|
Books: November 8, 1995
Gentleman Spy: The Life of Alan Dulles ['14]
A Freewheeling Cold WarriorAllen Dulles '14, a manipulative man, played the game of intelligenceGENTLEMAN SPY: THE LIFE OF ALLEN DULLES ['14] Peter Grose Houghton Mifflin, $30 A MAN PASSIONATE about covert action, Allen Dulles '14 led a long and exhaustingly varied life. Any one phase-his postgraduation year in India and the Far East, diplomatic postings to World War I Vienna and then the Paris Peace Conference, Office of Strategic Services (OSS) duty in Switzerland, directorship of the Central Intelligence Agency, and fractious service on the Warren Commission-is remarkable. Woven together in Gentleman Spy: The Life of Allen Dulles, by Peter Grose, these phases form a life intertwined with the great leaders and issues of this century. Grose, a former New York Times correspondent, executive editor of Foreign Affairs, and State Department official under President Carter, tells the fascinating story by balancing the intricacies of diplomacy and espionage with the interplay of personalities. He portrays Dulles's many facets in careful detail with a long historical perspective. Princeton references and graduates abound, including Woodrow Wilson 1879 (whose idealism inspired Dulles), lifelong friend Hamilton Fish Armstrong '16, William E. Colby '40, George F. Kennan '25, James V. Forrestal '15, James H. Billington '50, David K. E. Bruce '19, and his son, Allen Macy Dulles '51. In Gentleman Spy, Dulles is as an energetic, ambitious, cheerful, and profoundly manipulative man. A gifted raconteur and self promoter, he used anybody to advance his goals. Many people loved him, but his own personal life remained buried under a polished veneer and trademark "ho ho ho" laugh. The son of a Presbyterian minister and scion of two secretaries of state, Dulles began pursuing the great game of intelligence as a young diplomat. Throughout his career, he remained drawn to global affairs, moving easily between the public and private sectors. The author provides a thorough history of the CIA, established in 1947. Dulles joined the CIA in 1950 as deputy director for plans, serving under General Walter Bedell Smith, "one of the few associates whom Allen could not charm," Grose writes. An intricate political square dance led President Ei-senhower to appoint Dulles director of central intelligence in early 1953. Grose proceeds through the highlights of his tenure: Iran, Guatemala, Hungary, Suez, the race to obtain Khrush-chev's 1956 "secret speech," the MKULTRA experiments with LSD that neither Congress nor Eisenhower knew about, the U-2 spy-plane scandal, and the Bay of Pigs. Dulles's commitment to the CIA continued after his retirement, when he protected CIA interests as a member of the Warren Commission. Grose avoids a sweeping final judgment on Dulles. Rather, he assesses his career at different stages. Grose's comments become increasingly critical as the Wilsonian idealist and the superb OSS operative evolve into the freewheeling Cold Warrior. Ultimately, the Dulles legacy resides in the agency he nurtured. -Van Wallach '80 Van Wallach, who lives in Westport, Connecticut, is a frequent contributor to PAW.
A Doctor Heals With the Human TouchLEARNING HOW THE HEART BEATS: THE MAKING OF A PEDIATRICIANClaire McCarthy '84, M.D. Viking, $21.95 "DOCTORS are made witnesses to the bare moments, dramatic and mundane, that make up people's lives," observes pediatrician Claire McCarthy '84. She sees this intrusion, which is met sometimes with eagerness and other times with reluctance, as a privilege. In Learning How the Heart Beats: The Making of a Pediatrician, Mc-Carthy perceptively and kindly recounts the stories of her patients and the moments she's shared with them-which she calls the best part of medicine. McCarthy focuses on how the people she meets in various hospitals in Boston shape the kind of doctor she becomes. McCarthy draws these stories from journals she kept during seven years of medical school, which she wrote "not just to remember but to ease my sorrow, pain, and confusion." McCarthy's observation that there is no "standard curriculum for teaching the emotional component of medicine" (her only criticism of doctors' training) is woven throughout the stories. Physicians-in-training learn a bedside manner by watching older doctors, and also, she suggests, by observing their patients. This attention to the emotional issues, and obliquely McCarthy's human and personal reaction to them, produces a book that tugs at your heart and makes you wish she was your children's pediatrician. The most wrenching story begins innocently with a reference to a baby's rash that turns out to be McCarthy's first case of child abuse. The memory haunts her, as it did me after reading about the 11-month-old girl's rope burns and her scream "filled with fear and with desperation" when McCarthy tries to examine her. In the end, the dramas and joys that McCarthy shares tell us more about the kind of woman and doctor she is than about what medical-school students learn. Her insight is her best feature-and if kindness can't be taught in medical school, then maybe books like this one should be required reading. -Jennifer Gennari Shepherd Jennifer Gennari Shepherd, a freelance writer living in Princeton, covers women's issues.
Books ReceivedA HISTORY OF CANADIANARCHITECTURE: VOLUMES 1 AND 2 Harold Kalman '64 *71 Oxford University Press, $105
REALIZING MENTAL HEALTH: TOWARD
PRIVATE TRUTHS, PUBLIC LIES:
GEOMETRIC MEASURE THEORY:
THE TEMPLE: ITS SYMBOLISM AND |