Booknotes

Mr. DAVID FROMKIN, AUTHOR, "IN THE TIME OF THE AMERICANS": On an island in--in the Caribbean, the--the island of St. Lucia. I was being shown around the island by a taxi driver who was my guide and I saw some ruins through underbrush and stopped to investigate. It turned out to be the ruins of a landing strip. And as I later figured out, it was a landing strip that was built there just before the United States entered the Second World War at a time when--when we had already decided, however, to come to Britain's aid. And when I asked the driver what that was, what he said was, `It's from the time of the Americans.' And I loved that phrase, and it kept resounding in my head and I knew I had to use it as a title sometime for something. And when the proper subject arrived, I knew (snaps fingers) that was it.

Mr. FROMKIN:When the Soviet bloc collapsed followed by the Soviet Union. And I was so grateful not really for what had happened, but for the fact that I was alive to witness and see the end of the story and see how it came out. And then I thought, `It's not just the end of one story, it's really the end of many stories.' And that was how I had the idea for the book.

Mr. FROMKIN:The time frame--it's the--it's a generation--excuse me--a generational history, if you will. It's about American leaders who were born in the 1880s or early 1890s, and who played in any role throughout the 20th century. It ends on Inauguration Day, 1961, when the generation with which I deal, Eisenhower's generation, handed over the torch to the younger generation, Jack Kennedy's generation.

Mr. FROMKIN:Actually--actually, the book follows more than five. The--the book follows mo--more in the nature of a dozen or a dozen and a half. These five were amongst--amongst the most prominent and the--they were, I felt, typical--typical, as it were, o--of all--but it really isn't just about those five men. It's about those five men and their--their peers, their friends, their enemies, and throughout the book I, therefore, follow the careers of, oh, maybe about 15 or 18 people.

Mr. FROMKIN:I'm--I'm not quite sure...

Mr. FROMKIN:Oh, where do I live? I live in New York City and since--since last year, I've been commuting to Boston University where I'm chairman of the International Relations Department. But during the whole of the time that I wrote that book, I was in New York City.

Mr. FROMKIN:Writing the book. It was--it was practically full time.

Mr. FROMKIN:This is the--this is the fourth.

Mr. FROMKIN:The--the book immediately before this was a--was like this, a history intended for a popular audience. It was a called "A Peace to End All Peace," and it was about the creation of the modern Middle East--how that happened, how that came about. And that book had a--I'm--I was very happy to say a--a--you know, a great success. Before then, I had written a--a theory of international relations called "The Independence of Nations," and my first book was a--a--a--a book about politics and government, a sort of philosophy of politics, called "The Question of Government."

Mr. FROMKIN:Roosevelt is the most difficult character to write about, I should think, in the whole of history. He was a man of immense contradictions, and I don't know of any biographer of Roosevelt who ha--has felt that he's really somehow got the whole man or found the secret of him. Roosevelt was an aristocrat; he was born to a wealthy and--and prominent family. He seemed, as a young man, to be a--a person who is intellectually shallow. He--he wasn't very good at school; he wasn't very interested, it seemed, in serious things. And even l--after he embarked on his political career, even after he became president of the United States, there were many who came away from conversations with him thinking him a person who had very little information, very little intellect, didn't seem very serious. And on the other hand, he was this man who, in the great strategic decisions of the Second World War, on the big things, was just about always right when even--even--even the most accomplished of his professional advisers were on the other side. He's a true mystery, but a magic personality; somebody endlessly fascinating to think about and to write about.

Mr. FROMKIN:Harry Truman was deceptively simple. He seemed simple; he made himself seem simple. He was actually, it seems to me, a very engaging person, a very smart person, but much more--had much more depth to him than--than he--than he let on. He--he played the part to perfection of an ordinary man. He was not an ordinary man.

Mr. FROMKIN:Eisenhower, oddly enough, because he was so different from Truman in so--so many ways, was much like him in that Eisenhower pretended--he pretended to be unable to speak clearly, unable to write clearly. He played the part also--just--just a plain old good guy and he, too, was a man--of--of great depth. And as we n--now know, he was a president who was very much in charge of his presidency while--while allowing others to be out front there and seem to be making the decisions, but he made the decisions.

Mr. FROMKIN:George Marshall was a person of great character who impressed himself on--on--on--on his contemporaries by--by force of his virtue and his character. He was a great organizer, a great administrator and played a tremendous role in the winning of the Second World War.

Mr. FROMKIN:MacArthur was a fascinating figure. He was a man of--of--of genius, of brilliance. He was a--a--a--a--a flashy, colorful character who lived an extraordinary life. He was amazingly courageous on the battlefield. He--his was an extraordinary persona, which--a persona that he worked hard and his mother worked hard at creating.

Mr. FROMKIN:He was a--until his retirement, he was--he was a professional Army officer throughout his life. He--he went--went to West--West Point, graduating top of his class and achieving the highest grades of anyone other--since Robert E. Lee. He served in--in many posts. From the beginning, he did heroic deeds, beginning in--in 1914 with a visit to--to Mexico. I think I'm right on that--1914. I might be off by a year. He was a courageous battlefield general in the First World War and, of course, he was our--our--our--our general in the Philippines at the outbreak of the Second. He was in command of the--of the southern part of the s--Pacific campaign in the Second World War. He was our commander and--occupation commander in Japan. He was our initial commander in the Korean War, and he retired to a job as chairman--chairman of the board of a large corporation.

Mr. FROMKIN:Greatest mistake that he made was in Korea, not stopping at the waist of the peninsula after he had won these great victories at Inchon. He didn't stop when he could have stopped. He went ahead to the Yalu frontier and--and--and--and--and--and set up an enormous disaster, which clouded his reputation. Had he stopped where he should have stopped, I--I--he--he--he would--he would--he would truly, I think, be remembered as one of the gr--one of the great, great generals.

Mr. FROMKIN:I mean ab--above the 38th parallel, but he--there's a--there--there--there's a spot where the--the--the mountains go down and--on a--on a north/south basis, and you don't want--if you're a commander going there, you don't want to get in that position because you have to split your troops this way and that way. But he did that and he shouldn't have done that. He should have stopped.

Mr. FROMKIN:He went all the way up, yes, although there were signs that if he did so, they'd come in against us with their limitless manpower and--and he shouldn't have done that.

Mr. FROMKIN:Korean War began in 1950 and--it--it was--it was around--about then that all of this occurred that we're talking about.

Mr. FROMKIN:General Marshall was also a professional soldier. He went not to West Point, but to Virginia--Virginia Military Institute and was served--served in the First World War as a very much admired and highly effective staff officer to the American commander, General Pershing. He, just before the Second World War, became America's chief of staff, and it was he who organized our victory in that war. Later, he became both secretary of defense and secretary of state. And it seems to me that all of Marshall's serious mistakes were--didn't matter. It didn't matter because he was wrong when he--when in--he was wrong in thinking that when Nazi Germany invaded Soviet Russia in 1941, he gave the Russians no chance. But his superior, President Roosevelt, did. And time and again, in the Second Worl--World War on--on several really big things, Marshall was wrong. But it didn't matter. His boss, the commander in chief, Franklin Roosevelt, made the right decision, not following Marshall's advice. So I don't think that anything on which he was very wrong had consequences.

Mr. FROMKIN:Marshall was se--secretary of state at the time. He set forth the plan in a speech at Harvard. President Truman named the plan for him, in part out of admiration for him, in part out of generosity and in part because Roos--Ro--Marshall had, indeed, played a major role in getting together the various groups that--that conceived of this plan. It was a plan to save Western Europe. Western Europe was then in dire straits economically, and therefore socially. Society had broken down. The link between the countryside and the city had broken down. The farmers kept the food, didn't send it in to the cities, because they didn't have faith in the money with which the cities could pay. People were starving. It was the coldest--1947 was the coldest winter within memory in Europe and, yes, there was the threat of a Communist takeover. But beyond that, it was simply the fact that these countries--our friends, our allies were--were simply going under.

And Marshall's plan was--was a plan for the United States to put up the seed money, the pump-priming money so--t--for these societies to get on their feet. But the key element of it was it was the Europeans themselves who would have to create the plan for their recovery. We'd back them, but they had to do the--they had to create the plan. It wasn't a plan that we were going to think of and tell them, `You do this because this is what we want you to do.' Marshall had--had--had--had--had the wisdom to see that--that we had--if these people were going to stand on their own feet, they had to make the plan, they had to make the decisions. What we would do is simply give them the--the bridge financing so that they could do it.

Mr. FROMKIN:Eisenhower, another professional soldier, went to West Point, was a drill master in the--in the First World War--never got overseas, though he wanted to; was in the peace time Army; served as an aide to General MacArthur when MacArthur was chief of staff; and was the American general in command of our first Atlantic campaign offensive by leading our troops into North Africa in 1942. He then became the commander who won the war in Europe for us as commander of--of our attack on--on France and Western Europe. He was NATO commander after the war. He was president of Columbia University for a while, and then ran for the presidency.

Mr. FROMKIN:Well, Har--Harry Truman called them back. Truman called back Eisenhower because--because we really needed him to--to--to--to serve in--in--in--in--in Europe as our--as our NATO commander when NATO was set up. And--and Marshall was called back because he was needed during the Korean War. He--he had been in retirement.

Mr. FROMKIN:Yeah. But this was a generation that believed strongly in service and the service to their country.

Mr. FROMKIN:No, I don't think that he--I don't think that he did. He certainly made mistakes, but I--I--I--I think, for example, he was mistaken not to have, from the beginning, come out flatly against Senator Joseph McCarthy and I think he should have--should have denounced the Indiana senator, Senator Jenner, who--who had called General Marshall--it--something like a traitor in a living lie--some--some--some terrible thing that Eisenhower knew was untrue. He was not very brave morally when I think he should have been. But if--if you mean the kind of mistake that--that--that has dramatic, terrible consequences for the country, then I think that Eisenhower made no mistakes.

Mr. FROMKIN:Joe McCarthy made a career of denouncing people as spies, traitors and Communists, whether they were or not.

Mr. FROMKIN:Senator.

Mr. FROMKIN:Yes. Began as a Democrat--switched.

Mr. FROMKIN:No. Before it--before the--before the war, he was a--he was a judge in Wisconsin, he was--he was a member--he was a Democrat, but he switched to the Republican Party and ran for the Senate in 1946, just after the war.

Mr. FROMKIN:Harry Truman had lots of jobs. He didn't have the money to go through college, so he worked in many--he was--he worked as a--as a bank clerk, he was a farmer, he speculated in minerals leases, he went into the Army into the First World War as a citizen soldier. When he came back with a partner, he went into the haberdashery business; tried to make suc--success of that. But his--his successes came when he became--when he--when he went into public life. He became a judge and he ran for--for the Senate, and as a senator, he made a name for himself. And during the war, he headed a committee that looked into the industries that were supplying the war effort, and that was an outstanding job that he did, and that brought him to public attention.

Mr. FROMKIN:No.

Mr. FROMKIN:Didn't really know him and, as a matter of fact, Roosevelt had intervened against him the last time he had written--ru--the last time he ran for the Senate, so Roosevelt was not close to him politically. And he knew very little about Roosevelt's foreign policy or what commitments had been made or about the various secrets that the president had in the running of the war.

Mr. FROMKIN:Roosevelt was wealthy and didn't have to work. He began his career as a lawyer--didn't spend very many years at it; ran for the state Senate in his county in--in--in New York. After one term there, he went to Washington as assistant secretary of the Navy, in which capacity he served during the First World War. He then ran for vice president in 1920. After--unsuccessfully--after a gre--after a bout and a fight against polio, he returned to politics, ran for and--and--and won the job of governor of New York, and then ran for the presidency and was elected for an unprecedented four terms. I think any--of--of him, you can truly say that his career was being president of the United States.

Mr. FROMKIN:No big ones.

Mr. FROMKIN:No. I tried to, because I like thin books myself, and I made it as--as--as thin as--as thin as I could. But this was--these were men who--who lived the history of the 20th century, and I was following them for 80 years and it just wasn't possible to present the material in fewer pages than I did--or at least I couldn't.

Mr. FROMKIN:There are many messages in the book, but th--that is--that--that is one above all. These were--these were people who--who had the character to win, who had the character to do--to do things the right way, who had courage. And--yeah, their's is a success story and--and--and--and success was--was--was, in my view, due--due to these qualities of courage and character that they had.

Mr. FROMKIN:William Bullitt is a minor character who appears a great deal in the book because he almost always seemed to be there when big things were happening. There are--there are people like that, people who are there where--you know, where the action is. He was such a person. He was very bright, maybe the brightest man in his--in his class at school, in a class that--that had a lot of bright people in it at Yale. He's charming. He's good-looking. He was from a wealthy family that was related to everybody, and he was glib and--and fast. He wanted very much to be involved in the big decisions, and so he was. Throughout--throughout much of the first half of the 20th century, if you look at what was going on, Bill Bullitt was there.

I had found that--that--and I'm not alone in this--that it makes--it makes for a more interesting book for you as a reader--for me as a reader--if there is some character whom you can follow through the action year after year and year, see things through that person's eyes. Bullitt is that, in many ways, for this book. I can follow him because he was there.

Mr. FROMKIN:There's information that isn't generally known. There are no secrets in the book that are revealed. Indeed, that would not be possible. The Bullitt papers are--are--are no longer even here in this country, nor are they available for--for--for scholars.

Mr. FROMKIN:In Ireland in a locked trunk, I am told.

Mr. FROMKIN:The person who owns them took them there and has left them there.

Mr. FROMKIN:His daughter. But I--I--I--I was not in contact with her. And the--the papers, by and large, were--were--had been available at Yale years ago, so--and--and they were seen by scholars and so I was able, from secondary sources, to--to read those papers. And sure, I'd--I'd--I'd heard about--I'd--I'd heard about him from time to time before setting--setting out to work on the book. But when I found him everywhere--and he was a witty man--a witty, charming interesting man, it was kind of fun to--to--to follow events through his eyes.

Mr. FROMKIN:Franklin Roosevelt did. He--he didn't know Roosevelt particularly well--there's--there's some question whether he really knew him at all before Roosevelt ran for the presidency in 1932. But Bullitt made it his business to establish connections with Roosevelt, to volunteer his services and he met Roosevelt about a month or two before the elections and impressed Roosevelt with his fast mind and his extraordinary knowledge of European politics. And--and Roosevelt gave him a few jobs that he did very quickly when--when Roosevelt was elected and then he became ambassador first to Russia, then to France.

Mr. FROMKIN:He was embittered at the end. And he--he--the--the really bitter book, however, was the one he did with Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis; the--the book the two of them did together on Woodrow Wilson. That was the president that--that--that Bullitt really felt betrayed by.

Mr. FROMKIN:Bullitt, then a very young man, in 1919 was sent by the American delegation to the peace conference. He was sent on a mission to the new Bolshevik Communist government of Russia to Lenin to see if somehow th--the West, the Western allies, could make a deal with him, with Lenin. He was sent on this mission--he understood it--by Wilson--that--that it was Wilson who had sent him. In any event, Wilson seemed to authorize that trip. Bullitt went; he came back with an awfully good deal. I mean, if that deal had been made and--a big if--if Lenin had kept it, it would have been a very advantageous deal from the point of view of the United States and Britain and their allies. So Bullitt--very proud of himself. He was a young man in his late 20s and trusted with this very important mission. He--he did it. He came there. He succeeded. He came back. He expected a hero's welcome and instead Wilson simply disavowed him.

When afterwards Wilson also seemed to abandon his political principles by making agreements at the peace conference contrary to what his liberal young supporters thought he would agree to, Bullitt had an opportunity to say that Wilson not only betrayed him personally, William--William Bullitt, but--but Wilson had betrayed his ideals and had betrayed a whole generation of liberal young Americans who had followed the president and idolized him and had worshipped him.

Mr. FROMKIN:I always have been. That's--that's all--all I can say. It wasn't--it--it--it's an interest that I've had since childhood. I've always had a passion for politics and for literature, and history, of course, is where they come together.

Mr. FROMKIN:In Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And my--my--my favorite books growing up were the Alexandre Dumas historical romances. Those were the first books of history that I read--full of romance, full of action, a lot of sword play and such--and those were my favorites.

Mr. FROMKIN:My father was--my father was a lawyer and m--my--m--my parents were--were both people who read a great deal. And--and my earliest memories are of roaming around my father's library, pulling out the books and looking at them, reading what I liked.

Mr. FROMKIN:I went to college at the University of Chicago. I went under a program that then existed--I went to college from 10th grade high school and--under another system that--then--then applied, I--I placed out of two years of college. So I--I graduated--I graduated college when I was 17 and then I went on to law school, also at the University of Chicago. And much later, I went to the Univ--the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies of the University of London in London. But I did that after serving in the Army for a few years.

Mr. FROMKIN:Three years.

Mr. FROMKIN:In--al--almost the entire time I was in Verdun in northeastern France. I--I was trained--I had my basic training at Ft. Benning, Georgia, and then I was trained as an Army lawyer at the University of Virginia and then went over to Verdun.

Mr. FROMKIN:Working for a Wall Street law firm called Simpson Thatcher and Bartlett. So long ago was it that my--my first day's work was for Cyrus Vance and he was then a junior partner in the firm. He is now, of course, very much the senior partner.

Mr. FROMKIN:Yes, I do.

Mr. FROMKIN:It--it's hard to say because I--I--it--I sort of gradually did it less and less and less. But I was--I was a full-time lawyer an--and I was full--and I was a lawyer in the Army for three years. But I was a full-time lawyer in civilian life for about five years--five or six years, and I left Simpson Thatcher after a few years because I wanted to pursue other--other possibilities. I found myself doing less and less and less legal work, but I'm not sure what the year is that which I sort of stopped.

Mr. FROMKIN:Became involved in a--in a number of business projects and then I started to write and--and, of course, now I'm a university professor, so...

Mr. FROMKIN:I started a year ago, and it's been challenging and great fun.

Mr. FROMKIN:Until a year--well, until a year ago, I'd--the last few years before--before coming to--to Boston, I focused almost entirely on my writing.

Mr. FROMKIN:I always thought so, but I thought that I wou--what I was going to write--I--I didn't think I was going to write non-fiction. I thought that I was going to write novels. And somehow that didn't happen. But at--at--at a certain point, I thought--you know, I've always thought of myself as a writer. I thought that everything that I'm doing is getting experience that I will write about some day; I really ought to sit down and write. So I sat down and started writing.

Mr. FROMKIN:Do you--do you mean the...

Mr. FROMKIN:Oh, how...

Mr. FROMKIN:OK. I talked--I talked the i--I talked through the idea for the book with--with my agent, my literary agent, and with one or two close friends. And having done that, I--I--I sat down and drafted out a book proposal, in draft, sent it to my agent; she had some suggestions and corrections and so on, did several drafts. When we finally got it right, the way it looked right, with an outline and--and--and--and--and such, she submitted it to a number of editors at various publishing houses she thought would be--would be interested in it. She then held a book auction at which the various publishers bid for the right to do this.

And then when I had the relationship established with--with Alfred Knopf and my editor there, Ashe Green, we talked over what I should do, and then I sat down and started to write.

Mr. FROMKIN:It took almost four years.

Mr. FROMKIN:Yeah.

Mr. FROMKIN:They're wonderful friends of mine who built a wonderful boat and are--and are sailing around the world in it. And I, at one or two points, joined them. They are pioneers in living the kind of life that I would like to lead.

Mr. FROMKIN:Oh, OK.

Mr. FROMKIN:I don't know. I think Ophey (pronounced Offie), but...

Mr. FROMKIN:These were a group of very ambitious people who would do anything to eliminate one another.

Mr. FROMKIN:The--OK, the campaign against Sumner Welles w--w--which is the end--the end of the paragraph you read, but unraveling it would--is--it's in order of time.

Mr. FROMKIN:Sumner Welles was a--was the undersecretary of state, the number-two man in the State Department. The number-one person, the secretary of state, was Cordell Hull, a courtly old politician from--from middle America and a man of great political power and influence in the administration of President Roosevelt. Hull had been secretary of state throughout. Sumner Welles, who was considerably younger than Franklin Roosevelt, was a sort of protege of his. His mother had been a family friend either of Roosevelt's family or Eleanor Roosevelt's family, I'm not quite--I don't quite remember. But in any event, he was a family friend, he was a person of old and very good family. He chose a career in the State Department with the encouragement of Franklin Roosevelt. And whe--when he became number-two person in the State Department at the end of the 1930s, he was the person at state that the president talked to, going--circumventing the secretary of state, who should have been the person that the president spoke to.

So there was a great deal of resentment by many people of Welles because he had access to the president ….and--and--and--and great influence. William Bullitt had a friend, a family friend, that he had hoped would get that job of undersecretary, but didn't. Welles got it. And Bullitt wa--a--at that point, needed a job for himself. He had been ambassador to France, but France had fallen to Nazi Germany, and so Bullitt was back here in America. Bullitt wanted--I think wanted that jo--he wanted either that job or he wanted the j--secretary of state job. But in any event, he decided on a campaign to drive Welles out of government. And, as I say, it's quite clear that it was because Bullitt wanted that job.

And Welles, when--when--when--when drunk, it seems, had propositioned some sleeping car porters on a train. The episode had been more or less hushed up, but Bullitt investigated and got a lot of documents to show that this homosexual episode had taken place and Bullitt came to President Roosevelt, presented his evidence, pretended that it--gave--gave a kind of false story as to where the evidence came from, and tried to get Roosevelt to fire Welles. And when Roosevelt wouldn't do it, Bullitt had his henchman, Carmel Ophey, his--his--his aide, his--whatever you want to call him, but he was--so he was--he was the person who did things for--for Bullitt--went around showing these incriminating documents to, apparently, anybody he could get to look at them in--in--in--in this campaign.

So that's--that was the beginning of this whole messy thing. J. Edgar Hoover, the head of the FBI, in turn, wa--wanted--wanted--wanted--wanted to get rid of--of--of Bullitt's man, Ophey, who it turns--it--it is--it is said was--was--was homosexual--or at any rate, there were allegations that he was. So all of these people were using--us--using allegations of homosexuality against one another.

Mr. FROMKIN:Yeah, it was.

Mr. FROMKIN:They were--I--they were not roommates, but they were--they were--they were classmates. They knew each other--they knew each other in college and Lippmann was very prominent in his college class. He was...

Mr. FROMKIN:At--at Harvard. In--in--in a great class. He was the president of various student clubs. And Reed, who felt wa--wha--himself somewhat of an outsider, was somebody who tried to get in to many of these clubs. In any--any event, they knew each other from college.

Mr. FROMKIN:In part because he was one of the most articulate men in the country.

Mr. FROMKIN:He was a journalist. He was an editor. He--he--he wrote a column. He was the original pundit, in the sense that he--he--he was perhaps the first person to write a column of political opinion on a regular basis in a journal that was--that was followed by readers throughout the country. He became a great--a great force--I mean, now--now the idea of--of--of--of--of people with a political column is a very old-hat kind of thing. We--we--we don't think of it as--as new. In Lippmann's day, it was. And--so he was--he was always writing about events; he often was involved in them.

He was extraordinarily influential as a journalist from--from the very--from the very beginning--from--from when he was in his 20s--extraordinarily brilliant person. And he--he was the--the subject of an outstanding biography by my friend Ronald Steel quite some--some years ago. And he's--his is a very good vantage point, also, through which to see the big events of the 20th century because he was always--because he wrote about them and he wrote intelligently about them.

Mr. FROMKIN:He was--he was at--there at the start of The New Republic in--in--in 1914, or if not at the start, then shortly afterwards. And he became the editor just very soon. I--I don't--I--I don't--I don't remember the exact date, but he--he was the editor in the 19 teens.

Mr. FROMKIN:John Reed was a romanticist and he--he had been first to Mexico to witness the revolution there, because he loved the idea of revolutions. And--and he went to Russia during the First World War, and loved Russia. He said everything Russian was better than anything else. And then he was there to witness the taking of power by Lenin and his followers--the Bolshevik Revolution. And he--he wrote back dispatches filled with sort of white-hot fervor and he--and--and--well--very excitingly. And he wrote a great first-hand account, "Ten Days That Shook the World." And he was a hero to many young Americans because--because he seemed to be living such a romantic, revolutionary, artistic life. That was John Reed. And--and--of--of cour--and he took a very favorable view, to say the least, of the--of--of the Bolshevik leaders. He was completely won over to their cause and--and--and--and--and that's how he found his way to the Kremlin wall.

Mr. FROMKIN:A sense that R--Franklin Roosevelt was right to think that Amer--that America can do anything that Americans want to do, that re--that really, in a--in a trite place, where there's a will there's a way, and that if we think we can do it, we can do it.

Mr. FROMKIN:No, just because of the structure of the book and the--the period that I've taken, of course, it's--the biggest political figure is Franklin Roosevelt, who is a Democrat, but--but great things were accomplished under Republicans. And this generation had two mentors--I mean, throughout the generation, they--they--they had two polls of discourses and thought--one was a Republican, Theodore Roosevelt, one was a Democrat, Woodrow Wilson--and they learned from both.

Mr. FROMKIN:OK.

Mr. FROMKIN:France is a country of which I'm very fond. I love being in France. I love French food. I--I love French wines. I love French literature. I have close friends in France. I love living in France. France's politics, in the period about which I write, were absolutely disgraceful. They--there were--France, in the period about which I wrote, let us down in--in--in important ways. In the First World War, France let us down at the peace conference by imposing a peace that--that was unwise because it was a harsh peace that France could not enforce. It was--it was--it was a kind of peace that made inevitable the Second World War, and many, many, many of the counsels and--and--and--offered by our president, they were quite wise, but the French imposed their kind of peace, a bad kind of peace, that brought about the Second World War in which they didn't fight. They gave--they--they really gave up without much of a fight. So I think that, alas--I say this because I'm very pro-French--France's role in the period about which I write was not a creditable role.

Mr. FROMKIN:Great Britain, I'm quite--quite the reverse. Great Britain had her finest hour in the period about which I--I--I write. There was a time before the United States entered the Second World War and before the Soviet Union was involved when Britain stood alone against Nazi Germany and--and was brave to just the most incredible extent. And so I should think Britain comes out very well in the book.

Mr. FROMKIN:Russia--Soviet Russia come--comes out as a country, I think, that we all--that we tended to misunderstand, but which I don't mean that we misunderstood in one sense. I think that Americans, both pro and against Soviet Russia, tend--tended to misunderstand the Russians, who, at times, pushed through policies that really seemed much more simple than we were willing to credit them with. The policies pursued by Stalin were simple, brutal, often, from our point of view, quite wicked, but--but--but--but simple. They--they wanted territory and they took it. And we had all sorts of complicated notions. They--they were doing very simple things like just grabbing.

Mr. FROMKIN:Germany was at--at--at--at her worst in the period about which--which I--I write. Not--not nearly in--in--in the obvious years, the Nazi--the Nazi years. But going back to the First World War where we had always supposed, until quite recently, that German--that the outbreak of the First World War was as much a political accident for Germany as for the other countries involved. But now, through discoveries made by great German historians, starting with a man named Fritz Fischer, we know that a handful of people at the top of the German government came--came quite close to actually plotting and fermenting and causing the start of the war; not the German people, not even--even the--the German parliament, but this small group of people around the kaiser did plan the war, did want it, did start it.

Mr. FROMKIN:The United States comes out very well, indeed, in--in the book, having--the--these were years in which America had tremendous challenges, the enormous--the two world wars, the Korean War and--and--and the outset of the Cold War, the Great Depression. And coming up against each one of these enormous challenges to our national prosperity, our greatness and in some--in some cases to our--to our existence, the United States always rose to the challenge and produced great leaders--the leaders that I write about.

Mr. FROMKIN:Winston Churchill is--in the years treated by this book--was--was at his greatest and--and if one looked outside the United States, one would say certainly the greatest of the world's leaders during--during the period about which I write.

Mr. FROMKIN:Woodrow Wilson, a man very difficult to understand, of great eloquence, but very inconsistent; sometimes--sometimes seemingly an idealist, at other times seeming to betray those ideals; a difficult and--and complex, immensely eloquent and immensely interesting man.

Mr. FROMKIN:Yes, he is. Although Harriman was--was--was--was not so much a policymaker as--as one who executed policy, but he was one who believed strongly in--and especially in the last part of his--last half of his life--in--in--in national service, and he's--he--he contributed greatly to the success of the Lend-Lease Program in particular. He's also a notably sensible amba--US ambassador to Moscow and a--a--a critical and--and intelligent observer of the world scene.

Mr. FROMKIN:OK.

Mr. FROMKIN:Yes.

Mr. FROMKIN:It's a--it's a statue that seems to--to evoke what it was meant to evoke. He--Henry--Henry Adams had it--had it done be--in his great sorrow at the unexplained, inexplicable suicide of his wife. And at some point when people feel--feel grief, it's--it's a statue which seems to speak to them or comfort them or...

Mr. FROMKIN:Henry Adams was an--was a member of a very distinguished American political family going back to the Founding Fathers, to John Adams--John Quincy Adams. Henry Adams was a major American writer who's--who wrote two masterpieces, "Mont-Saint-Michel & Chartres" and "The Education of--of--of Henry Adams," which--which is a book about what--what he--what he tried to learn in his--in his lifetime and his--essentially his public lifetime. He was a person of great--whose--whose--whose thought was of great influence. He--he also gave out the first PhDs in history--in--in--in the--in history in the United States.

Mr. FROMKIN:Yes, in...

Mr. FROMKIN:At--at Harvard and his--he gave out either three or four--the--amongst the group receiving the first was Henry Cabot Lodge, who grew up to be the senator known for having opposed American entry into the...

Mr. FROMKIN:Yes. Henry Cabot, yes.

Mr. FROMKIN:The grandfather.

Mr. FROMKIN:Yes.

Mr. FROMKIN:I--I--I--I lo--I love to--to reread 19th century histories. I--I--I love Macaulay; go further back, I love to read Gibbon. In--in our--in our--in the 20th century, I've read and reread the books of the English historian A.J.P. Taylor, who writes with great wit and verve. But I love history so, I--I--I've--I've--I--I won't say I read it undiscriminatingly, but I read widely.

Mr. FROMKIN:Look at sources, check footnotes, but an awful lot of it is just feel--just from--from--from--from--from reading the way in which propositions are put in a book, you can get, I think, a pretty good sense of how--how responsible the--the--the--the author is. If there's a question, go check--go check the footnotes and see if they check.

Mr. FROMKIN:Mm-hmm.

Mr. FROMKIN:And I don't know. I--what--in--in--in dealing with--with--with--with these things, what was important to me was not what happened or what they were. The--one dealt with perceptions, rumors, allegations, and--and this was an intrigue. The importance of the--of it was--was the use of rumors, innuendos and allegations in a fight, in a political fight, and--and--and that was all that I cared about.

Mr. FROMKIN:OK.

Mr. FROMKIN:As--assassination of the heir to the Habsburg Empire's throne in Sarajevo in June of 1914, followed by Austria's ultimatum to Serbia, which act--asked Serbia, in return, practically to give up its independence in atonement for this--for this act, which Serbia may have--may or may not have had any connection with. And there was then an alliance system throughout Europe, so that when one country came in on one side, another automatically came in on another side. And that's how the war started.

What we now know, however, is that for a couple years beforehand, the German kaiser and his military advisers had planned, at about that time, to have a war, and that they expected an episode like that in the Balkans to provide them with a pretext and it did.

Mr. FROMKIN:What got us in was the s--the sinking of--of merchant--US merchant vessels by German submarines.

Mr. FROMKIN:From--Wo--World War II started because of--of a tax by Nazi Germany on her neighbors and--and--and Germany's attempt to create something in the nature of a world empire in alliance as--later with--with Italy--with Italy, yes, and with Japan and with other countries. From our point of view, what started it was the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese followed by a declaration of war against us by Nazi Germany.

Mr. FROMKIN:I think that had Hitler come to power in Germany, even without the Versailles Treaty, Hitler's program being what it was, Germany--Hitler's Germany would have aimed at world conquest. But I think that the Versailles Treaty played a great role in making Germany the kind of country where Hitler could come to power.

Mr. FROMKIN:That--whe--when North Korea attacked South Korea, we had to figure whether that was just one country attacking another or whether North Korea was acting on behalf of the whole mo--we thought monolithic Communist empire. If so, we felt we had to--we had to go in to repel their aggression.

Mr. FROMKIN:It begins in 1880 with the birth of the several people who I follow throughout the book. It ends on Inauguration Day in 1961 when Jack Kennedy, a member of a much younger generation, takes over from Dwight Eisenhower, the last representative, in public life, of my--of the generation with which I deal in the book.

Mr. FROMKIN:A short history of the world, followed by a forecast of what comes next.

Mr. FROMKIN:That's what my agent asked.

Mr. FROMKIN:Thanks.