Category Archives: Reviews

Roosevelt’s Secret War, FDR and World War II Espionage, Part I

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I’ve read several books about FDR, and this book written by Joseph E. Persico is, in my opinion, the best one. My parents were avid supporters of FDR, and I have been skeptical about why they felt that way. This book made me reflect that there were positive aspects of the man and his leadership that I hadn’t considered previously.  There is so much information in the book that I intend to break the review into several parts.  This part will describe how FDR prepared the country for war, and how he reacted to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

The Isolationists, such as Charles Lindberg, had a majority of popular support to avoid another war with the memories of the dead and maimed from World War I fresh in minds of Americans.  Roosevelt agreed with Churchill’s priority of finding a way to get the U.S. into the war before the Germans overran Britain, but he had to deal with the political reality that the country was not convinced that was necessary and the practical reality of the state of preparedness.  In 1940 the U.S. army ranked eighteenth in the world behind Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.

Roosevelt strived to find ways to support the British while telling the American people that his intention was to remain neutral.  The depth of Roosevelt’s deception is illustrated by the “Tyler Kent” affair.  Kent was a code clerk attached to the U.S. embassy in London who was frustrated that his intellect wasn’t being used in his mundane job of decoding messages.  He was an anti-Communist Isolationist, and was reading exchanges between FDR and Churchill that clearly proved FDR was lying about how he was working to keep America out of the war.  Unfortunately for Kent and fortunately for FDR, Kent told some people he intended to provide documents he was copying to the press.  The British intelligence agency MI5 raided his apartment in May 1940 and found 1,929 documents. The content of the documents would likely have cost Roosevelt reelection if they had been revealed to the American public.  Roosevelt and Ambassador Kennedy denied Kent the diplomatic immunity to which he was entitled, and he was tried, convicted, and jailed. Continue reading →

Spy Catcher, The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer

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This book by Peter Wright, former assistant director of England’s MI5, must not have been a best seller.  I bought a hard cover copy at the Westminster, CO library for a dollar as part of their campaign to clear out books no one had been reading.  The book chronicles the author’s quarter of a century in British intelligence.  It is not an easy or fun book to read, because it contains so many details of people, organizations, and events.  It is undoubtedly an excellent reference book for those reasons.

The book presents an astonishing contrast between the British and Soviet intelligence operations.  Seldom is there mention of any Soviet secrets being collected by the British unless the Soviets wanted the British to know the secret.  Practically every British secret of any importance was known by the Soviets, and Stalin often knew it before it had filtered through the British bureaucracy.  The British were a bit similar to the Soviets in their freedom to use any means to gather intelligence.  The author said it was made clear MI5 operated on the basis of the 11th Commandment, “Thou shalt not get caught.”

There are also astonishing indications that some events that were viewed as defeats for the Soviets based on the West learning their secret plans were in reality the outcome desired by the Soviets.  The Cuban missile crisis is one example.  Wright believed the Soviets intentionally allowed the United States to learn they had installed intermediate range missiles in Cuba to create the crises.  Their purpose was to get an agreement from the United States to cease in the attempts to assassinate or overthrow Castro.  The Soviets believed having a staunch ally just off the Keys from Florida was worth the perception the Americans had found their missiles and forced their removal.   Continue reading →

Obama’s Challenge, America’s Economic Crisis and the Power of a Transformative President

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The most remarkable aspect of the book by Robert Kutner (available new from Amazon for $1.96 at the link), and to the credit of the author, is that it was published well before the 2008 election. It was written with certainty that Mr. Obama was going to win. I agreed with that prediction, but wouldn’t have written a book depending on that outcome. The author writes of his admiration of Presidents Lincoln, FDR, and Johnson, and discusses how Mr. Obama could also become a transformative president. The roadmap presented is to solve the economic crisis by overcoming deregulation and reckless use of military power. I appreciated that he didn’t take the simple approach of blaming Bush for everything. In fact he writes, “Three decades of economic negligence by…elites…weakened the United States…” He even blames Clinton, saying that the economy thrived on his watch “…though some of the prosperity was built on unsustainable bubbles.”

The author presents his ideas of using Progressive approaches to governing, believing that regulation and government involvement results in a stronger economy. He also advocates that all workers should be unionized. I didn’t agree with any of that, but I do agree his assessment that senior citizens are reaping the benefits from Social Security and Medicare (apparently not considered Progressive government programs) at the detriment of the young and middle-aged. I was surprised that the book counseled Mr. Obama to go slow on implementing universal health care, and that he should put his early energies into the economy. Mr. Obama apparently did not read the book. Continue reading →

Energy Victory, Winning the War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil, Part II

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Part I of the book by Robert Zubin was a summary of the current situation and the consequences of our dependence on foreign oil. This part discusses some of the wrong turns we’ve taken in our energy policies and suggestions given by the author on how to overcome the problem. I found the author’s approaches to solving the problem to be intriguing, and intend to start there. It is my opinion that Chapter nine, “The Brazilian Experience,” is the best part of the book, although there is a wealth of information throughout.

Brazil is described as a microcosm of the world with a diverse, multiracial society with wealthy and poor. General Ernesto Geisel was inaugurated as President in 1974, and immediately began to attack the economic devastation caused from the cost of importing 80 percent of the oil needed by the country. He issued an edict that all gasoline had to contain 10% ethanol produced from sugar cane at a time when sugar prices were dropping. The government then paid for a pump dedicated to ethanol installed at every existing station, and domestic manufacturers began producing cars that could run on ethanol. OPEC cut oil prices, Brazil responded by subsidizing ethanol, and the International Monetary Fund pressured them into dropping their price supports. OPEC raised oil prices in 1999, and Volkswagen’s Brazilian division began producing flex-fuel vehicles. Brazilians could drive using gasoline, ethanol, or a mixture depending on what OPEC decided the price of oil should be. Brazil became an energy exporter by making ethanol from sugar cane and burning the woody “cane” to generate electricity. Continue reading →

Energy Victory, Winning the War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil, Part I

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This book by Robert Zubrin details our current dependence on foreign oil, the consequences of that dependence, and what we could do about it. There is too much information to cover in a single review, so this part will be about the current situation and the consequences. The first sentence of the Preface warns, “America is losing the war on terror.” The author lays much of the blame for that on the wealth being looted to buy oil from the Mideast as a result of our failure to have a competent energy policy, and that money is financing the war against us. Petro dollars have been and are funding Islamic schools that graduate the fanatics who will plan and execute future terrorist acts. Iran is developing nuclear weapons with the proceeds from oil.

The author is no fan of Saudi Arabia, and he provides a history of that country to back up his position. Muhammad ibn Saud and Muhammed ibn Abd al Whahhab formed a partnership in the mid-eighteenth century to foster their belief that the Islamic world had a duty to wage jihad. Their religion deemed that humanity was divided into Muslims, infidels, and polytheists. Once the Muslims conquered an area, the infidels (including Christians and Jews) would be allowed to live as inferiors. The polytheists (Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, and “insufficiently orthodox Muslims”) were to be killed without delay. Saud married Wahhab’s daughter, and the Saudi royal family was formed. They began their jihads, and inhabitants of Shiite areas were massacred. In 1932 Ibn Saud proclaimed the conquered areas to be Saudi Arabia and all inhabitants to be personal property of the royal family. He formed alliances with American businessmen to avoid the imperialistic British. Roosevelt signed a treaty with him in World War II to ensure America’s fuel supplies. Continue reading →

Merchant of Power, Samuel Insull, Thomas Edison, and the Creation of the Modern Metropolis

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This book by John F. Wasik is an ideal follow up to the one by Petr Beckman about the best way to produce electrical power, because it is an excellent reference to understand how electricity became so important in our lives. The book tells the remarkable story of Samuel Insull, who escaped an impoverished childhood in England by travelling to America to become the trusted secretary of Thomas Edison. His willingness to work tirelessly combined with his ethical nature endeared him to Edison. He became Edison’s accountant and marketer responsible for finding investors. He had to be aggressive and creative in the constant search for money, because Edison was often on the verge of being broke. Edison arranged to lay the power lines to light Wall Street, but he did not have a method for measuring electrical usage. He made his profits selling light bulbs.

Insull eventually split from Edison’s endeavors, moved to Chicago, and built an empire with power generating capacity and a power grid to light Chicago and other metropolitan areas. He saw everyone without electricity in their homes as a potential new customer. (Sinclair Lewis’s Babbit mocks the residents of Floral Heights and their desire to keep up with the neighbor’s most recent electrical purchases.) Insull built General Electric with financing from J.P. Morgan, and marketed electrical appliances. He became a very wealthy man, which set him up to lose massively in the Depression.

Insull pioneered “massing production,” which was later shortened to “mass production” by Henry Ford. His plants made generators and distribution systems, and he developed and implemented the idea of the government regulating electrical rates. Continue reading →