978-0465030095
Mark Bradley decided to take on a difficult task. The story of Duncan Lee is not one that most authors would want to tackle, since the subject of the work could be easily characterized as an unrepentant traitor for communist Russia under Stalin.
Lee would dispute this, and so would Lee’s family. Probably, the rationale Lee would offer, as per the framework of the book, was that the goal was to defeat Hitler at any cost. Lee saw Stalin and Russia as key to this. This, however, of course overlooks the fact that Lee was a communist because he liked the ideology of communism.
The way Bradley tells the narrative makes chronological sense. The basic divisions are the early life of Lee, pre-war, the college life of Lee, where he begins his communist journey, the war life of Lee, where he becomes an OSS officer but also a supplier of information to Russia, and the fallout later life of Lee, where the consequences under McCarthy begin to corner Lee.
The most interesting part of the story concerns how Lee deceived himself. He starts off clearly as a Russian spy, but then later after the charges begin to be made concerning his activities, he reverses his role and goes to China to support an airline industry with strong opponents of communism. His job, with this specific airline, is to resist the advancing Mao in China.
So, the question becomes who, exactly, is Duncan Lee? His family had been in America for some time, and was related to Robert E. Lee. His immediate family, in the form of his father, was an evangelical who went to China to witness for the gospel there. Bradley juxtaposes this action against Lee who inherits this spiritual zeal, but uses it for the “religious” purposes of communism and advancing its goals.
Being part of the intellectual class, Lee heads off to Oxford and finds a future wife there who is more radical for communism than Lee. This serves to galvanize his early devotion.
Later, during the war, the emergent OSS under Donovan taps on Lee to hold an important position inside the organization. Since Lee has been rubbing shoulders with members of CPUSA–the Communist Party of the USA–it does not take long for Russian intelligence to find a suitable handler for him in the form of Mary Price who believes spying for Russia is a form of fighting fascism. The way she recruits Lee is possibly one of the oldest in the book–through sexual seduction in part. Lee refuses to give Price any written information, however, and makes her memorize what he has to say so that there is no paper trail. This proves to be a later boon to Lee.
Lee is not a very good spy for Russia since he refuses to do what they want him to do and he continues to do things his own way. He also does not have the required emotional stamina, and soon begins to have a kind of fearful paranoia run his life. Since his treachery level was so high, one concludes this is probably Lee’s guilty conscience more than any external threat, although the two do blend together on several occasions.
Once Russia aligns as an ally of the US, Stalin uses the new scenario to his advantage since he knows the US does not want to try any specific Soviet spies it might find in its ranks due to upsetting Russia and having a situation unfold whereby Russia might withhold some of its manpower from the war effort. It is, ironically, at this point, that Lee begins to become more paranoid since two sides which were not originally speaking to one another begin to have more communication and understanding of who is supporting whom in the spy world.
When the war finally ends, Lee, through the machinations of the person who replaces Mary Price, an Elizabeth Bentley, faces whistle-blowing charges. Bentley begins to not like the direction communism is taking for a variety of reasons, and for her own protection from Russia decides to venture to the FBI and unmask her network of Russian spies. The FBI of course, does not initially trust or believe her fully, but it puts enough pressure on Lee to make him wary. It is not long after this that he is off to China to assist the airline that the CIA saves which is called CAT in its pro Chiang Kai-shek activities which includes supplying his army and ultimately his ex-filtration to Taiwan. This provides Lee an entirely different narrative, which he uses in the coming trials which are in part a result from Bentley’s admissions–performed by the House Un-American Committee.
Eventually, Lee is off to Bermuda for his new job with an insurance company, where he faces more trouble in the form of gaining necessary passports and being summoned back to the US to face further questioning because of Bentley.
Here, the narrative plays out to its ultimate conclusion of Lee as an older man, and what he, in his own opinion, thinks about his life. Of course, true to the form of everything else Lee has done in his life, his conclusions are myopic and flawed. The reader is in the best position to make the judgment.
Bradley tries to play this story down the center and uses phraseology that condemns communism at times, and patriotism at other times. He does mention, by the end of the book, that he is a former CIA employee and that the CIA had to read all the material and approve it. Perhaps this plays into the case of Duncan Lee, and perhaps not. Perhaps Bradley, like Lee, felt a need to atone for something, and so wrote this book and worked with the Lee family to produce it. None of this sounds like an easy or delightful task. The story, for whatever reason, had to be told.
The question, like the life of Duncan Lee, is why?
978-0300270198
Review note: Special thanks to Yale University Press for providing an electronic review copy of this work –Booklight staff
Katherine Carter has spent, according to this work, ten years at Chartwell which is a long time to research and explore. To an American ear, this might not set off immediate connection since Chartwell is a subject that has flown below the radar concerning World War II. The needed reference point concerns the knowledge that Chartwell was Winston Churchill’s country abode. What makes Chartwell interesting, however, is that it also served as a place where Churchill amassed military intelligence from many sources from well before Hitler came fully into power. Chartwell, then, was where secret meetings with people such as Einstein and China’s political elite took place. It is also where people such as the famed ‘T.E. Lawrence’–better known as Lawrence of Arabia–met Churchill before Lawrence’s untimely, unfortunately fatal, motorcycle wreck.
What the narrative endeavors to undertake is how and in what way Chartwell influenced the development of Churchill’s political career. A strong metaphor can be made to Chartwell being Churchill’s Garden of Eden. This metaphor is helped, perhaps in not a small way, by key political players in Churchill’s retinue being named Eden.
Here, at Chartwell, Churchill banged out various writing pieces and crafted speeches designed to warn the world of the approaching Nazi menace to which it turned, until the situation became dire, a deaf ear. Principally, Churchill wished to ready the Air Force so that Britain could counter any attack that Germany might be inclined to send. An early partner in this endeavor, who is an interesting study all on his own, is a person by the name of Ralph Wigram who acts as a key informant to Churchill on Germany’s rearmament. It may be the Wigram was a pivotal piece that was necessary so that Churchill could forge his own convictions about the coming world conflagration. If nothing else, he was an important informant that helped shape Churchill’s opinion in 1934.
Here at Chartwell also was where Churchill banqueted with especially formal meals and recipes for as long as his budget could afford to do so. Eventually, however, pecuniary necessity begins to settle on the estate, and Churchill must wrestle with what to do with the place that he so dearly loves. The decision he makes proves to be fodder for a later scandal.
Carter includes details that are not easily discovered concerning the early parts of World War II, or to borrow a famous Watergate phrase, “What Churchill knew and when he knew it.” It paints a picture of Joseph Kennedy and an America that is not especially fond of Britain, nor desirous of entering into any further conflicts. Likewise, it shows a Britain that wishes to close its eyes to the menace soon to be at its borders and wishes instead to avoid any direct action that might lead to more conflict. Chamberlain, famously, wanted ‘peace at any price’ and this appeasement, of course, was desired from having witnessed the horrors of the First World War. Carter also tells the narratives of deposed French Prime Ministers, ousted Nazi political opponents of former high station, and German military informants who cannot believe that Hitler is doing in Germany what he appears to be doing.
Oh yes, and there there is the all-encompassing story of Churchill’s ambition to politically ‘get back on top’. His reasoning for desiring these political positions are ultimately good in context, but it is clear he wants to be back where he was–somewhere in Admiralty. His course would take him to the office of Prime Minister. Carter’s exploration of how Chartwell contributes to this trajectory is novel.
A piece of criticism of Carter’s work, however, might be that the ending is unexpectedly abrupt. One feels, somehow, like there is more to be said about Chartwell at the end of the war. This is especially so since we learn all about Churchill’s family and what they do there and we do not get to hear what happens once the dark cloud of war passes from Chartwell’s perspective. What we do get, which is quite nice, is a long timeline of events after what feels like an abrupt ending–and a detailed number of notes and sources. Perhaps Carter plans a sequel to this work some day. If so, the ending makes sense. Churchill himself, assuredly, would approve.
978-0812974492
Review note: One of the staff members in the earlier days of Facebook had Hillenbrand as a friend. This book was not out at this point. Seabiscuit, however, was. –Booklight staff
Unbroken is a work that makes a person question the reasons why and how the universe works as it does. Perhaps the reason why this question is put so forcefully forward concerns the sheer amount of suffering present pressed between the front and back book covers on these pages.
Louie Zamperini begins life as a thief, although not an especially malicious one–more the kind that will steal a pie off a window sill and run–and by the way that running is going to prove to be rapid. Eventually, his theiving ways are turned into a possible useful focus in becoming a race runner as inspired by his brother. Zamperini runs all the way into the 1936 Berlin Olympics where he competes in the 5,000 meter distance race during a sweltering heatwave. To add a certain Ben Hur flavoring, some of the other runners attempt to remove him from the race by kicking him with their cleats. This bloodies him up, but he finishes eighth and manages to run the last lap in 56 seconds despite all the injuries he has received. This accomplishment, which was unheard of, attracts the attention of one certain Adolf Hitler who wishes to shake his hand for the feat.
Zamperini goes off to college, and there sets another racing 15 year record for the time it took him to run a mile. War breaks out, and this is actually where the story of Unbroken really begins and where Hillenbrand starts to hone her pen on the tale to follow.
Zamperini is placed in the position of being a B-24 bombardier. His job is to make sure the bombs hit their target. He does this job well and succeeds in undertaking many combat missions where his luck is put to the maximum test. He still makes it home. It is only when he and his crew are asked to go on a rescue mission that his plane goes down killing everyone but three of his crew that his luck runs out–at least in terms of the mechanical integrity of the plane. Thing is, the plane was not even shot at. It just stopped working.
From this point forward, everything that can go wrong and should kill a person happens. Forty-seven days are spent in a raft with sharks circling. Water runs out. The heat beats down oppressively. People hallucinate. Strafing by enemy zeros occurs. Then, the raft makes landfall, only to be welcomed by Japanese forces which are occupying the region. The raft, and its concomitant hardships, it turns out, are a vacation compared to what follows.
While the interview of Hillenbrand that occurs in the back of the work focuses on the theme of “forgiving the unforgivable”, it seems the bigger question is how Zamperini “endures the unendurable.” The psychological torture and physical stresses stagger the imagination. The Japanese have no intention of following any Geneva Convention war protocol, and are out to kill all prisoners one way or the other. Some are more sadistic than others. One specific guard who is called “The Bird” by the prisoners, is especially cruel and delights in inventing new tortures for the prisoners but especially, it seems, Zamperini. At each moment in this book when relief looks imminent, something much, much worse happens instead. This momentum continues for what seems like a small eternity and by the time the reader is done they feel as if they have gone through some kind of abuse simply by knowing such a chain of events occurred.
Nonetheless, Zamperini must find both the will to survive and the answer to whatever it is that faith means to him if he wishes to continue to move forward. How this story concludes and how the answers are found is incredible. If Anne Frank is the Jewish voice of World War II and its hardships, then Zamperini ought to at least be the voice of American POW’s who were taken captive by the Japanese–if not POW’s as a whole. You owe it to yourself to read this one if you want to be informed on how how the other prisoner’s of war fared and what that meant in the Asian theaters of World War II.