An Unfinished Love Story

 

An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s by Doris Kearns Goodwin 480 pp.

This book was fascinating to me since, while I remembered the major events of the 1960s, I was a child during that time (the assassination of JFK happened when I was in kindergarten). I have read other books by Doris Kearns Goodwin but was not familiar with her husband, Richard Goodwin, a man who was so instrumental in the world of Democratic politics in the 1960s. When her husband reached his 80s the two of them began go through his stored files of his work and memorabilia of his days in Washington as a  clerk for Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter. Then as counsel for the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce where he investigated the television quiz show scandals of the 1950s. (Goodwin was portrayed by actor Rob Morrow in the 1994 film "Quiz Show.") After that he became one of the speechwriters and advisors for Senator John Kennedy during his campaign for the Presidency. Kennedy appointed him Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs where he tried to discourage Kennedy from ordering the Bay of Pigs operation. Goodwin aided the First Lady in many tasks most notably in the relocating of Egyptian temples that would have been flooded by the Aswan Dam project. He was also instrumental in the planning of the dinner for Nobel Prize winners (Dinner in Camelot) and finally arranging for the eternal flame Jackie Kennedy requested for her husband's grave. Following Kennedy's death Goodwin became Secretary General of the Peace Corp until he accepted a job with President Lyndon Johnson where he was credited with writing some of LBJ's most important and effective speeches before resigning because of differences over the Vietnam War. After some work in academia, Goodwin, ever against the war in Vietnam, joined Eugene McCarthy's campaign for President leaving when his friend Bobby Kennedy decided to run after LBJ announced he would not seek re-election. Upon Kennedy's assassination in Los Angeles, Goodwin went back to the McCarthy campaign. Following those years he taught and wrote, producing articles, books, and a play. He married Doris Kearns, who had worked with LBJ on his memoir, in 1975 and they were married until his death in 2018. I learned so much from this book. I never knew that LBJ pushed the Fair Housing Bill through Congress on the heels of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination or how much friction existed between LBJ and Bobby Kennedy. And I didn't know anything about the man, Richard (Dick) Goodwin. I listened to the audiobook, read by the author.

Eyes to the wind

Eyes to the wind: a memoir of love and death, hope and resistance / Ady Barkan, read by Bradley Whitford, 281 pages

I picked this up not realizing that Ady Barkan is a well known political activist and social justice warrior.  Diagnosed with ALS at age 32, this is also a memoir of dealing with the physical issues related to the disease that is incurable.  Not wanting to give up on the work he was doing, he expanded his scope to include healthcare initiatives and the importance of continuing many of the provisions of Obamacare.  I enjoyed hearing about Fed-up, a campaign to reform the Federal Reserve.  Bradley Whitford narrates and does a good job.  Recommended to anyone interested in political resistance or even just finding meaning in life.

Unbecoming

Unbecoming: a memoir of disobedience / Anuradha Bhagwati, read by the author, 321 pgs.

Bhagwati always chaffed against her conservative Indian parents (both economists) and spent her younger years feeling like she did not fit in anywhere.  Somewhat inspired by the movie G. I. Jane, she abandons grad school and joins the Marine Corps.  When her training begins, she realizes the movie might not have been exactly accurate.  She is subjected to racism, sexual violence, sexism and harassment at a level she was not anticipating.  She works hard at overcoming obstacles and standing up for herself, often pushing herself to her limits.  Post Marine life is spend dealing with her various traumas and advocating for changes.  She throws herself into political activism and makes progress changing laws and attitudes affecting military women. This memoir is so different because the author has done things that so few of us have done.  Certainly a lot of insight into problems for women in the military and the many changes that are still needed.  Personally a story of struggle with a lot of triumph but sometimes more struggle.

Hunting the Truth: Memoirs of Beate and Serge Klarsfeld

Hunting the Truth: Memoirs of Beate and Serge Klarsfeld by Beate and Serge Klarsfeld, translated from the French by Sam Taylor, 454 pages.

Serge Klarsfeld was a French Jew whose last memory of his father was of when he was eight, when the Germans came and his father hid Serge, his mother, and sister in a hidden cupboard under the sink. Beate was a German girl whose father fought on the eastern front. He was saved from death in battle by a case of double pneumonia in 1945. Beatte and Serge met in Paris in 1960. They have been together ever since, married with children and now grandchildren. They have spent their lives chasing down Nazis who had escaped justice after the war.  Some of the men they hunted worked in the post-war German government, like Chancellor Kurt Kiesinger, or in the European parliament like Ernst Achenbach. Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyon, was hiding in Bolivia.
Beate and Serge fought tirelessly to bring former Nazis to justice, using legal and illegal methods, working with allies from the revered Simon Wiesenthal to the more infamous Ulrike Meinhof and Andreas Baader.
This was my introduction to the famous pair. I had somehow missed the 1986 made-for-TV movie, starring Farah Fawcett, made about the couple.