A
BIRD'S EYE VIEW
Through
the eyes of characters, both imagined and all-too-real,
we get a bird's eye view of history in the making. Caroline
de Traxler, publisher of the Washington Tribune,
ex-movie star and woman-of-the-world; Blaise Sanford,
her co-publisher; Peter Sanford, his odd, thoughtful somewhat
skeptical son: Senator Burden Day, the Midwestern Senator;
Billy Thorne, the commie-turned-CIA agent, who embodies
the neo-conservative mentality of grasping opportunism
and fanatic ideologue – these fictional creations
interact with such historical personages as Franklin Delano
Roosevelt, wife Eleanor, Herbert Hoover, Harry Truman,
William Randolph Hearst, Wendell Willkie, and virtually
every important political figure of the time: the result
is a panoramic view of American history unfolding, as
it were, from the inside. . . . .
BRITISH
MATA HARI
The
book starts out at a Washington cocktail party, about
a year before the outbreak of World War II, at which it
soon becomes clear that the city is swarming with agents
of various foreign powers, all vying for advantage in
the propaganda wars leading up to Pearl Harbor. Through
the device of a character who is making a film documentary
of the "Great Debate" between the War Party and the so-called
isolationists, Vidal manages to capture both the passion
and the politics of the time – and more. For what
he really does is go beyond the novelists' ken, and uncover
the hidden history of that time, detailing in the events
of the story the central role of British intelligence
in dragging us into what was essentially a European conflict.
In a column I wrote some time ago, I reviewed the revelations
detailed in Thomas E. Mahl's Desperate
Deception, a pathbreaking scholarly study of British
covert operations in the United States from 1939-44. Mahl
confirmed what was common knowledge in Washington at the
time, and that is that a key Republican Senator, Arthur
Vandenberg, previously an isolationist, had been "converted"
to interventionism by the persuasive powers of a glamorously
beautiful British agent by the name of Mitzi, a woman
who was not his wife. In Vidal's book we meet Mitzi, and
Vandenberg, and are shown how it might have and probably
did happen that a sweaty and red-faced old Senator from
Michigan sold out for a sleek leggy blonde.
THE
JOYS OF BOOK REVIEWING
What
an unadulterated joy it is for this old isolationist
to overhear the cocktail party conversation of Senator
Robert A. Taft:
"I
plan to call for a Senate investigation of the various
British and French agents here in Washington and, of course,
New York and Hollywood. I have reason to believe that
the editorial policy of the New York Herald Tribune
is entirely dictated by the British secret services, with
one aim only – to get us into the war on Britain's
side."
DEUS
EX MACHINA
If
only Taft had succeeded in his call for a Senate investigation
of the foreign lobbyists who were so actively involved
in getting us into war. Then we wouldn't have had to wait
for over half a century for the truth to get out –
and then only in specialized scholarly studies by dedicated
researchers such as Dr. Mahl. For years, a small but increasingly
vocal school of historians has been revising the received
wisdom of the official mythologists, the "Roosevelt, Soldier
of Freedom" school in which the nobility of the interventionist
cause is never in question. While the catalytic role of
British intelligence in getting us into the war has leaked
out, slowly, over the years, the truth about Pearl Harbor
– the deus ex machina that concludes the usual
interventionist morality play – was known as early
as 1943, when John T. Flynn first raised the suspicion
that the whole thing was a setup. There was a Congressional
investigation – effectively quashed by FDR –
and the isolationist literature of the postwar years is
full of intimations that the President knew about the
attack in advance – and deliberately left the Harbor
defenseless, after provoking the Japanese. Vidal dramatizes
this view of history, and not only shows the look on FDR's
face as he made the decision but also the context in which
such a monstrous decision could occur. And, most interestingly
of all, he makes a detective story out of it, so that
the reader is drawn into the novel out of a sheer desire
to know what lies at the end of the trail of evidence.
WARMONGERING
SVENGALI
Vidal's
reliance on the diligent and shocking researches of Professor
Mahl is practically confirmed by the time we get to page
40, where we meet none other than Ernest Cuneo, FDR's
liaison with the British government and the little Lenin
of the War Party. Cuneo was an attorney whose clients
included Walter Winchell and Drew Pearson – and also
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the OSS (prewar equivalent
of the CIA), the FBI, and Lord Lothian, the British ambassador.
Mahl cites a memo written by Cuneo that pretty much sums
up Vidal's jaunty depiction of this warmongering Svengali:
"As
far as the British tricking the US into war, FDR was at
war with Hitler long before Chamberlain was forced to
declare it. I was eyewitness and indeed wrote Winchell's
stuff on it (volunteer). Of course the British were trying
to push the US into war. If that be so, we were indeed
a pushover. It reminds me of that Chaucerian line, 'He
fell upon her and would have raped her – but for
her ready acquiescence!'"
BAREFOOT
BOY FROM WALL STREET
But
Vidal has a different take: he shows that the slick operator
Cuneo, while certainly enjoying his work, had to work
pretty hard to earn his keep, and also required some heavyweight
allies, such as Thomas W. Lamont of the Morgan Bank. We
meet Wendell Willkie, the barefoot boy from Wall Street,
who, with the Morgan interests and British intelligence
behind him, stole the Republican nomination from Taft
and the antiwar Republicans – and Vidal dramatizes
this conspiracy, as it moves from the drawing rooms and
editorial offices of Washington to the Philadelphia convention,
where Cuneo's legions sabotaged Hoover's anti-interventionist
speech by doing something to the microphone (p.105). Successfully
evoking the drama and color of a national political convention
– not the rehearsed Nuremberg-style displays of party
"unity" we've grown so used to and bored with, but the
old-time dramas where any outcome was possible –
Vidal homes right in on the almost demonic character of
Cuneo, who remarks to Peter Sanford when Hoover takes
the stage:
"'Poor
old thing, he's the only one here who doesn't know that
he hasn't a chance.'
"'He's
still popular.' Peter indicated the cheering crowd of
delegates below them.
"'Right
now. But watch what happens at the end of his speech.'
The mischievous face of Cuneo had a jack-o'-lantern look
to it so unlike the uncarved full pale pumpkin of Herbert
Hoover who was now on the stage, waving jerkily to the
newsreel cameras."
Peter
is sitting up front, and can hear Hoover's speech, but
it is clear that the sound system has failed and that
he is one of the few who can.
"Tragic,"
said Cuneo. "Hoover's last chance to be nominated. And
no one can hear him."
THE
ATLAS SHRUGGED OF HISTORICAL REVISIONISM
This,
of course, is the whole point: no one can hear him, and
no one must hear him – that has been the whole
aim of Cuneo (and his successors right up to the present
day), that the "isolationist" (in reality, nationalist)
view held by the majority of Americans right up until
Pearl Harbor must never be allowed to get a hearing. Vidal
shows how the two-party system is really one party, the
War Party, the party of Empire – and he does it with
verve and his usual sense of style. Ironic, idealistic,
world-weary and, in the end, optimistic, Gore Vidal has,
in The Golden Age, cemented the capstone of his
historical saga with what is truly a crowning achievement.
A novel that works as history, that breaks fresh (if not
entirely new) ground historically: here, at last, is the
Atlas
Shrugged of historical revisionism, a fictional
but all-too-true retort to the court historians who peddle
the Disney-ized mythology of the "greatest generation"
to a nation that has lost its memory, and, therefore,
its conscience.
FICTION
AS HISTORY, AND VICE VERSA
There
is so much to this novel that it would be impossible give
a full accounting of its many characters, both real and
imagined, in a single review – including cameo appearances
by such notables as Bette Davis, H. L. Mencken, and the
author himself, who shows up in odd places, like a stage-manager
peeking through the curtain at the audience, sizing up
the house; the author pops in at the end and interacts
with his own creations, a device that shouldn't work,
but, somehow, does. The fictional reality created by the
author is not only convincing – this, after all,
is what a minimally competent novelistic is expected to
do – but achieves a kind of hyper-reality,
as if history were being painted in the luminous style
of Salvador Dali. For the often lonely and beleaguered
band of anti-imperialist "isolationists," however, this
is more than a mere novel: it is a manifesto, as well
as a work of art, and I can only note the highlights.
. . .
"FATE
DECIDES WHAT MUST BE DONE"
Hoover's
little talk about the limits of intervention, and the
proper foreign policy for a constitutional republic (p.
167) is a gem. Vidal also does a great job of giving us
insight into what FDR and his Brain Trust envisioned as
the meaning of World War II and its likely result.
A conversation with Brain Truster (and, it turns out,
KGB agent) Harry Hopkins, a major character, is entirely
imaginary and quite real in the sense that it might very
well have happened: in any case, it gives us a frightening
glimpse of the mentality of the very powerful. As Hopkins
reveals the plan to provoke the Japanese into bombing,
perhaps, Manila, his confidante remarks: "This is all
very daring." Hopkins replies
"'Fate
decides what must be done. I'm convinced of that. Anyway,
there's no going to war unless all your people are united
behind you. Well, they are nowhere near united even though
we keep losing ship after ship to the Nazis and no one
blinds an eye. So we must take one great blow and then…
' He stopped.
"'Then
what?'
"'Then
we go for it. All of it. And get it.'
"'What
is it?'
"'The
world. What else is there for us to have?'"
BIRDS
OF A FEATHER
This
is the globalist vision carried into the Truman years,
and Vidal's docudrama captures the spirit of that era.
Now, I know Vidal is supposed to be a "liberal," at least
insofar as its polar opposite is supposed to be Jesse
Helms or Jerry Falwell. But my fellow reactionaries will
be delighted with Vidal's vicious digs at the Roosevelt
cult, such as this conversation between Caroline and a
film director whose documentary gives us entry to the
world of that era:
"Caroline
laughed. 'You make Stalin seem almost inhuman.'
"'Inhuman
is a step towards the human, I guess. I wonder if he was
as cruel as Roosevelt.'
"Caroline
was startled. 'Roosevelt, cruel?'
"In
a different way. Obviously, our Siberia is a lot nicer
than theirs. But Siberia is still Siberia for those you
send there.'"
Churchill
is described as "a great bully," an understatement of
sorts, and Roosevelt "held endless grudges. Deliberately
ruined careers."
HARRY
TRUMAN REVISIONISM
Vidal's
revisionist project is given yet another dimension on
page 262, when he engages in some much needed Harry Truman
revisionism – and the truth about "Give 'em Hell
Harry" is finally revealed to the Doris Kearns Goodwins
of this world. Little touches like this make this novel
a treasure-trove; and the supply of gems seems almost
endless.
A
VIDALIAN CREDO
The
author's own credo is neatly summed up in a memorandum
written by the fictional Senator Burden Day detailing
a meeting of the President with his high council of state.
Day is the last of the Midwestern populist Democrats,
perhaps modeled after Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana,
generously endowed with a Senatorial handsomeness, and
clearly meant to represent a noble figure, the last of
the old school. My own favorite isolationist, Senator
William Borah, the Lion of Idaho, also makes a few key
appearances, and of this tradition Senator Day is very
much a part. In this memo, Vidal, speaking through Day,
writes:
"Those
rich boys daydream about vast armies and navies conquering
all the seas and lands while we humble folk think of boys
that we know – sons even – dying in a process
that benefits no one but the international banks and their
lawyer-lobbyists, like Mr. Acheson himself. The real political
struggle in the United States, since the Civil War, has
been between the peaceful inhabitants of the nation and
their generally representative Congresses and a small
professional elite totally split off from the nation,
pursuing wealth through wars that they invent and justify
and resonate for others to win."
PORTRAIT
OF A NEOCON
This
is fiction that rings achingly true, and not only that
but it is the product of some very hard thinking. There
is not much space left to give the author full credit
for the startling originality of his conclusions. Here
I can give only an inkling, as motivation to get you to
go out and buy this book – and buy copies for your
friends. See page 307 for an insightful analysis of how
our elite-run "democracy" fuels our interventionist foreign
policy. A particularly interesting (and funny) exchange
on page 365 takes place between Peter Sanford and Billy
Thornton. Thornton is a commie-turned-rightwinger who
has gone to work for the Wall Street Journal, another
one of Vidal's all-too-real fictional creations. Peter
marvels at how "you have actually come full circle from
communism to capitalism." Vidal then gives the archetypal
neoconservative the floor:
"'The
scales have fallen from your eyes at last.' Billy blew
smoke across the table. 'Taken to their logical conclusion,
the two are nearly identical. Where the ideal communist
socialist state would use the national wealth for the
good of the citizen, strictly regulated, of course, by
a centralized money power, we are now, in the interest
of defending ourselves against an enemy both Satanic and
godless – very important point, 'godless,' in selling
high taxes to simple Americans of deep religious faith
– we are creating a totally militarized socialist
state by ignoring such frills as the welfare of the people
themselves. After all, the true American likes to stand
on his own two ruggedly independent feet, which our nuclear
state will encourage him to do. He is also free to go
to the church of his choice, unlike the communist Russian
slaves. I must say the accidental brilliance of our leadership
still astonishes me. Haberdasher Truman and Lawyer Acheson
and Soldier Marshall are creating a militarized economy
and state that leaves those two bumblers Stalin and Mao
far behind in the dust, staring skyward at our B-29s,
soon to start darkening their red skies. Peter, you have
made me poetic."
THE
RIGHT LINE ON McCARTHY
The
West was winning, the neocons sensed, and they jumped
on the bandwagon when Popular Front-style "Communism is
20th Century Americanism" was no longer a tenable,
or fashionable, line to take. But Vidal is no leftie-style
peacenik (albeit he is no libertarian, either, except,
perhaps, in a non-political sense). Check out pages 377-78,
wherein he analyzes, through one of his characters –
Peter, my favorite, and also the alter-ego of the author
as a young man, I believe – the subversive anti-government
roots of the McCarthyite impulse. Although "Peter knew
the [liberal anti-McCarthy] litany" and "he too recited
it in different voices, different places," dismissing
the flamboyant Senator's charges as "babbling," nevertheless,
"what I'm now hearing is something else," says Peter,
"something really serious. The people's fear of the government
because they are starting to see that it's no longer by
them or for them." Very perceptive, and very true, an
admission which no self-respecting liberal would dare
make today.
A
NATIONAL TREASURE
Gore
Vidal is a national treasure. As the chronicler of the
real history of the United States, which at this
point can only be presented in fictional form, he has
written the story of a nation set on a course for Empire
– and launched, at the end of The
Golden Age, into a sleek new world where the author
and his chief protagonist meet, and merge, as they converse
about the meaning of mortality. While the mandarins at
the New York Times, and other bastions of establishment
liberalism, have already pronounced their anathemas and
dismissed this book in both political and literary terms,
Vidal's achievement towers over them all. Gore Vidal is
a member of what seems to be a nearly extinct fraternity:
the American novelists of ideas. When he goes, who is
left – and what hope is there that someone will breach
the walls of political correctness meant to keep his kind
out forever? This novel, which brings Vidal's series of
historical novels right up to the present day, has about
it the air of a valedictory, and in the end the reader
is left with a feeling of elegaic bittersweetness –
sadness that the book has ended, and that, perhaps, we
shall not see the likes of Vidal again in our lifetime.
Vidal's vision of a decadent empire, ruled by a ruthlessly
manipulative and grossly powerful elite, is a powerful
weapon aimed at all the right targets – his book
is a bull's-eye. Go out and buy it – for your own
pleasure as well as for the cause.