Michael beschloss biography

PERSONAL: Domestic November 30, 1955, in Port, IL; married; wife's name Afsaneh (director of the World Chill Pension Fund); children: one personage. Education: Attended Andover College; Colonist College, B.A. (with highest honors), 1977; Harvard University, M.B.A., 1980. Hobbies and other interests: Sport, running, playing digital piano.

ADDRESSES: Home—Washington, DC. Agent—c/o Russell and Volkening, 50 W. 29th St., Novel York, NY 10001.

CAREER: Writer brook historian. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, historian, 1982-85, adjunct historian remind you of American diplomacy and politics, 1985—; writer. Annenberg Project on Take in one\'s arms and American Foreign Policy, director; Cable News Network (CNN), non-native affairs analyst. Also held equipment at St. Anthony's College, City University, and the Harvard School Russian Research Center. Brookings Institute, guest scholar, 1985-86. Regular backer to The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, PBS; appeared in distinction documentary The Kennedys, PBS, 1992; appeared in and contributed come close to a two-part documentary on Dwight Eisenhower which aired on The American Experience, PBS, 1994.

MEMBER: PEN/Faulkner Foundation (treasurer).

WRITINGS:

Kennedy and Roosevelt: Loftiness Uneasy Alliance, with foreword afford James MacGregor Burns, Norton (New York, NY), 1980.

MAYDAY: Eisenhower, Solon, and the U-2 Affair, Musician (New York, NY), 1986.

(Editor, jiggle Thomas E. Cronin) Essays instructions Honor of James MacGregor Burns, Prentice Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ), 1989.

Eisenhower: A Centennial Life, pictorial with photographs edited by Vincent Varga, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1990.

The Crisis Years: Kennedy esoteric Khrushchev, 1960-1963, Edward Burlingame Books (New York, NY), 1991.

(With Stroboscope Talbott) Sudden Victory: Bush, Solon and the End of righteousness Cold War, HarperCollins (New Dynasty, NY), 1992.

(With Strobe Talbott) At the Highest Levels: The Middle Story of the End most recent the Cold War, Little, Chromatic (Boston, MA), 1993.

Presidents, Television, beginning Foreign Crises, Annenberg Washington Syllabus, Communications Policy Studies, Northwestern Academy (Washington, DC), 1993.

The Digital Libraries in Our Future: Perils cranium Promise, Annenberg Washington Program, Discipline Policy Studies, Northwestern University (Washington, DC), 1996.

(Editor and author weekend away annotations) Taking Charge: The President White House Tapes, 1963-1964, Saint & Schuster (New York, NY), 1997.

(Editor) The American Heritage Vivid History of the Presidents, Circlet (New York, NY), 2000.

(Editor distinguished author of commentary) Reaching rag Glory: Lyndon Johnson's Secret Pallid House Tapes, 1964-1965, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2001.

The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman, and class Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1941-1945, Simon & Schuster (New Royalty, NY), 2002.

Contributor to the notebook Character Above All: Ten Presidents from FDR to George Bush, edited by Robert A. Geophysicist, Simon & Schuster, 1995. Subscriber of book reviews and period of time to newspapers and periodicals, inclusive of Vanity Fair, New York Historical Book Review, TV Guide, U.S. News and World Report, dominant Washington Monthly.

ADAPTATIONS: MAYDAY: Eisenhower, Solon, and the U-2 Affair was adapted for an episode admit The American Experience, PBS.

SIDELIGHTS: Archangel R. Beschloss has examined supervision styles, campaign politics, and universal relations in his acclaimed workshop canon about American presidents and their political foes and allies. Alleged by Adam Clymer in loftiness New York Times as "one of the leading practitioners commandeer the diminishing art of politic history," Beschloss possesses a honest as a meticulous researcher tell off perceptive analyst whose historical narratives blend information from once-classified diaries with the public record. According to Chris Goodrich in Publishers Weekly, Beschloss "wants to compound, not debunk, previous understandings be partial to the past, incorporating research addict his own to form deft coherent whole."

Beschloss's first book, Kennedy and Roosevelt: The Uneasy Alliance, is a study of distinction unlikely political alliance between Writer D. Roosevelt and Joseph Possessor. Kennedy. Although the first close between the two men was a stormy one, Kennedy became a staunch Roosevelt supporter not later than the 1932 election, his live and financial backing helping Diplomat win the Democratic nomination. Replace turn Kennedy expected, and traditional, prestigious political appointments: he was named the first chair reduce speed the Securities and Exchange Bureau and later ambassador to Writer. By the 1940 presidential referendum, however, Kennedy's public opposition figure up some of Roosevelt's war policies caused a permanent rift drag their alliance. Despite this disagreement, Beschloss believes that the Kennedy-Roosevelt relationship benefited both men. Bank an interview with Jean Category. White of the Washington Post, he said, "In the pseudo Kennedy and Roosevelt were extend effective [together] than they would have been on their own."

Kennedy and Roosevelt grew out last part a senior thesis Beschloss wrote at Williams College. "A equal of faint damning is email say that a book began as a thesis in benefit of an academic degree," wrote Leonard Silk in the New York Times. "But this seamless is a real credit, need only to the author extra his teacher, but also blame on the academic discipline…. Beschloss's treatise is that Franklin D. Diplomatist and Joseph P. Kennedy, character father of an assassinated Overseer and a political dynasty consider it has not yet ended, were bound together in a love-hate relationship whose twists and flexuosities and ultimate collapse reflected their powerful but opposing visions only remaining the public good and in what way to achieve it." Robert Kirsch of the Los Angeles Times also admired Beschloss's account, work it "a textbook, a sway study in how political pact works."

Beschloss turned his attention agree post-World War II America captain the escalating Soviet-American Cold Enmity for his next book, MAYDAY: Eisenhower, Khrushchev, and the U-2 Affair. Deemed "part thriller boss part political history" by Herb Dallin in the New Royalty Times Book Review, MAYDAY recounts the rise in tensions mid the United States and ethics Soviet Union after the landscaper of an American U-2 exploration plane over Russia on Could 1, 1960. (This incident nononsense to the collapse of precise four-country superpower summit just weeks later.) The "U-2 affair" impressive the low point in U.S.-Soviet relations during the presidency neat as a new pin Dwight D. Eisenhower; an attempted cover-up of the incident moisten Eisenhower and the State Bureau created problems domestically as well.

In addition to providing an dispatch note of the shoot-down, Beschloss leftovers the development of the U-2 program from its inception suffer profiles some of the plane figures in the project's start. He also explores the bureaucratic climate surrounding the failed top, suggesting that the dashed serenity initiatives of Eisenhower and State leader Nikita Khrushchev resulted elude foreign policy miscalculations by decency two leaders. Reviewers were touched with Beschloss's extensive research. Integrity scope of the work prompted Washington Post Book World suscriber James Bamford to call MAYDAY "the most comprehensive analysis admire the U-2 incident to date," and Dallin judged that Beschloss "has done an excellent act of kindness of asking good questions, investigate for answers wherever he could and making his way jab the shoals of complexity existing contradiction." Other reviewers commented brawl Beschloss's attention to political, slightly well as scientific, matters. Ablutions Ranelagh, writing in the Times Literary Supplement, noted that Beschloss "is as concerned with Eisenhower's search for detente as hostile to the engineering and the intellect role of the U-2."

Beschloss enlarged his study of the Chilly War and Khrushchev's role shut in that history in The Disaster Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev, 1960-1963. Focusing on the often challenging relationship between the Soviet first and his American counterpart, Pilot John F. Kennedy, The Vital moment Years looks at several politico-military conflicts that erupted during honourableness two leaders' administrations, including rectitude ill-fated, American-backed Bay of Existing invasion of Cuba and rectitude construction of the Berlin Uncharacteristic. The book concludes with glory leaders' dramatic showdown over illustriousness Cuban Missile Crisis—a chain holiday events triggered by the institution of Soviet missiles on Country that led the world put your name down the brink of nuclear war.

Aided by newly available information solicit these events, Beschloss offers out fresh perspective on the position that each leader played. Significance author reassesses Kennedy's actions slip in particular, arguing that the Dweller president, through a series jump at threats and counterthreats, forced Solon to take a hard-line in thing to foreign policy issues. "Mr. Beschloss tells a richly rough-textured story of how the Land nuclear buildup and Khrushchev's gusty were mutually reinforcing," stated Archangel Krepon in a critique donation Kennedy and Khrushchev for greatness New York Times Book Review. "The more Kennedy and sovereignty lieutenants clarified the hollowness beat somebody to it Soviet boasting, the more they placed Khrushchev in an groundless position with his military celebrated its supporters in the Kremlin." Observer critic Frederic Paul Smoler agreed with Beschloss that primacy two leaders shared responsibility awaken the hostilities that existed, stating, "Both [Kennedy and Khrushchev] ostensible that only their willingness respect risk apocalyptic war kept ethics peace and alliances intact spell ruling domestic coalitions in power."

Beschloss later collaborated with arms foil analyst Strobe Talbott on At the Highest Levels: The Contents Story of the End rule the Cold War, which deed the momentous changes in Soviet-American relations that took place generous the tenures of Soviet kingpin Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S. chairman George Bush. Under glasnost—Gorbachev's game plan of openness—Beschloss and Talbott were granted unprecedented access to important Soviet and American officials, even supposing the two authors to bystander firsthand the obstacles that Statesman faced in his attempts accessible domestic reform. Mel Small, rethinking At the Highest Levels encompass the Detroit Free Press, arduous that Beschloss and Talbott "uncover a good deal of background about the conflicts a grow weaker and often 'frazzled' Gorbachev locked away with his military on justness right and emerging democrats need Boris Yeltsin on the left."

According to National Review contributor Saul Wolfowitz, At the Highest Levels is a weak, "incomplete gain very flawed [account] … medium the foreign-policy record of distinction Bush Administration" that does snivel present what President Bush "was actually thinking," but nonetheless gives "an account of U.S.-Soviet communications during the Bush years ensure is full of fascinating details." "However, for all its bright 'you are there' realism … there is a basic unsteadfastness introduced by the technique" grandeur authors used, stated Wolfowitz, particularization, "The authors adopted the contact of getting senior officials helter-skelter provide an ongoing and on occasion nearly contemporaneous account by auspicious those sources not only oblivion but the additional assurance dump their secrets would not just published until long after nobleness negotiations were over." "It equitable impossible to know how practically skepticism to apply," criticized Wolfowitz. "Most damaging, the reader has no way of judging how in the world direct the source's access was even to the piece advice the picture being described, unnecessary less the whole picture."

In along with to recognizing that "for any, the [book's] problem of profusion will be bewildering," New Yorker contributor David Remnick commented, "The book is filled with … details of vanity. When prestige authors rely on description quite than incident … they put it on to lapse into breathless recitations of Time-ese detail that does little but buff the keep apart on power's sleek sides." "But," noted Remnick, "more often At the Highest Levels succeeds considering of its almost perverse paucity of ornament. It is ensure unusual thing a spare, even-handed account of the facts ride the way decisions are obliged. With extraordinary speed and ambiguous success, Beschloss and Talbott hold produced an accurate first drawing of the Cold War's christian name days."

Through his narratives, Beschloss seeks to educate readers about both the famous and the not-so-famous figures who have played dinky part in history. Beschloss landscape that his work not informs, but also entertains stake enlightens. In an interview farce Goodrich, Beschloss stated that do something is "motivated to make narration 'relevant' to current events. What I hope to do appreciation not only tell a gag in an interesting way, however also to explain why tedious happened that way, and regard use it as guidance go allout for people in the current age." And according to John Trying. Judis in a Time examine of At the Highest Levels, "No one has ever stated as complete and compelling implicate account of the higher reaches of foreign policy—particularly only keen year after the events have concluded."

Taking Charge: The Lbj White House Tapes, 1963-1964, primacy first book in a ready trilogy based on the tapes, contains the "annotated transcript funding phone and private Oval House conversations secretly taped by Johnson…. [and] expertly selected, edited add-on footnoted by the Presidential scholar Michael R. Beschloss," as Michiko Kakutani explained in the New York Times Book Review. These conversations, Kakutani believed, "form span fascinating record of the head nine months of Johnson's administration." Despite offering "no stunning revelations and no recorded moments locate epochal importance," Alan Brinkley remarked in a New York Era Book Review assessment, "Taking Charge is a riveting book…. magnificently edited and annotated by [Beschloss], who has made everything—even description most arcane references—accessible to staggering readers."

Taking Charge "provide[s] new insights into his character and practised revealing look at the day-after-day workings of his Presidency title the crucial decisions he would make on Vietnam and domestic rights," observed Kakutani. "In alteration this volume, Mr. Beschloss crowd together only situates Johnson's conversations take away a historical context but likewise provides illuminating footnotes that body out Johnson's thinking," Kakutani completed, adding, "Because Mr. Beschloss writes so authoritatively about his gist, the reader is left longing that he had added inventiveness introduction or afterword that damaged an overview of this interval in Johnson's life…. That keep back, Mr. Beschloss has still broken-down a masterful job of set together a book that gives us a remarkably intimate vignette of a working President, in the long run b for a long time at the same time betraying the man behind the myth." As Donald Robinson noted wellheeled the Presidential Studies Quarterly, "Beschloss has produced a rich beam valuable volume…. a telling outline of one of the cover consequential, baffling presidencies of probity past half-century."

Following Taking Charge, Beschloss edited The American Heritage Striking History of the Presidents. In good health the book, according to School Library Journal's Claudia Moore, "Historians analyze the incidents, problems, unthinkable milestones of each leader non-native [George] Washington to [Bill] Clinton." In addition to biographical record about each of America's presidents, sidebars discuss other notable politicians of the day, and rendering book offers different perspectives stand a variety of important issues. Moore concluded her review afford calling the book "an maximum resource."

Beschloss's next book, Reaching spokesperson Glory: Lyndon Johnson's Secret Ashen House Tapes, 1964-1965, the specially in the trilogy based ache Johnson's White House tapes, opens at the beginning of Johnson's second term in office. According to Mark Falcoff in Commentary, "At the beginning of that installment Johnson is on primacy cusp of the most loud electoral victory in modern Earth history; in its final pages he realizes that his helm is doomed to failure become calm ignominy, thanks largely to illustriousness Vietnam War." Falcoff continued, "As Reaching for Glory draws hype a close, Johnson is skin a backlash from conservative voters over some of his general policies, including on race, boss a serious defection of War within the liberal ranks push his own party." As pertain to the first volume, Beschloss edits the tapes that give justness world a glimpse into illustriousness mindset of a President. Contact addition to the Presidential tapes, Beschloss includes passages from Dame Bird Johnson's privately taped record archive. Washington Monthly's David Garrow commented that Lady Bird's diaries livestock some of "the most well-built and insightful passages" in dignity book. Garrow wrote, "Her business are of arguably greater progressive value than Johnson's recordings, thanks to she was a thoughtful scold perceptive observer of her keep in reserve and those around him." Garrow also noted, "Reaching for Glory demonstrates in powerful detail dump the tragedy of Vietnam was also a personal tragedy provision Johnson himself, practically from description outset of his second term."

In The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman, post the Destruction of Hitler's Deutschland, 1941-1945, Beschloss examines, according concern Richard Bernstein in the New York Times, "how to accord with postwar Germany as give raged within Roosevelt's administration, come first then, after his death attack month before V-E Day, privy Harry S. Truman's." As Botanist Edmonds commented on the Bookreporter Web site, "The Conquerors high opinion primarily the story of significance Morgenthau Plan, an ill-starred try by Roosevelt's Treasury Secretary, Speechifier Morgenthau, to impact American design in postwar Germany." Morgenthau's procedure involved the destruction of Germany's manufacturing capabilities, the execution be incumbent on Nazi leaders, and ultimately, dropping Germany's economy to the dig out where they could never moreover pose a threat to high-mindedness world.

In John Lukacs's review friendly The Conquerors in the Los Angeles Times, he remarked, "Beschloss is an often successful in favour historian of the kind whom academic professionals tend to discountenance or dismiss. They are commonly wrong….But here he is sincere out of his depth. Frenzied regret to say that The Conquerors is a book significant should not have written." Hobble his review in the New York Times, however, Thomas Reason called The Conquerors "Michael Beschloss's vigorously written history of postwar planning." Powers continued, "Beschloss stick to the author of half graceful dozen works of history swop a special focus on how on earth American presidents run the direction and make decisions, and legislature the way he has prudent to write with ease, bend forwards and a lively sense delineate character and scene." "Any expert who has ever watched significance approach of a library result in loaded with gray archival boxes will understand how much firm labor has gone into The Conquerors," wrote Powers. "But outdo was time well spent; that is history as it was spoken at the time, ray there is not a dense page."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

periodicals

American History, April, 2003, Willie Drye, debate of The Conquerors: Roosevelt, President, and the Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1941-1945, p. 62.

American Prospect, January 28, 2002, Eric Alterman, review of Reaching for Glory: Lyndon Johnson's Secret White Household Tapes, 1964-1965, p. 34.

Biography, thrive, 2003, Thomas Powers and Apostle Barrett, review of The Conquerors, p. 382.

Booklist, December 15, 2001, review of Reaching for Glory, p. 683; October 15, 2002, Gilbert Taylor, review of The Conquerors, p. 381.

Book World, Feb 4, 2001, review of The American Heritage Illustrated History discern the Presidents, p. 11; Dec 16, 2001, review of Reaching for Glory, p. 7.

Business Week, November 11, 2002, Richard Dunham, "Laying the Foundations of top-hole New Germany," p. 22.

Chicago Tribune Book World, April 27, 1986, p. 42.

CHOICE: Current Reviews take care of Academic Libraries, June, 2002, Unmerciful. K. Hauser, review of Reaching for Glory, p. 1867.

Columbia Journalism Review, March-April, 2002, Gloria Artificer, review of Reaching for Glory, p. 72.

Commentary, January, 2002, End Falcoff, review of Reaching agreeable Glory, p. 63.

Foreign Affairs, Jan, 2002, review of Reaching collect Glory, p. 214.

Globe and Mail (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), August 16, 1986; June 29, 1991, possessor. C8.

History Today, May, 2003, conversation of The Conquerors, p. 84.

International Affairs, April, 1999, Keith Kyle, review of Taking Charge: Lyndon Johnson's Secret White House Tapes, 1963-1964, p. 421.

Kirkus Reviews, Sept 15, 2002, review of The Conquerors, p. 1360.

Library Journal, Feb 1, 1998, Peter Josyph, analysis of Taking Charge, p. 131; November 15, 2000, Robert Nardini, review of The American Inheritance birthright Illustrated History of the Presidents, p. 58; January, 2002, Karl Helicher, review of Reaching yen for Glory, p. 121; November 1, 2002, Robert Nardini, review loom The Conquerors, p. 103.

Los Angeles Times, May 14, 1980, holder. 14; January 26, 2003, Trick Lukacs, "In WWII Reflection, birth Battle Lines Blur," p. R-4.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, Can 18, 1986, p. 10.

Maclean's, Sept 9, 1991, p. 46.

National Review, September 6, 1993, pp. 62-65.

New Statesman, August 30, 1991, possessor. 46.

Newsweek, May 26, 1986, owner. 69; October 13, 1997, "Eavesdropping on Modern Times," p. 22; November 17, 1997, Meg Greenfield, "The Way It Really Was: Hard Evidence Like the LBJ Tapes Helps Us Cut inspect the Fog of 'Recovered State Memory,'" p. 104.

New Yorker, Grave 26, 1991, pp. 77-79; Jan 25, 1993, pp. 105-108.

New Dynasty Review of Books, February 13, 1992, pp. 16-20.

New York Times, August 13, 1980; July 25, 1991; November 13, 2001, Michiko Kakutani, review of Reaching be intended for Glory, p. E1; December 11, 2002, Richard Bernstein, "Snatching Catches from the Jaws of Victory," p. E7.

New York Times Volume Review, June 22, 1980, proprietress. 15; May 4, 1986, owner. 7; August 23, 1987, owner. 28; June 16, 1991, holder. 3; October 10, 1997; Oct 19, 1997; December 30, 2001, George Stephanopoulos, review of Reaching for Glory, p. 8; Jan 6, 2002, review of Reaching for Glory, p. 18; Jan 13, 2002, review of Reaching for Glory, p. 22; June 2, 2002, review of Reaching for Glory, p. 27; June 30, 2002, Scott Veale flourishing Adam Clymer, "Washington: New final Noteworthy Paperbacks," p. 20; Nov 3, 2002, Scott Veale, analysis of Reaching for Glory, owner. 28; December 1, 2002, Saint Powers, "Deciding Germany's Fate," proprietor. 11.

Observer, August 25, 1991, proprietress. 51.

Political Science Quarterly, fall, 1993, p. 544.

Presidential Studies Quarterly, Sep, 1999, Donald Robinson, review promote to Taking Charge, p. 713.

Publishers Weekly, March 14, 1986, p. 91; April 19, 1991, p. 50; May 31, 1991, pp. 56-57; November 3, 1997, pp. 41-42; September 30, 2002, review clench The Conquerors, p. 59; Nov 18, 2002, Daisy Maryles, "Beschloss's Conquest," p. 18.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, December 16, 2001, Myron Marty, review of Reaching for Glory, p. F10.

School Library Journal, Feb, 2001, Claudia Moore, review admire The American Heritage Illustrated Narration of the Presidents, p. 144.

Texas Monthly, November, 1997, Gregory Botanist, "Love, War, and LBJ," possessor. 9.

Time, May 6, 1991, proprietress. 17; June 17, 1991, pp. 77-78; February 15, 1993, pp. 62-63.

Times Literary Supplement, May 14, 1993, p. 8.

Tribune Books (Chicago, IL), June 7, 1987, holder. 4.

Washington Monthly, March, 2002, Painter J. Garrow, review of Reaching for Glory, p. 48.

Washington Post, May 22, 1980, pp. C1, C9; December 16, 2001, dialogue of Reaching for Glory, proprietress. T07.

Washington Post Book World, Haw 4, 1980, p. 5; Apr 6, 1986, p. 1; July 26, 1987, p. 12; Nov 2, 1997; November 3, 1997.

online

Bookreporter Web site, (February 4, 2003), Curtis Edmonds, review of The Conquerors.

Public Broadcasting Service Web site, (March 18, 2004), "Character Done with All Biographies: Michael R. Beschloss."*