodied in the Torah, was immutable and not subject to the countless schisms, heresies, and philosophical controversies that roiled Christianity. As for Palestine, it was Roman, then Christian, and in 636 AD conquered by the forces of Islam. Mohammed sought to destroy polytheistic paganism by "giving the Arabs Jewish ethical monotheism in a language they could understand." Jewish life in the Christian world was somewhat tenuous but safer in the Islamic theocracy.

    This is a topic of great importance and interest, but a very challenging read—one whose complexities require me to attend to it piecemeal. One of the most difficult aspects is that I am looking for the history in the secular sense and have little interest in the religious aspects. More to follow in the future.

Old City Hall, Rotenberg - B+

     This was the first book in the excellent series featuring Detectives Ari Greene and Daniel Kennicott of the Toronto PD. Kennicott, a former lawyer, was working as a beat cop when he was called out to a homicide to assist the seasoned detective. The best-known radio personality in Canada contacts the authorities and admits to killing his second, younger wife. It all looks very cut and dried. The police gather evidence, the Crown prepares its case, and the defendant refuses to speak to his lawyer. The Crown wants the well-known defendant’s head on a plate, but it may not be that easy. First-degree murder requires intent, and no one can find a motive. The deceased apparently had a major drinking problem and was secretly planning a radio career of her own. Kennicott figures out that there was someone else in the apartment on the day of the murder, and Greene comes to an audacious conclusion about the family in the only other apartment on the penthouse floor. This book also serves as a great introduction to the city of Toronto—its history, legal system, and extraordinarily diverse citizenry.

Zbig: The Life Of Zbigniev Brezinski, America's Great Power Prophet, Luce - A*

     He was a seventeen year old living in Montreal when World War II ended in Europe. He understood that Stalin and the Red Army let the Germans destroy Warsaw as they waited across the Vistula. He wrote "It was not a liberation, but simply a change in the form of terror," and spent the rest of his life "trying to hold the USSR to account." This is an excellent book about a fascinating man who was 100% correct about the paramount issue of his time - if the west pressured the Soviets, they will collapse.

  He was born in Warsaw in 1928, and grew up in a sophisticated, cosmopolitan world that was " the epitome of metropolitan glamour." It was also fiercely nationalistic and anti-Russian. His father, Tadeusz, was a diplomat who took a demotion and an assignment in Canada. That decision saved his life and the life of his family. Zbig was an outstanding student who was at the top of every class, as he absorbed languages and read everything that passed through the consulate.  "It is hard to believe there were many people in North America - let alone adolescents -better briefed on the war than Zbigniew." He attended McGill University, studied Russian and received bachelor's and master's degrees. His MA thesis pointed out that the fundamental Achille's heel of the Soviet Union was the fifteen non-Russian republics who opposed Moscow's subjugation. He attended Harvard in 1950 and received his doctorate two years later. In 1955, he married Muska Benes, a member of the prominent Czech family. He consulted with Senator Kennedy on a speech on Soviet policy, and became an American citizen in 1958. In 1960, he joined the faculty at Columbia, and published his most famous book, 'The Soviet Bloc: Unity and Conflict.' He obtained a grant from the Ford Foundation and created the Research Institute on Communist Affairs. He wanted to become a player in the upper echelons of the foreign policy world. Both Presidents Kennedy and Johnson consulted with him and he spent a short time in LBJ's State Department. He returned to Columbia, and worked with the Humphrey campaign.  Kissinger's appointment as Nixon's National Security Advisor opened his eyes to the idea that a European with a hard to pronounce name and an accent could rise to the heights.

    Zbig engaged continuously with his friend/rival, Henry Kissinger during the Nixon years. He began working with, and educating, Gov. Jimmy Carter, a foreign policy neophyte. The two hit it off and Carter announced that Zbig was his foreign policy advisor. During the 1976 campaign, both Reagan and Carter attacked Kissinger from different angles. Kissinger told his aides that "Brezinski's snide words " were being flung at him with a "smiling Georgia accent." Zbig was Carter's briefer for the foreign policy debate that stopped Ford's momentum. Over the objections of many about Zbig's "Polish bias," Carter appointed him as his National Security Advisor.

    Zbig and Vance fell out immediately over Zbig's Soviet hardline and indifference to SALT II. Both Carter and Zbig spoke out about human rights, which State felt was anathema to the Soviets. However, both advisors and the new president hoped to find a road to peace in the Middle East. America plans were dashed by the hardline approach of Israeli PM Menachem Begin. The press emphasized the differences between Zbig and Vance, but Carter's policy vacillations and inconsistencies were more likely due to the inner conflict between Carter "the Sunday School preacher" and Carter "the nuclear submariner." After the president prevailed with the Senate's approval of the Panama Canal Treaty, he sent Zbig to China to normalize relations. This outraged the American right and the Soviets. Carter then undertook the biggest gamble of his presidency. He brought Sadat and Begin to Camp David for two weeks of cloistered negotiations. The Camp David Accords were applauded around the world with Carter, Sadat, and Begin  hailed as peacemakers.

    Meanwhile, the regime of Shah Reza Pahlavi was imploding and no one in Washington understood why. As Iran was the arms industry's number one foreign customer and a darling of Wall Street, the US backed the regime to the hilt. The Shah left Iran in January of 1979. Many in the establishment pushed Carter to allow him to enter America for medical treatment. He finally agreed, but asked "What are you guys going to advise me if they overrun our embassy and take our people hostage?" After the Shah entered the US, Iranians occupied the embassy and took sixty-six hostages. The unfolding debacle in Iran was followed by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan the following month. In the spring of 1980, an attempt to rescue the hostages failed, and Carter's response to the Soviets -  the boycotting of the Olympics was widely derided. Carter garnered the nomination over Sen. Kennedy, but the two failed to reconcile and once again, the Democratic Party was split. Carter's last hope for reelection in the fall came when Khomeni offered a deal to release the hostages.  The negotiations were never concluded, and many believed that the Reagan campaign offered Iran a more generous package of aid for their war with Iraq. After the loss, Carter and Zbig achieved a triumph, but one not recognized or acclaimed. Zbig was receiving raw intelligence from the CIA and understood that a repeat of 1956 and 1968 was at hand. Carter sent a stern warning to Moscow about invading Poland, the Pope and other western leaders did so as well, and the Soviets backed down. Zbig was fifty-two when he left Washington.

    He continued to live in McLean, Virginia, taught two days a week at Columbia, wrote his memoirs, consulted with Reagan, and had a close relationship with Pres. Bush.  He anticipated the coming demise of the USSR when he wrote, "Both glasnost and perestroika were bringing the national genie back to life." He was universally hailed for foreseeing the end when the Wall came down. He switched from Columbia to Johns Hopkins and Georgetown. He predicted that an unstable Ukraine would lead to "Russian revanchism," and the failure of economic reforms would lead to the end of Russia's brief experiment with democracy. He was instrumental in Poland's admittance to NATO. He opposed Bush's affection for Putin, the war in Iraq, and feared an anti-hegemonic coalition of China, Russia, and Iran. In his mid-80's, he began to fade and died on May 26, 2017.

   This is one of the most thought provoking books I've read in ages. That said, there is no fondness in any quarter for the Carter years, and although Zbig was adored by those who knew him well, his edgy, cutting and dismissive personality endeared him to few. Overseas, he was held in higher regard than at home. The Soviets were convinced he was the architect of their fall, and that he was the man behind the election of a Polish pope.  I am struck by his vision and agree with the subtitle's characterization of him as a prophet. I'll enumerate what I believe were some of his extraordinarily prescient observations:

1. He totally dismissed those in the 1950's who thought the Soviet economy would equal the US's.

2. Thirty years later, he made the same observation about Japan.

3.  When the USSR invaded Afghanistan, he predicted it would be their Vietnam.

4. During the interim between the Shah's abdication and Khomeni's return, some believed there would be a moderate government. Citing France and Russia, he said revolutions never go halfway.

5. Many in America believed that China would collapse after Mao. He assured them that Deng's reforms would work.

6. He understood that the USSR was the Russian Empire redux and that Gorbachev's policies would fail.

7. He believed that democracy would fail in Russia, and that Ukraine's attempt to become allied with west would lead Putin to Stalinism.

8.  Lastly, he thought that the US should worry about Eurasia coming under the sway of  China, Russia, and Iran.

Smiley's People, LeCarre- B +

    Three years after the events in Tinker, George is once again summoned to the Circus. Vladimir, a former Soviet general, Estonian, and one of George’s agents, is murdered in London. George is told that Vladimir asked for him, insisted on “Moscow Rules,” and claimed to have important information on the Sandman. George is asked to sweep things up. A few days later, an old émigré, Ostrakova—whose situation had piqued Vladimir’s interest—is attacked in Paris. She had been contacted by Russians with an offer to obtain a visa for the daughter she left behind in Moscow two decades earlier. After seeing the photo for the visa, she realized the offer was fraudulent and contacted the general.

    George walks through the murder site and finds a cigarette packet with film that Vladimir had disposed of just before he was shot. He speaks with two of Vladimir’s cronies, Toby Esterhase, the former leader of the Lamplighters, and Connie Sachs, the Circus’s keeper of old memories. He concludes that Vladimir had discovered Karla had created a legend to help someone escape to the West. There had even been rumors that Karla had an illegitimate daughter with mental health issues.

    Acting entirely on his own, George flies to Germany to contact another of Vladimir’s men, only to find him murdered. He then goes to Paris and convinces Ostrakova that she is in grave danger and should hide in a safe place far from the city. Back in London, he meets with Saul Enderby, the new C. Saul backs his plan to rein in Karla with funding but tells George he cannot officially sponsor the effort.  George travels to Switzerland and persuades Grigoriev—the man Karla tasked with delivering weekly cash payments to the institution where his daughter is treated—to defect and provide evidence to bring Karla down. Grigoriev sends a long, handwritten letter by George to Karla in Moscow. In it, George instructs the man he has battled for three decades—the man who ruined his career and marriage—to cross from East to West Berlin at 11 p.m. on a specified night.

    At the appointed hour, George watches Karla slowly cross the bridge and realizes he doesn’t even know the man’s real name. Peter Guillam says quietly, “George, you won.” In classic understated style, Smiley replies, “Did I? Yes. Yes, well, I suppose I did."

The Next One Is For You: The True Story of Guns, Country, and the IRA's Secret American Army, Watkins - B, Inc.

      Centuries of sectarian tension in Northern Ireland erupted into war in 1969. Northern Ireland's Irish Catholic residents had been marginalized, ostracized, and strategically oppressed by the mostly Protestant Unionist powers that controlled the region for the British Crown. The outnumbered minority eventually fought the British to a standstill thanks to an increase in new recruits and, most importantly, an influx of high-powered guns. The West Belfast ghetto was filled with American ArmaLite rifles.

     Vince Conlon, legendary IRA gunman living peacefully in Philadelphia, rose to the top of the American organization that aided Ireland, the Clan-na-Gael. In 1969, after Catholic riots in Derry, the government asked for help and London sent in the Royal Army. The first shots and fatalities of the Troubles were in Belfast and led to the creation of a new aggressive wing of the IRA, the Provisionals (Provos). The institutional IRA and the Provos split, and David O'Connell became chief of staff of the Provos. One of the first things he did was head to America to visit his old comrade in arms, Vince Conlon. Philadelphia had a long history of providing the IRA with weapons. Vast amounts of money were raised by NORAID, under the guise of helping the downtrodden, and a portion was siphoned off for the real need—guns. “It was a fragile arrangement, having a public-facing organization as the front for a decidedly illegal transcontinental gun-smuggling operation.” ArmaLites began to trickle into West Belfast. In 1971, both sides began accumulating casualties. “The IRA was earning a reputation as one of the most violent guerilla outfits of the twentieth century.”

      The British response to the escalation was to jail Catholics without trial, which drove a new generation of volunteers into the IRA. The fighting crippled the city’s ability to deliver services. The IRA was winning the public opinion war because of the army’s ruthless approach to civilians as well as fighters. In January 1972, the RAF massacred thirteen protestors in Derry on the day that became known as Bloody Sunday.

      The Troubles continued until 1998 and, along the way, reached unimaginable depths of vitriol and violence. In 1979, the IRA assassinated Lord Louis Mountbatten and two of his teenage grandsons. Twenty-seven-year-old Irishman Bobby Sands starved himself to death in Maze Prison in 1981. I’m not sure why I am not going to finish this book. I’m interested in the topic, find the Philadelphia connection fascinating, and the author is an accomplished journalist. I suspect it’s the grinding detail of a very good story, but one perhaps not justifying a full-length book.