Ike or Brothers Bulger

Ike: An American Hero

Author: Michael Korda

A big, ambitious, and enthralling new biography of Dwight D. Eisenhower, full of fascinating details and anecdotes, which places particular emphasis on his brilliant generalship and leadership in World War Two, and provides, with the advantage of hindsight, a far more acute analysis of his character and personality than any that has previously been available, reaching the conclusion that he was perhaps America's greatest general and one of America's best presidents, a man who won the war and thereafter kept the peace.

Ike starts with the story of D-Day, the most critical moment in America's history. It was Hitler's last chance to win the war - he had the means to destroy the troops on the beaches, but he failed to react quickly enough. The one man who would have reacted quickly and decisively had he been on the spot, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, was home on leave and didn't arrive back at his headquarters until it was too late. It was Ike's plan, Ike's decision, Ike's responsibility. He alone, among all the Allied generals, could win or lose the war in one day, and knew it.

But of course there is more to this book than military history. It is a full biography of a remarkable man, ambitious, a late starter, a brilliant leader of men and perhaps the only American general who could command such a difficult coalition, and win the respect of not only his own soldiers, but also those of Great Britain and France, and lead them to a triumphant victory.

It is also the story of a remarkable family. Ike grew up in Abilene, Kansas, and the Eisenhowers were Mennonites, who, like the Amish, were deeply committed pacifists, so it is ironic that he went to West Point and became a general, to his mother's horror. It is as well the portrait of a tumultuous and often difficult marriage, for Mamie was every bit as stubborn and forceful as her husband, and it was by no means the sunny, happy marriage that Republican publicists presented to the public when Ike made his first moves towards the presidency.

Indeed, behind Ike's big grin and the easy-going, affable personality he liked to project was a very different man, fiercely ambitious, hot-tempered, shrewd, and tightly wound. He was a perfectionist for whom duty always came first, and a man of immense ability. In 1941 he was a soldier who was still an unknown and recently promoted colonel, and just two years later he was a four-star general who had commanded the biggest and most successful amphibious operation in history - TORCH, the Anglo-American invasion of North Africa. He commanded respect and was dealt as an equal with such world figures as President Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Charles De Gaulle.

The Washington Post - John Whiteclay Chambers II

Based on comparatively few, although excellent, published sources, this book is not an addition to scholarship. But it is a fresh and engaging characterization. It is enhanced by the author's clear sympathy for his subject, international perspective and charming, urbane style.

Publishers Weekly

Characterizing Dwight Eisenhower as an American with a "big grin" and "long-limbed, loose American way of walking," this smitten biography demonstrates his heroism by dwelling on his World War II record as commander of Allied armies in Europe. Korda (Ulysses S. Grant) defends "the people's general" against criticisms leveled by subordinates and historians (Eisenhower's presidency flits by in an admiring 64 pages), but for all his fulsome comparisons of Eisenhower to Napoleon and Grant, the author's case is weak. Korda's approving gloss on Ike's "broad front" approach-directing "all the Allied armies to engage the enemy at every point... until superior numbers inevitably ground the Germans down" because "he did not think a single, clever stroke would do it"-makes Eisenhower sound like a terrible strategist. At best, Ike comes off as a competent diplomat-in-arms, enabling egomaniacs like Churchill, De Gaulle, Montgomery and Patton to cooperate, and soothing wife Mamie's anxieties over his glamorous secretary. Unfortunately, Eisenhower's self-effacing affability in this role means his story is usually upstaged by the colorful prima donnas around him. A more critical analysis might have made for a more interesting biography. Photos. (Aug. 21)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Kirkus Reviews

Distinguished man of letters and former Simon & Schuster editor-in-chief Korda (Journey to Revolution, 2006, etc.) stylishly and sympathetically restores Dwight D. Eisenhower to an eminent place in the military and political pantheon. The author begins in 1942, when Ike gained instant fame as supreme commander of the European theater of operations and began the dogged strategic planning that would defeat Nazi Germany. The long-postponed Allied invasion of France finally took place on June 6, 1944, and it showcased Ike's skillful ability to manage staggering logistics and bring together the kind of manpower that the effort demanded. His sincerity, grasp of detail and lack of ceremony made it impossible for even the British and French not to like the unassuming, hardworking general. Korda too is evidently enchanted by the decency of his subject, for whom "duty would always come first." Unscholarly and outdoorsy in Mennonite Kansas, Ike escaped small-town Abilene by attending West Point. Second Lieutenant Eisenhower married Denver debutante Mamie Doud in 1916, and they began a trying, peripatetic Army life that required long absences on Ike's part and enormous amounts of suffering and forgiveness on Mamie's. After tours of duty in Panama and France, in 1932 Eisenhower found his first mentor in General Douglas MacArthur, under whom he worked for six years at the War Department and then in the Philippines, building up America's "arsenal of democracy." With the outbreak of World War II, Ike was summoned to London to make order out of chaos, squired around by glamorous volunteer driver Kay Summersby, who may or may not have been his lover. (The author demurely chooses not to judge.) Korda'scommand of military history is impressive in the wartime chapters. He treats Eisenhower's two-term presidency more summarily, but hails Ike's little-regarded devotion to keeping America out of war and the groundwork laid for the Civil Rights movement. An engaging history, guided by an elegant, witty sense of characterization.

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Brothers Bulger: How They Terrorized and Corrupted Boston for a Quarter Century

Author: Howie Carr

"A portrait of Boston's infamous Bulger brothers, Whitey and Billy--one as the city's most feared mobster, the other as a power in the Massachusetts State Senate."--Provided by publisher.

Publishers Weekly

Pritchard sounds so much like actor David Strathairn of Good Night and Good Luck in this compelling audio version of Boston journalist Carr's book about William and Whitey Bulger, that listeners might imagine the late Edward R. Murrow telling this fantastic story. Pritchard, a heralded veteran of more than 430 audiobooks, minimizes any moments of possible melodrama, subtly catching instead the superb irony of two brothers who rose to the heights of their chosen careers. Billy was a political powerhouse and kingmaker who was president of the Massachusetts senate and head of the University of Massachusetts. Whitey (born James) was a psychotic gangster who used such tools as flagrant murder and FBI corruption on his climb to the role of chief of Boston's flourishing Irish mobs and who has now disappeared. Anyone who doesn't know the details of the Bulgers' amazing dual saga will find them all spelled out in Pritchard's clean, understated delivery, which makes the whole thing even more incredible. Simultaneous release with the Warner hardcover (Reviews, Oct. 24). (Apr.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Boston Herald reporter Carr tracks a pair of Beantown siblings along a twisted trail of extortion, graft, murder and other crimes that overran even the FBI. Making it clear that he will not be unduly obsessed with journalistic objectivity here, the author describes his behavior during Billy Bulger's testimony at a 2003 congressional hearing: "In full view of the CSPAN camera, I periodically grimaced, made faces, stuck out my tongue, rolled my eyes, and grabbed my throat when I thought Billy was being less than forthcoming." Carr goes on to document that Billy's reputation as "the good brother" was as misleading as his congressional testimony. He follows Billy's ascent from Boston's notorious Southie neighborhood (which he served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives to his eventual presidency at the University of Massachusetts. Big brother Whitey Bulger was in Carr's estimation a fulltime, nonpareil crook, possibly the model for the hit man in George V. Higgins's celebrated Boston crime novel, The Friends of Eddie Coyle. For nearly three decades, the author contends, Billy worked inside the system while Whitey worked outside the law; the crux of Carr's thesis is that they cooperated in buying and corrupting whomever they could not intimidate or, in Whitey's case, permanently remove. Among those bought, the author asserts, was FBI agent Zip Connolly, another Southie boy; it was a congressional investigation of corruption in the Boston office of the FBI that finally cost Billy his job at UMass. Billy's eventual disgrace tainted an associated host of Boston political hacks and bureaucrats, but he still draws a state pension; Whitey remains at large, reportedly sighted in locales asdisparate as Thailand and Portugal. A classic, seamy portrait of widespread moral turpitude, conveyed with crackling Boston-Irish sarcasm.