American Ambassador

American Ambassador

Author: Waldo H. Heinrichs Jr.

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 1986-11-27

Total Pages: 479

ISBN-13: 0195364767

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The story of Joseph Clark Grew (1880-1965) is the story of the modern American diplomatic tradition. Grew served the U.S. government for over forty years, with an impressive career that included two ambassadorships, two secretaryships, two ministerships, and every junior rank in the service. Grew was in Berlin when the U.S. went to war with Germany in 1917, was American Ambassador to Japan during the years leading up to Pearl Harbor, was Undersecretary of State during the war, and was instrumental in planning U.S. postwar strategy in the Far East. In this rich and intimate biography, Heinrichs draws on Grew's vast diary, correspondence, and several private and official collections to reconstruct the life of an extraordinary career diplomat. Here, Joseph C. Grew emerges as a man of peace who used both skill and insight to slow the world's progress toward World War II.


Mayor Erastus Corning

Mayor Erastus Corning

Author: Paul Grondahl

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 2007-09-07

Total Pages: 630

ISBN-13: 9780791472941

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Grondahl’s classic biography of Albany’s “mayor for life,” now available in paperback.


America's Great Game

America's Great Game

Author: Hugh Wilford

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 2013-12-03

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 0465069827

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From the 9/11 attacks to waterboarding to drone strikes, relations between the United States and the Middle East seem caught in a downward spiral. And all too often, the Central Intelligence Agency has made the situation worse. But this crisis was not a historical inevitability -- far from it. Indeed, the earliest generation of CIA operatives was actually the region's staunchest western ally. In America's Great Game, celebrated intelligence historian Hugh Wilford reveals the surprising history of the CIA's pro-Arab operations in the 1940s and 50s by tracing the work of the agency's three most influential -- and colorful -- officers in the Middle East. Kermit "Kim" Roosevelt was the grandson of Theodore Roosevelt and the first head of CIA covert action in the region; his cousin, Archie Roosevelt, was a Middle East scholar and chief of the Beirut station. The two Roosevelts joined combined forces with Miles Copeland, a maverick covert operations specialist who had joined the American intelligence establishment during World War II. With their deep knowledge of Middle Eastern affairs, the three men were heirs to an American missionary tradition that engaged Arabs and Muslims with respect and empathy. Yet they were also fascinated by imperial intrigue, and were eager to play a modern rematch of the "Great Game," the nineteenth-century struggle between Britain and Russia for control over central Asia. Despite their good intentions, these "Arabists" propped up authoritarian regimes, attempted secretly to sway public opinion in America against support for the new state of Israel, and staged coups that irrevocably destabilized the nations with which they empathized. Their efforts, and ultimate failure, would shape the course of U.S. -- Middle Eastern relations for decades to come. Based on a vast array of declassified government records, private papers, and personal interviews, America's Great Game tells the riveting story of the merry band of CIA officers whose spy games forever changed U.S. foreign policy.


Acheson

Acheson

Author: James Chace

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2008-06-30

Total Pages: 534

ISBN-13: 0684864827

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The highly acclaimed biography of one of the most important and controversial Secretaries of State of the twentieth century, this is an intimate portrait of the quintessential man of action who was vilified by the McCarthyites for being soft on communism, yet set in place the strategies and policies that won the Cold War and brought down the USSR. This is the authoritative biography of Dean Acheson, the most important and controversial secretary of state of the twentieth century. Drawing on Acheson family diaries and letters as well as revelations from Russian and Chinese archives, historian James Chace traces Acheson's remarkable life, from his days as a schoolboy at Groton and his carefree life at Yale to his work for President Franklin Roosevelt on international financial policy and his unique partnership with President Truman. It is an important and dramatic work of history chronicling the momentous decisions, events, and fascinating personalities of the most critical decades of American history.