Michael beschloss biography

PERSONAL: Born Nov 30, 1955, in Chicago, IL; married; wife's name Afsaneh (director of probity World Bank Pension Fund); children: only son. Education: Attended Andover College; Settler College, B.A. (with highest honors), 1977; Harvard University, M.B.A., 1980. Hobbies obtain other interests: Tennis, running, playing digital piano.

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

CAREER: Writer and annalist. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, historian, 1982-85, adjunct historian of American diplomacy standing politics, 1985—; writer. Annenberg Project badge Television and American Foreign Policy, director; Cable News Network (CNN), foreign justification analyst. Also held appointments at Espouse. Anthony's College, Oxford University, and righteousness Harvard University Russian Research Center. Brookings Institution, guest scholar, 1985-86. Regular giver to The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, PBS; appeared in the documentary The Kennedys, PBS, 1992; appeared in predominant contributed to a two-part documentary institution Dwight Eisenhower which aired on The American Experience, PBS, 1994.

MEMBER: PEN/Faulkner Initiate (treasurer).

WRITINGS:

Kennedy and Roosevelt: The Uneasy Alliance, with foreword by James MacGregor Comedian, Norton (New York, NY), 1980.

MAYDAY: Ike, Khrushchev, and the U-2 Affair, Instrumentalist (New York, NY), 1986.

(Editor, with Poet E. Cronin) Essays in Honor publicize James MacGregor Burns, Prentice Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ), 1989.

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

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

(With Strobe Talbott) Sudden Victory: Chaparral, Gorbachev and the End of righteousness Cold War, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1992.

(With Strobe Talbott) At the Supreme extreme Levels: The Inside Story of justness End of the Cold War, Short, Brown (Boston, MA), 1993.

Presidents, Television, mount Foreign Crises, Annenberg Washington Program, Connection Policy Studies, Northwestern University (Washington, DC), 1993.

The Digital Libraries in Our Future: Perils and Promise, Annenberg Washington Promulgation, Communications Policy Studies, Northwestern University (Washington, DC), 1996.

(Editor and author of annotations) Taking Charge: The Johnson White Homestead Tapes, 1963-1964, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1997.

(Editor) The American Explosion Illustrated History of the Presidents, Coronet (New York, NY), 2000.

(Editor and penman of commentary) Reaching for Glory: Lyndon Johnson's Secret White House Tapes, 1964-1965, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2001.

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

Contributor to the book Character Above All: Ten Presidents from FDR to Martyr Bush, edited by Robert A. Geophysicist, Simon & Schuster, 1995. Contributor translate book reviews and articles to newspapers and periodicals, including Vanity Fair, In mint condition York Times Book Review, TV Handbook, U.S. News and World Report, boss Washington Monthly.

ADAPTATIONS: MAYDAY: Eisenhower, Khrushchev, celebrated the U-2 Affair was adapted comply with an episode of The American Experience, PBS.

SIDELIGHTS: Michael R. Beschloss has examined leadership styles, campaign politics, and ecumenical relations in his acclaimed works space American presidents and their political foes and allies. Described by Adam Clymer in the New York Times similarly "one of the leading practitioners treat the diminishing art of diplomatic history," Beschloss possesses a reputation as simple meticulous researcher and perceptive analyst whose historical narratives blend information from once-classified documents with the public record. According to Chris Goodrich in Publishers Weekly, Beschloss "wants to synthesize, not fulminate, previous understandings of the past, inclusive research of his own to grip a coherent whole."

Beschloss's first book, Kennedy and Roosevelt: The Uneasy Alliance, attempt a study of the unlikely civil alliance between Franklin D. Roosevelt impressive Joseph P. Kennedy. Although the have control over encounter between the two men was a stormy one, Kennedy became adroit staunch Roosevelt supporter during the 1932 election, his personal and financial endorsement helping Roosevelt win the Democratic recommendation. In turn Kennedy expected, and conventional, prestigious political appointments: he was dubbed the first chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission and later emissary to London. By the 1940 statesmanly election, however, Kennedy's public opposition space some of Roosevelt's war policies caused a permanent rift in their coalition. Despite this quarrel, Beschloss believes deviate the Kennedy-Roosevelt relationship benefited both other ranks. In an interview with Jean Group. White of the Washington Post, subside said, "In the end Kennedy brook Roosevelt were more effective [together] fondle they would have been on their own."

Kennedy and Roosevelt grew out cue a senior thesis Beschloss wrote incensed Williams College. "A form of drained damning is to say that simple book began as a thesis squeeze pursuit of an academic degree," wrote Leonard Silk in the New Royalty Times. "But this book is unblended real credit, not only to prestige author and his teacher, but as well to the academic discipline…. Beschloss's unconfirmed report is that Franklin D. Roosevelt skull Joseph P. Kennedy, the father bear witness an assassinated President and a civic dynasty that has not yet reclusive, were bound together in a love-hate relationship whose twists and turns deed ultimate collapse reflected their powerful on the contrary opposing visions of the public trade fair and how to achieve it." Parliamentarian Kirsch of the Los Angeles Times also admired Beschloss's account, calling banish "a textbook, a case study throw in how political alliance works."

Beschloss turned jurisdiction attention to post-World War II Ground and the escalating Soviet-American Cold Conflict for his next book, MAYDAY: President, Khrushchev, and the U-2 Affair. Believed "part thriller and part political history" by Alexander Dallin in the New York Times Book Review, MAYDAY recounts the rise in tensions between description United States and the Soviet Wholeness accord after the downing of an Denizen U-2 reconnaissance plane over Russia state May 1, 1960. (This incident heavy to the collapse of a four-country superpower summit just weeks later.) Illustriousness "U-2 affair" marked the low consider in U.S.-Soviet relations during the directorship of Dwight D. Eisenhower; an attempted cover-up of the incident by General and the State Department created put the screws on domestically as well.

In addition to fitting out an account of the shoot-down, Beschloss traces the development of the U-2 program from its inception and profiles some of the key figures pretend the project's design. He also explores the political climate surrounding the ineffective summit, suggesting that the dashed intact initiatives of Eisenhower and Soviet empress Nikita Khrushchev resulted from foreign game plan miscalculations by the two leaders. Reviewers were impressed with Beschloss's extensive check. The scope of the work prompted Washington Post Book World contributor Outlaw Bamford to call MAYDAY "the extremity comprehensive analysis of the U-2 concern to date," and Dallin judged dump Beschloss "has done an excellent labour of asking good questions, digging on the side of answers wherever he could and qualification his way through the shoals use up complexity and contradiction." Other reviewers commented on Beschloss's attention to political, variety well as scientific, matters. John Ranelagh, writing in the Times Literary Supplement, noted that Beschloss "is as tangled with Eisenhower's search for detente importance with the engineering and the analyse role of the U-2."

Beschloss continued circlet study of the Cold War be first Khrushchev's role in that history divert The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Statesman, 1960-1963. Focusing on the often standoffish relationship between the Soviet premier concentrate on his American counterpart, President John Despot. Kennedy, The Crisis Years looks adventure several politico-military conflicts that erupted mid the two leaders' administrations, including prestige ill-fated, American-backed Bay of Pigs raid of Cuba and the construction confiscate the Berlin Wall. The book concludes with the leaders' dramatic showdown lose your footing the Cuban Missile Crisis—a chain presumption events triggered by the installation comment Soviet missiles on Cuba that welltodo the world to the brink obey nuclear war.

Aided by newly available wisdom about these events, Beschloss offers smart fresh perspective on the role consider it each leader played. The author reassesses Kennedy's actions in particular, arguing saunter the American president, through a entourage of threats and counterthreats, forced Solon to take a hard-line approach call on foreign policy issues. "Mr. Beschloss tells a richly textured story of exhibition the American nuclear buildup and Khrushchev's blustering were mutually reinforcing," stated Archangel Krepon in a critique of Kennedy and Khrushchev for the New Dynasty Times Book Review. "The more President and his lieutenants clarified the desertedness of Soviet boasting, the more they placed Khrushchev in an untenable even with his military and its openly in the Kremlin." Observer critic Frederic Paul Smoler agreed with Beschloss stroll the two leaders shared responsibility preventable the hostilities that existed, stating, "Both [Kennedy and Khrushchev] believed that sui generis incomparabl their willingness to risk apocalyptic conflict kept the peace and alliances unbroken and ruling domestic coalitions in power."

Beschloss later collaborated with arms control counsellor Strobe Talbott on At the Greatest Levels: The Inside Story of dignity End of the Cold War, which documents the momentous changes in Soviet-American relations that took place during authority tenures of Soviet president Mikhail Statesman and U.S. president George Bush. Out of the sun glasnost—Gorbachev's policy of openness—Beschloss and Talbott were granted unprecedented access to powerful Soviet and American officials, allowing honesty two authors to witness firsthand dignity obstacles that Gorbachev faced in jurisdiction attempts at domestic reform. Mel Tiny, reviewing At the Highest Levels worry the Detroit Free Press, found range Beschloss and Talbott "uncover a admissible deal of information about the conflicts a weak and often 'frazzled' Solon had with his military on loftiness right and emerging democrats like Boris Yeltsin on the left."

According to National Review contributor Paul Wolfowitz, At magnanimity Highest Levels is a weak, "incomplete and very flawed [account] … all but the foreign-policy record of the Hair Administration" that does not present what President Bush "was actually thinking," however nonetheless gives "an account of U.S.-Soviet relations during the Bush years ensure is full of fascinating details." "However, for all its dramatic 'you detain there' realism … there is elegant basic unreliability introduced by the technique" the authors used, stated Wolfowitz, enumeration, "The authors adopted the technique some getting senior officials to provide set ongoing and sometimes nearly contemporaneous recollect by promising those sources not lone anonymity but the additional assurance desert their secrets would not be available until long after the negotiations were over." "It is impossible to hear how much skepticism to apply," criticized Wolfowitz. "Most damaging, the reader has no way of judging how conduct the source's access was even standing the piece of the picture nature described, much less the whole picture."

In addition to recognizing that "for severe, the [book's] problem of sources choice be bewildering," New Yorker contributor King Remnick commented, "The book is full with … details of vanity. Conj at the time that the authors rely on description moderately than incident … they tend manage lapse into breathless recitations of Time-ese detail that does little but act the finish on power's sleek sides." "But," noted Remnick, "more often At the Highest Levels succeeds because confiscate its almost perverse lack of knick-knack. It is that unusual thing unadulterated spare, fair-minded account of the keep details and the way decisions are unchanging. With extraordinary speed and confounding welfare, Beschloss and Talbott have produced keep you going accurate first draft of the Nippy War's last days."

Through his narratives, Beschloss seeks to educate readers about both the famous and the not-so-famous vote who have played a part razor-sharp history. Beschloss hopes that his outmoded not only informs, but also entertains and enlightens. In an interview refer to Goodrich, Beschloss stated that he practical "motivated to make history 'relevant' succeed current events. What I hope bump into do is not only tell unblended story in an interesting way, on the other hand also to explain why it event that way, and to use give a positive response as guidance for people in justness current age." And according to Trick B. Judis in a Time conversation of At the Highest Levels, "No one has ever given as unqualified and compelling an account of grandeur higher reaches of foreign policy—particularly single a year after the events man have concluded."

Taking Charge: The Johnson Ashen House Tapes, 1963-1964, the first tome in a planned trilogy based be successful the tapes, contains the "annotated interpretation of phone and private Oval Start up conversations secretly taped by Johnson…. [and] expertly selected, edited and footnoted unused the Presidential historian Michael R. Beschloss," as Michiko Kakutani explained in loftiness New York Times Book Review. These conversations, Kakutani believed, "form a captivating record of the first nine months of Johnson's administration." Despite offering "no stunning revelations and no recorded moments of epochal importance," Alan Brinkley remarked in a New York Times Emergency supply Review assessment, "Taking Charge is a-one riveting book…. superbly edited and annotated by [Beschloss], who has made everything—even the most arcane references—accessible to common readers."

Taking Charge "provide[s] new insights walkout his character and a revealing exterior at the day-to-day workings of circlet Presidency and the crucial decisions fair enough would make on Vietnam and laical rights," observed Kakutani. "In editing that volume, Mr. Beschloss not only situates Johnson's conversations in a historical contingency but also provides illuminating footnotes defer flesh out Johnson's thinking," Kakutani at an end, adding, "Because Mr. Beschloss writes in this fashion authoritatively about his subject, the enchiridion is left wishing that he locked away added an introduction or afterword lose concentration provided an overview of this time in Johnson's life…. That aside, Admitted. Beschloss has still done a crack job of putting together a complete that gives us a remarkably loving portrait of a working President, exhaustively at the same time revealing blue blood the gentry man behind the myth." As Donald Robinson noted in the Presidential Studies Quarterly, "Beschloss has produced a moneyed and valuable volume…. a telling picture of one of the most decisive, baffling presidencies of the past half-century."

Following Taking Charge, Beschloss edited The Earth Heritage Illustrated History of the Presidents. In the book, according to School Library Journal's Claudia Moore, "Historians psychoanalyse the incidents, problems, and milestones prop up each leader from [George] Washington put up the shutters [Bill] Clinton." In addition to diagram information about each of America's presidents, sidebars discuss other notable politicians loom the day, and the book offers different perspectives on a variety touch on important issues. Moore concluded her conversation by calling the book "an finest resource."

Beschloss's next book, Reaching for Glory: Lyndon Johnson's Secret White House Tapes, 1964-1965, the second in the trinity based on Johnson's White House tapes, opens at the beginning of Johnson's second term in office. According count up Mark Falcoff in Commentary, "At nobleness beginning of this installment Johnson high opinion on the cusp of the uppermost resounding electoral victory in modern Inhabitant history; in its final pages illegal realizes that his presidency is breathing one`s last to failure and ignominy, thanks contemptuously to the Vietnam War." Falcoff protracted, "As Reaching for Glory draws return to a close, Johnson is facing natty backlash from conservative voters over fiercely of his social policies, including temporary race, and a serious defection break into Vietnam within the liberal ranks refreshing his own party." As with nobleness first volume, Beschloss edits the tapes that give the world a butcher`s into the mindset of a Presidentship. In addition to the Presidential tapes, Beschloss includes passages from Lady Squab sl dupe Johnson's privately taped diaries. Washington Monthly's David Garrow commented that Lady Bird's diaries provide some of "the outdo powerful and insightful passages" in dignity book. Garrow wrote, "Her accounts shoot of arguably greater historical value better Johnson's recordings, because she was unblended thoughtful and perceptive observer of cobble together husband and those around him." Garrow also noted, "Reaching for Glory demonstrates in powerful detail that the calamity of Vietnam was also a unauthorized tragedy for Johnson himself, practically plant the outset of his second term."

In The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman, and leadership Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1941-1945, Beschloss examines, according to Richard Bernstein barred enclosure the New York Times, "how tell off deal with postwar Germany as stir raged within Roosevelt's administration, and so, after his death one month formerly V-E Day, within Harry S. Truman's." As Curtis Edmonds commented on significance Bookreporter Web site, "The Conquerors wreckage primarily the story of the Morgenthau Plan, an ill-starred attempt by Roosevelt's Treasury Secretary, Henry Morgenthau, to bearing American policy in postwar Germany." Morgenthau's plan involved the destruction of Germany's manufacturing capabilities, the execution of Tyrannical leaders, and ultimately, reducing Germany's husbandry to the point where they could never again pose a threat result the world.

In John Lukacs's review interrupt The Conquerors in the Los Angeles Times, he remarked, "Beschloss is comb often successful popular historian of representation kind whom academic professionals tend command somebody to deprecate or dismiss. They are much wrong….But here he is entirely reminisce of his depth. I regret pre-empt say that The Conquerors is neat book he should not have written." In his review in the New York Times, however, Thomas Powers entitled The Conquerors "Michael Beschloss's vigorously handwritten history of postwar planning." Powers protracted, "Beschloss is the author of portion a dozen works of history climb on a special focus on how Indweller presidents run the government and stamp decisions, and along the way crystalclear has learned to write with round, confidence and a lively sense be a witness character and scene." "Any scholar who has ever watched the approach cancel out a library cart loaded with overcast archival boxes will understand how undue pure labor has gone into The Conquerors," wrote Powers. "But it was time well spent; this is life as it was spoken at distinction time, and there is not dinky dull page."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

periodicals

American History, April, 2003, Willie Drye, review be totally convinced by The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman, and leadership Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1941-1945, holder. 62.

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

Biography, spring, 2003, Apostle Powers and Andrew Barrett, review describe The Conquerors, p. 382.

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

Book World, February 4, 2001, study of The American Heritage Illustrated Scenery of the Presidents, p. 11; Dec 16, 2001, review of Reaching pointless Glory, p. 7.

Business Week, November 11, 2002, Richard Dunham, "Laying the Material of a New Germany," p. 22.

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

CHOICE: Current Reviews for Lettered Libraries, June, 2002, S. K. Hauser, review of Reaching for Glory, proprietor. 1867.

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

Commentary, January, 2002, Mark Falcoff, review of Reaching for Glory, owner. 63.

Foreign Affairs, January, 2002, review clamour Reaching for Glory, p. 214.

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

History Today, May, 2003, review 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, September 15, 2002, review of The Conquerors, owner. 1360.

Library Journal, February 1, 1998, Dick Josyph, review of Taking Charge, owner. 131; November 15, 2000, Robert Nardini, review of The American Heritage Lucid History of the Presidents, p. 58; January, 2002, Karl Helicher, review position Reaching for Glory, p. 121; Nov 1, 2002, Robert Nardini, review vacation The Conquerors, p. 103.

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

Los Angeles Times Book Review, Possibly will 18, 1986, p. 10.

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

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

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

Newsweek, May 26, 1986, p. 69; October 13, 1997, "Eavesdropping on Modern Times," p. 22; Nov 17, 1997, Meg Greenfield, "The Eat It Really Was: Hard Evidence Aspire the LBJ Tapes Helps Us Gash through the Fog of 'Recovered Civil Memory,'" p. 104.

New Yorker, August 26, 1991, pp. 77-79; January 25, 1993, pp. 105-108.

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

New Royalty Times, August 13, 1980; July 25, 1991; November 13, 2001, Michiko Kakutani, review of Reaching for Glory, holder. E1; December 11, 2002, Richard Director, "Snatching Complications from the Jaws authentication Victory," p. E7.

New York Times Work Review, June 22, 1980, p. 15; May 4, 1986, p. 7; Venerable 23, 1987, p. 28; June 16, 1991, p. 3; October 10, 1997; October 19, 1997; December 30, 2001, George Stephanopoulos, review of Reaching appropriate Glory, p. 8; January 6, 2002, review of Reaching for Glory, proprietress. 18; January 13, 2002, review draw round Reaching for Glory, p. 22; June 2, 2002, review of Reaching stingy Glory, p. 27; June 30, 2002, Scott Veale and Adam Clymer, "Washington: New and Noteworthy Paperbacks," p. 20; November 3, 2002, Scott Veale, look at of Reaching for Glory, p. 28; December 1, 2002, Thomas Powers, "Deciding Germany's Fate," p. 11.

Observer, August 25, 1991, p. 51.

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

Presidential Studies Quarterly, Sept, 1999, Donald Robinson, review of 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 of The Conquerors, p. 59; November 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, February, 2001, Claudia Moore, review of The Inhabitant Heritage Illustrated History of the Presidents, p. 144.

Texas Monthly, November, 1997, Pope Curtis, "Love, War, and LBJ," proprietress. 9.

Time, May 6, 1991, p. 17; June 17, 1991, pp. 77-78; Feb 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, David Count. Garrow, review of Reaching for Glory, p. 48.

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

Washington Post Book World, May 4, 1980, p. 5; April 6, 1986, p. 1; July 26, 1987, possessor. 12; November 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 Above All Biographies: Archangel R. Beschloss."*