Billion-dollar Spy in Moscow

History Book Club

Intelligence Gathering and Spying in History

Wednesday, August 28, 2019

L to R: Sam, Mark and John Coulbourn and Ron Pomerleau (The Builder from NH), Moscow, 1981

Sam, Mark and John Coulbourn and Ron Pomerleau in downtown Moscow, 1981.

Wednesday, August 28, 2019: Intelligence Gathering and Spying in History: Julius Caesar’s Spy Network; Sun-Tzu, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Espionage Act of 1917, the KGB, MI-5, the OSS, CIA, Pinkerton’s Union Spies, Confederate Spies. . [Proposed by Sam Coulbourn] 

David E. Hoffman, The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal. New York: Doubleday. 2015.

          This book gave me cold chills.  I knew it was about a Soviet spy who had delivered tons of spectacularly important information about Soviet weapon systems and radars, and I knew it took place before after and during the time I served in Moscow.

            But it really took me back to some scary times, when we didn’t know if we were going to get scooped up by the KGB and hustled off to Lubyanka or some other dismal holding cell.  Years after I came back to the States, whenever I would see a car parked near me with a couple of men in it, I started to look for an escape route. 

            The life we led, as we collected intelligence in the Soviet Union 1981-83 was nowhere near as dangerous as Marti Peterson, the first female CIA case officer to be handling spies in the CIA Station in U.S. Embassy Moscow.  But as we traveled from Latvia and Estonia to Siberia, from Turkmenistan to Murmansk, we always had KGB agents following us, and sometimes it got dangerous.

            We knew that there might be tiny cameras watching us as we ate supper in our home in the Embassy, or microphones planted in our cars to listen to whatever we said. Our maid surely reported to the KGB, but even so, she was a wonderful woman and a great Ukrainian cook.

            The author of this book, David Hoffman, is a contributing editor at the Washington Post. He was Moscow Bureau Chief for the Post, and the Post’s White House Correspondent and he now is also a correspondent for PBS Frontline.

            One of his primary sources for this book is Burton Gerber, who served as CIA Station Chief in Moscow in the early 1980s.  He and his wife Rosalie were friends of ours in Moscow and later when we were all back in Washington.  I still exchange Christmas cards with him.  He’s my idea of the ideal intelligence agent:  smart, well-read, quiet, and effective.  Not a James Bond or any of the spy bosses you’ve seen in movies.

            Hoffman describes Gerber’s upbringing in the CIA, joining as a 22-year-old, right out of Michigan State University in 1955.  He describes the training he received in secret communications, handling agents, detecting surveillance, finding and filling dead drops, etc. 

            A very interesting item comes up early in the book when the author tells about James Jesus Angleton, a legendary old hand in the CIA who single-handedly shot down every effort to run spies inside the USSR. During the 1950s and 1960s Angleton was responsible for detecting and preventing apprehension of CIA agents and their spy sources, under Allen Dulles and Richard Helms. When they finally pushed him aside, they were able to link up with Soviet government employees who brought loads of critically important intelligence into American hands.

            Marti Peterson came to Moscow in  1975 under cover as an embassy staffer, a job she performed during regular working hours. At night, however, she became the first female CIA operative working with agents in the Soviet Union.  In 1977 she went out for a rendezvous with a spy named Ogorodnik. She had a tiny radio receiver for detecting KGB surveillance communications, with part strapped inside her bra with a Velcro strap. The KGB caught her, and soon discovered her wiring, but they were mystified by the Velcro! 

            I remember once when we were on a photo run, riding a tram by a Soviet naval shipyard in Leningrad, and one of us attachés opened the Velcro on his jacket, the ripping sound to someone who doesn’t know about Velcro sounds like you are ripping your clothes apart. Russians on the tram would all look at us with amazement. When we were there in 1981, Russia was indeed “a third-world country with nuclear weapons”.

            However for Marti Peterson the discovery of her role in Moscow meant she was on the next plane back to Washington, and Ogorodnik, the spy she was trying to contact, after being caught, bit down on the fountain pen he had asked the CIA to provide him.  It contained cyanide, and he was dead at once.

            The star, the “Billion Dollar Spy” in this book, was Adolf Georgievich Tolkachev, born in 1927 in Aktyubinsk, Kazakhstan. He was the Soviet electronics engineer who provided key documents to the CIA between 1979 and 1985. Working at a Soviet radar design bureau as one of the chief designers, Tolkachev gave the CIA complete detailed information about numerous fighter-interceptor aircraft radars used on the MiG-29, MiG-31, and Su-27; and other avionics.

            From January 1977 to February 1978, Tolkachev attempted to approach cars with U.S. diplomatic license plates in Moscow five times, coincidentally approaching the CIA Moscow bureau chief Gardner Hathaway at a diplomatic gas station, but the CIA was fearful of  counterintelligence operations by the KGB.

            We would often have notes slipped into our cars when they were parked in front of the Embassy, or anywhere else in town, and we would give them to the Moscow Station.  Until I read this book, I had never heard that those attempts to contact an American had taken place.

            On his fifth attempt the CIA assigned a Russian-speaking officer named John Guilsher to make contact with Tolkachev. The station eventually established his bona fides with intelligence data that proved to be of "incalculable" value to US experts. The U.S. Air Force completely reversed direction on a $70 million electronics package for the F-15 Eagle as a result of Tolkachev's intelligence.

            Tolkachev resisted the use of traditional CIA methods including dead drops and radios. He preferred personal meetings, as he enjoyed meeting with agents. Hoffman goes into great detail about the various microscopic cameras the CIA gave to Tolkachev, and how he was able to shoot thousands of frames of documents without detection.

            According to Hoffman, Tolkachev was critical of some of the CIA’s tradecraft. He developed different ways to bypass security; he repeatedly found holes in Soviet security, which he exploited. 

            At first, Tolkachev refused money for his services, feeling that payments would attract the attention of security. However, he asked for art supplies, music and other things for his son, and he eventually agreed to take payments, to be deposited in a foreign account, then began demanding millions. He refused offers to extract himself and his wife and son from the USSR, but then agreed to it.  He requested poison pills to take if he was discovered; the CIA resisted and delayed, but finally provided them. Tolkachev was finally betrayed by a failed CIA trainee, Edward Lee Howard, who had obtained knowledge of Tolkachev before he was dismissed from the agency. Howard approached the Soviets through their consulate, and became an asset for them. Tolkachev and his wife were apprehended and he was executed. TASS announced his execution for treason in October, 1986.

            The author writes how, when Jimmy Carter became President, he had idealistic ideas about the Russians, but soon discarded those.  Carter named a Naval Academy classmate, Vice Admiral Stansfield Turner, as Director of the CIA. Turner had scant knowledge of the world of espionage and was suspicious of all this cloak and dagger business and preferred to use electronic intelligence gathering.  This was tough on CIA morale, especially in Moscow Station. I arrived in Moscow just after President Reagan had taken over, which was joyously celebrated in the Station.

            It is amazing to me that so much CIA tradecraft is described in this story. I imagine the KGB must make this book required reading for their trainees. Certainly, the CIA should; as well.

S.W. Coulbourn

HISTORY BOOK CLUB TOPICS FOR 2019

Wednesday, September 25, 2019: El Norte, the story of Spain’s exploration and colonization of North America.  Often Americans study the growth of America from the standpoint of English colonization and the push westward. There’s another, very complex story, of the exploration of the Caribbean, Mexico, Florida and onward to California by the Spanish. It’s the story of Conquistadors, Priests and Indigenous peoples who created the Republic of Mexico, the nations of the Caribbean and Central America, and made the first cities in Florida, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California and more. [Proposed by Sam Coulbourn] 

Wednesday, October 30, 2019: Charismatic leaders in History. What were the keys to Hitler’s, Churchill's, Mussolini's, FDR's successes? Keen perception of public moods? Oratory abilities? Character, firm ideology? Connecting to the people? How did they deploy their charisma? How could Napoleon manipulate the masses without TV ads? Why were people so perceptive to a madman in Germany? Recurring questions.  [Proposed by Janos Posfai] 

Wednesday, November 13, 2019 [Two weeks earlier because of Thanksgiving and another conflict] History of Farming in America.  Examine the American Indians and their farming techniques, the early colonists and the skills they brought from their home countries;  the food discoveries in the New World; Tobacco and Cotton and slavery; Farming and the Dust Bowl; Government and Agriculture; Modern Agribusiness.  [Proposed by Sam Coulbourn] 

 NO MEETING IN DECEMBER

The Crusades, 1095-1272

History Book Club

The Crusades, 1095-1272

Wednesday, July 31, 2019

The Crusaders Capture Jerusalem, July 15, 1099

Wednesday, July 31, 2019: The Crusades—what caused them?   The Seljuk Turks; Pisa, Genoa, Venice and Amalfi; Byzantium and Jerusalem; The Children’s Crusade; Attacking the Jews in Germany; The Popes and Kings; Saladin and Richard I of the Lion Heart; how the Christians massacred Moslems and Jews and made Moslems intolerant.

. [Proposed by Sam Coulbourn] 

Thomas Asbridge, The Crusades: The War for the Holy Land, London: Simon & Schuster, UK, 2012, 808 pp.

            Since September 11, 2001 we have had a mental picture of Islam and the Middle East as the center of an unyielding, backward-looking part of the world, with certain elements dedicated to destroying the West and overrunning Christianity.  In that time American launched a war against the Taliban aggressors in Afghanistan in 2001.  We are still engaged in that wartorn, bedraggled country. In 2003, perhaps with justification that begs questioning, we launched war against Saddam Hussein, leader of Iraq.  We are still engaged there, as well.

            Thomas Asbridge is a professor of Medieval History at Queen Mary, University of London, and the author of several books on medieval history. He studied for a BA in Ancient and Medieval History at Cardiff University, and then gained his PhD in Medieval History at Royal Holloway, University of London.

            Asbridge’s picture of the Crusades begins with Pope Urban II facing division in the Roman Catholic Church. In the Pope’s mind, rejuvenation was needed. His solution in 1095 was to issue a call to arms for Christian knights and their followers to march 2000 miles, from western Europe to Jerusalem, and return that holy city to Christian hands. Knights all over took up the challenge and gathered their soldiers and started the grueling march across to Constantinople, then across the Bosporus into Asia.

            Pope Urban really wanted to stir things up that didn’t need stirring. The Muslims had had control of Jerusalem for 400 years.  However, knights and even regular people listened when the Pope spoke, and off they went. Europe in the latter part of the 11^th century was a very spiritual place.  Christianity was much more prevalent than today, and spirituality governed nearly everything in peoples’ lives. Christians were obsessed with sinfulness, contamination and the impending afterlife, and if the Pope suggested that each man in an army could gain salvation by marching 2000 miles, and in the bargain likely get killed, they were all for it.

            Once Urban II began the cry for Christians to march to save Jerusalem for Christianity, preachers and other holy men, large and small, crooked and honorable, picked up the message. One of the first groups, made up of some 15,000 “poor rabble,” mostly Germans, was particularly half-cocked . These, later called “The People’s Crusade” didn’t coordinate with anyone. As they marched , still in the Rhineland, they carried out a terrible massacre of Rhineland Jews. But, heading into Asia Minor, as soon as they entered territory defended by the Turks, they were mostly annihilated.

            The main force of 60,000 to 100,000, and 7000 to 10,000 knights along with women and children, left their homes in France and Germany and Italy and marched to Constantinople, led by Count Raymond of Toulouse, Behemond of Taranto, Godfrey of Bouillon, Baldwin of Boulogne and Tancred of Hauteville. In Constantinople, the seat of the Eastern Holy Roman Empire, they hoped to pick up support from the Greek Orthodox Christians under Emperor Alexis I Comnenus.

            Alexis showered the Latin princes with gifts when they came to his court, but he extracted from each a pledge that whatever cities, forts or countries they might subdue would be handed over to an officer appointed by the Emperor.  He then whisked them across the Bosporus and on to Asia Minor.

            The Latin crusaders continued their march across what today is southeastern Turkey. At Nicaea they laid siege to the city. The same Turkish Seljuk force that had wiped out the People’s Crusade were out tricked by the Latins, who had gotten help from a Turkish spy. Also, Emperor Alexius kept his distance, but sent a fleet of Greek ships which were portaged 20 miles to a lake before the city. Using these ships to penetrate the city defenses, the Latins were able to overcome the defending Turks and win the city.

            On they went, heading south toward the Levant, into Syria, until they arrived outside of Antioch. The walled city stood between them and the Holy Land. The Latins expected Alexius’ Byzantines would assist them in taking the city, but this didn’t happen. They laid siege to the city, employing all the medieval weapons: wooden towers and ladders that could be pushed up to allow attackers to scale the walls, huge catapults (mangonels) to launch boulders into the city, fiery bundles of pitch and reeds, and battering rams. Of course, the defenders rained down thousand of arrows, and through burning pitch, red-hot stones, etc. on the attackers. 

            Both sides used terror to discourage their opponents—beheading captives and flinging their heads back among their forces, desecrating graves, and all manner of atrocities. Although this was a “Holy Pilgrimage” both sides never avoided the cruelest terror techniques.

            The Latins had now occupied the Syrian ports of Latakia and St. Simeon and were able to receive ships bringing supplies and food to the troops. One group of English ships brought important building materials, crucial to creating the tools to defeat the defenses of the city.

            The Latin Christians exploited the split between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, and used treachery and sheer willpower, but the stroke from God that many believe led to victory was the discovery of a fragment of the lance that Roman soldiers used to pierce Christ’s side while he was nailed to the Cross. Whether authentic or not, this was a tremendous boost to the morale  of the Latins. Soon they were able to finally arrange a surrender and capture Antioch.

            From there, the Latin Crusaders marched toward their objective of Jerusalem, and laid siege to the Holy City. By now, there were about 15,000 battle-hardened warriors, including some 1300 knights. In racing from Antioch to Jerusalem the Latins had failed to build a strong line of supply and they were now racing to take the city before an Egyptian army could arrive.

            Luck again came from the sea, as a small fleet of Genoese ships anchored at nearby Jaffa. These ships brought ropes, hammers, mattocks, nails, hatchets. The Latins had also arranged for Local Christians to cut down timber from nearby forests and use camels to ferry it to the troops outside Jerusalem.

            The final assault on Jerusalem began at dawn on July 14, 1099. One siege tower had been constructed so that it could be quickly relocated, so that the defenders awoke on that morning to find that the tower had moved half a mile, from a well-defended place to a poorly defended place. Soon after midday on July 15 the Latins had conquered Jerusalem and there was widespread killing and indiscriminate slaughter. One crusader described it: “Piles of heads, hands and feet lay in the houses and streets, and men and knights were running to and fro over corpses.”

            Now that Jerusalem, Edessa and Antioch and other parts of the Levant were in Latin hands, they became “Outremer”, or overseas, the first instance of Europe extend its reach. During this period, from 1099 to the beginning of the Second Crusade in 1147 the Knighthood orders of Templars and Hospitallers were created and were central to events in all the remaining crusades.

            In the early twelfth century several marches like crusades took place, with knights and marching to attack Muslims, sometimes Jews, here and there; papal power was challenged, and many were killed in various encounters.  However history established that the Pope Eugenius III launched the second crusade in 1147. The miraculous success of the first crusade drove this one, but internal conflict doomed it to failure.

            In 1188 Muslim troops succeeded in capturing Jerusalem, which had been in Christian hands since 1099.

            The crusades kept happening—too numerous were all the forays recorded. However, history counts nine Crusades, the last ending in 1272. Nineteen years later, in 1291 English-led crusaders were defeated at Acre, which represented the end for Latin power in the Levant. The Muslims regained control of Palestine.

S.W. Coulbourn

HISTORY BOOK CLUB TOPICS FOR 2019

Wednesday, August 28, 2019: Intelligence Gathering and Spying in History: Julius Caesar’s Spy Network; Sun-Tzu, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Espionage Act of 1917, the KGB, MI-5, the OSS, CIA, Pinkerton’s Union Spies, Confederate Spies. . [Proposed by Sam Coulbourn] 

Wednesday, September 25, 2019: El Norte, the story of Spain’s exploration and colonization of North America.  Often Americans study the growth of America from the standpoint of English colonization and the push westward. There’s another, very complex story, of the exploration of the Caribbean, Mexico, Florida and onward to California by the Spanish. It’s the story of Conquistadors, Priests and Indigenous peoples who created the Republic of Mexico, the nations of the Caribbean and Central America, and made the first cities in Florida, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California and more. [Proposed by Sam Coulbourn] 

Wednesday, October 30, 2019: Charismatic leaders in History. What were the keys to Hitler’s, Churchill's, Mussolini's, FDR's successes? Keen perception of public moods? Oratory abilities? Character, firm ideology? Connecting to the people? How did they deploy their charisma? How could Napoleon manipulate the masses without TV ads? Why were people so perceptive to a madman in Germany? Recurring questions.  [Proposed by Janos Posfai] 

Wednesday, November 13, 2019 [Two weeks earlier because of Thanksgiving and another conflict] History of Farming in America.  Examine the American Indians and their farming techniques, the early colonists and the skills they brought from their home countries;  the food discoveries in the New World; Tobacco and Cotton and slavery; Farming and the Dust Bowl; Government and Agriculture; Modern Agribusiness.  [Proposed by Sam Coulbourn] 

 NO MEETING IN DECEMBER

Westward Ho!

History Book Club

“Westward Ho!” American History 1845-1849

Wednesday, June 26, 2019

Wednesday, June 26, 2019: Westward Ho: the westward expansion of America; Manifest Destiny; The Louisiana Purchase and Lewis and Clark; James K. Polk; The Union Pacific.

Merry, Robert W. A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, the Mexican War and the Conquest of the American Continent. 2009, New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. 576 pp.

            James Knox Polk, in just one term, from 1845 to 1849, made a huge impact upon the United States. With his leadership,  America expanded to acquire Texas, New Mexico, Nevada, Wyoming, Utah, Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Arizona. He pledged to serve only one term, and that’s what he did, but in those four years, he really accomplished some important things. 

            Polk was in some ways a chip off the old block of Old Hickory, Andrew Jackson.  A Democrat from Tennessee, he served at a time when the pressure to end slavery, and the efforts to retain it, were reaching the breaking point. He was not a “people” person like Jackson.  As a matter of fact, he didn’t really seem to like people.  He was a “procedure” person.  He was all about doing whatever it took to advance the goals of the Democratic Party.

            Polk’s predecessor, the renegade Whig John Tyler, had set the stage for annexation of the Republic of Texas into the Union.  The prospect of annexing Texas appeared as part of an overall scheme to extend the United States to the Pacific Ocean, at the same time cutting off a possible British scheme to connect Canada with their Oregon territory, and then perhaps take over California, and head the Americans off at the pass.

            Slave states and Abolition states saw Texas differently.  Southerners wanted Texas to join as a slave state, which would give them more votes, more political weight, and, if they should have to secede from the Northern states, more of a Slaveholding Confederacy.  Northerners wanted no part of Texas if it meant another slave state. 

            Texas joined the Union in Polk’s first year, 1845, and then the trouble began.  At that time, the southern border between Texas and Mexico was in dispute, and Polk prepared to send his army south to straighten things out.  His lead general was a crusty prima donna named Winfield Scott.  Polk wanted Scott to marshal his troops and head down to Texas, but Scott dillied and dallied, and questioned whether he had the President’s backing. 

            Scott wrote letters to the Secretary of War and shot off his mouth as if he thought he was bulletproof, even though he himself was a Whig, working for a Democrat in the Executive Mansion.  Scott was definitely a thorn in Polk’s hide.

            However, Polk didn’t fire Scott—he simply elevated another general, Zachary Taylor, and sent him down to Texas. 

            Taylor led the American forces admirably in opposing the Mexicans at the Nueces River, the northern boundary, according to Mexico, and 150 miles north of the Rio Grande River, the boundary according to the U.S.  Soon Taylor had the Mexicans on the run. They were in such a hurry to get back south across the Rio Grande that 300 drowned in the crossing. 

            There was a lot of opposition in the country to war with Mexico. Whigs claimed that Polk trampled the Constitution and deceived the electorate to manufacture an illegal war for shady purposes, without the support of the public.  But indeed, Polk had much public support for war with Mexico.  [It seems as if modern presidents have been accused of “manufacturing illegal wars” like Lyndon Johnson with the Tonkin Gulf incident, and G.W. Bush with Iraqi nuclear weapons.]

            The War with Mexico lasted 17 months, and Scott did get back in Polk’s good graces and invaded and captured Mexico City. 

            At about the same time the Americans negotiated with the British and finally achieved a settlement that gave the U.S. the division with Canada around Vancouver Island that exists today. 

            Still more forces were at work in Alta California, now known as the State of California, and that became a State in 1849. 

            Perhaps no other president presents such a great difference between actual accomplishment and popular recognition.  However, America’s eleventh president’s accomplishments included a tariff policy that led to prosperity; his ‘Polk Doctrine’ [expounding U.S. resistance to European meddling in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere] has been approved and extended; his expansion policy gave the United States free access to the Pacific.

            America in 1849, when Polk left office, was a Country of Vast Designs. Today, it is still digesting those designs as it struggles to find its place as a sometime unwilling leader in the world.

S.W. Coulbourn

HISTORY BOOK CLUB TOPICS FOR 2019

Wednesday, July 31, 2019: The Crusades—what caused them?   The Seljuk Turks; Pisa, Genoa, Venice and Amalfi; Byzantium and Jerusalem; The Children’s Crusade; Attacking the Jews in Germany; The Popes and Kings; Saladin and Richard I of the Lion Heart; how the Christians massacred Moslems and Jews and made Moslems intolerant.

. [Proposed by Sam Coulbourn] 

Ethel and Julius Rosenberg

Wednesday, August 28, 2019: Intelligence Gathering and Spying in History:Julius Caesar’s Spy Network; Sun-Tzu, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Espionage Act of 1917, the KGB, MI-5, the OSS, CIA, Pinkerton’s Union Spies, Confederate Spies. . [Proposed by Sam Coulbourn] 

Wednesday, September 25, 2019: El Norte, the story of Spain’s exploration and colonization of North America.  Often Americans study the growth of America from the standpoint of English colonization and the push westward. There’s another, very complex story, of the exploration of the Caribbean, Mexico, Florida and onward to California by the Spanish. It’s the story of Conquistadors, Priests and Indigenous peoples who created the Republic of Mexico, the nations of the Caribbean and Central America, and made the first cities in Florida, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California and more. [Proposed by Sam Coulbourn] 

Hitler at Nuremberg 1933

Wednesday, October 30, 2019: Charismatic leaders in History. What were the keys to Hitler’s, Churchill's, Mussolini's, FDR's successes? Keen perception of public moods? Oratory abilities? Character, firm ideology? Connecting to the people? How did they deploy their charisma? How could Napoleon manipulate the masses without TV ads? Why were people so perceptive to a madman in Germany? Recurring questions.  [Proposed by Janos Posfai] 

Wednesday, November 13, 2019 [Two weeks earlier because of Thanksgiving and another conflict] History of Farming in America.  Examine the American Indians and their farming techniques, the early colonists and the skills they brought from their home countries;  the food discoveries in the New World; Tobacco and Cotton and slavery; Farming and the Dust Bowl; Government and Agriculture; Modern Agribusiness.  [Proposed by Sam Coulbourn] 

 NO MEETING IN DECEMBER

The Last Founding Father

HISTORY BOOK CLUB

Rockport Public Library

Rockport, Massachusetts

Visiting the Founding Era of America

Program for Wednesday, February 27, 2019

Wednesday, February 27, 2019: Visiting the Founding Era of America.  Looking at the events that led up to the American Colonists’ rebellion against Great Britain, and the work of our Founding Fathers to create a nation.  Read any book about those days when Minutemen at Concord and Lexington fired the first shots of the Revolution at British Redcoats, then chased them back to Boston…. the days when the Founding Fathers labored over the Declaration of Independence. Or, read about the U.S. Constitution brought together, in one remarkable document, ideas from many people and several existing documents, including the Articles of Confederation and Declaration of Independence. Those who made significant intellectual contributions to the Constitution are called the "Founding Fathers" of our country. These include George Washington, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Thomas Paine and Patrick Henry. Rockport Public Library will schedule a special moderated discussion focused upon The Declaration of Independence, featuring a noted historian and scholar, on Sunday, February 24 or in case of snow, March 3. [Suggested by Christiann Guibeau]

Harlow Giles Unger,  The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation's Call to Greatness Kindle Edition, DeCapo Press, 2009. 352 pp.

            The idea you may get of “The Founding Fathers” is of a small group of really bright, dedicated men, mostly quite well off.  George Washington had a large farm and quite a few slaves. He was a well-educated Virginia gentleman, married to a fine lady.  When he spoke, people listened.  He took over the job of Commander of the Continental Army, and led it through some horrible times, but finally won the American Revolution. When these men gathered in Philadelphia that summer of 1787 to figure out what to do with the Articles of Confederation,

            Washington occupied a chair at a table just a little elevated from everyone.  It just seemed the natural thing for him to become our first President.

            James Monroe was born in 1758 in Westmoreland County, Virginia. His father had little education, but his mother came from a family with education and refinement.  Monroe was no Virginia planter, like Washington, Jefferson, and Madison. However, he was a scrambler. He learned quickly, and he had a knack for making good friends. His mother had a brother who was wealthy, and at many stages in young James’ life, his uncle bailed him out, with money here, a house there.

            When he was 16, young James was able to enter William & Mary College in Williamsburg, VA, the right place for a Virginian to get started.  After two years he left, as the colony had joined the other 12 to declare war against Great Britain, and James joined the army, and while he was mighty young, he took the rank of Lieutenant in the Third Virginia. He fought at Harlem Heights, was wounded at Trenton, got promoted to Captain and fought at Brandywine; made Major, fought at Valley Forge and Monmouth. Along the way he got to know General Washington and established a reputation for intelligence and honesty. Then he left the army while the war was still going on, and returned to William & Mary and studied law and got to know the governor of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson.  

            When Monroe was 28 and a Virginia Congressman working in the Congress in New York, he met Elizabeth Kortright, age 18,  of New York. Her family was well-off, and she was educated, cultured, socially connected and beautiful. They loved each other and were soon married.

            Soon the young couple moved to Fredericksburg, where conveniently Monroe’s uncle had obtained a house for them to occupy while Monroe began a law practice, so he could earn some money. Money was hard to come by. Soldiers were paid in grants to land “out west”, meaning beyond the Blue Ridge Mountains, but these were only good if you decided to pack up and head out there to stake your claim.  Many did that, and others, those few who had real pounds and shillings, bought up those claims very cheaply, so that some people were able to acquire many thousands of acres in Ohio and elsewhere.

            Next, President Washington appointed Monroe to be our ambassador to France. Elizabeth Monroe loved that idea, and she and daughter Eliza accompanied Monroe on the month-long Atlantic crossing, and then arrived at LeHavre, France. They landed just in time  to experience the French Revolution with carts rumbling through the streets, carrying many thousands off to prison and to the guillotine. However, both adult Monroes, who spoke French, jumped in with enthusiasm. Monroe was expected to humbly present his credentials to the five members of the Directoire, but instead he asked to address the Citizens’ Assembly, and when he greeted the men of the New Republic from the American Republic, he was wildly applauded. 

             Monroe had fought with the Marquis de Lafayette, a hero of our Revolution. Now Lafayette was outside of France, but his wife had been in prison for months, and the Monroes wanted to free her. Elizabeth had the ambassadorial coach, an elaborate vehicle in a France that had suddenly become slovenly and trashy after the Revolution, take her to the prison.  She marched in, and somehow arranged for the lady to come home with her. Later Monroe had an American passport prepared and they got her out of the country.

            Life in Paris wasn’t just dinners and soirees. Washington directed that America remain neutral and not align with Great Britain, our former enemy but now our best trading partner, nor with France, our steady ally during our Revolutionary war. Antifederalist and Federalist Senators and Cabinet members made life hard for Monroe, and finally he was removed in a trumped-up “disgrace”. This was the work of Federalist John Adams, the Vice President, with collusion by two Secretaries of State.

            A few years later, after serving as Governor of Virginia, President Thomas Jefferson sent Monroe back to France to handle a tangled diplomatic problem that would result in the 1803 Louisiana Purchase. The Mississippi River was becoming tremendously attractive to all the settlers who had started farms in what were the western states and territories, and sought to send agricultural products, lumber, cattle, and furs to New Orleans for loading aboard ships for overseas markets.

            As Monroe, Elizabeth and two daughters got ready to sail to Europe, once again James turned to his uncle for money to educate and care for errant brothers and nephews and fill in for very slow payments for Monroe’s government service.

            The author describes Monroe’s first conversation with the new French leader, Napoleon Bonaparte, and the amazing vagueness of just what it was we were trying to buy. Monroe had orders from President Jefferson to offer no more than $9 million, at first for New Orleans alone, but then it became millions of acres but he didn’t know if that included the western part of Spanish Florida, and the western boundary of Louisiana territory was sketchy.

            When Monroe returned from France, he settled in a farm he had built near Monticello, the home of his friend, mentor and sponsor, Jefferson. Once again, he would do some legal work to bring in some income for the family, then serve again as Governor of Virginia, then, as America went to war with Great Britain again in what northerners called “Mr. Madison’s War” the President named him Secretary of State. Off he went to Washington City, in 1812.  Soon he was named to serve also as Secretary of War.

            When the British marched into Washington and began to burn the still-under-construction Capitol and the President's Mansion, Madison was overwhelmed and impotent. As the Redcoats approached the city from the north, a scraggly group of defenders turned and ran. Madison's acting Secretary of War and hero of the Revolution, Monroe, took charge and gathered volunteers to push back the Redcoats. 

            In 1816 Monroe was elected to the job for which had been groomed all his life, President. No president had served more years as soldier, colony and state assemblyman, Congressman, Senator, Governor, Ambassador, Secretary of State and War. In 1820 he was re-elected without opposition. In the seventh year of his presidency he gave the speech which became The Monroe Doctrine, warning European nations that any future attempts to capture colonies in the Americas would be met with American opposition.

            Monroe died on July 4, 1831 at the age of 72.

-end-

HISTORY BOOK CLUB FUTURE TOPICS

2019

Wednesday, March 27, 2019: Medical Discoveries in History. Germs, Anesthesia, Inoculations against Measles, Mumps, Rubella, Polio; Birth Control; Mental Illness, X-Ray Insulin, Pasteurization, Penicillin.

Wednesday, April 24, 2019: From Fur Trappers to Fishermen to Settlers: How Montréal began; Plymouth; Salem; Gloucester; New Amsterdam; The early colonization of America.

Wednesday, May 29, 2019: Progressive America in the first two decades of the Twentieth Century: Teddy Roosevelt and the Robber Barons; Woodrow Wilson and World War I.

Wednesday, June 26, 2019: Westward Ho: the westward expansion of America; Manifest Destiny; The Louisiana Purchase and Lewis and Clark; James K. Polk; The Union Pacific.

Wednesday, July 31, 2019: The Crusades—what caused them? The Seljuk Turks; Pisa, Genoa, Venice and Amalfi; Byzantium and Jerusalem; The Children’s Crusade; Attacking the Jews in Germany; The Popes and Kings; Saladin and Richard I of the Lion Heart; how the Christians massacred Moslems and Jews and made Moslems intolerant.

Wednesday, August 28, 2019: Intelligence Gathering and Spying in History: Julius Caesar’s Spy Network; Sun-Tzu, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Espionage Act of 1917, the KGB, MI-5, the OSS, CIA, Pinkerton’s Union Spies, Confederate Spies.

Wednesday, September 25, 2019: El Norte, the story of Spain’s exploration and colonization of North America.  Often Americans study the growth of America from the standpoint of English colonization and the push westward. There’s another, very complex story, of the exploration of the Caribbean, Mexico, Florida and onward to California by the Spanish. It’s the story of Conquistadors, Priests and Indigenous peoples who created the Republic of Mexico, the nations of the Caribbean and Central America, and made the first cities in Florida, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California and more. [Proposed by Sam Coulbourn] 

Wednesday, October 30, 2019: Charismatic leaders in History. What were the keys to Hitler’s, Churchill's, Mussolini's, FDR's successes? Keen perception of public moods? Oratory abilities? Character, firm ideology? Connecting to the people? How did they deploy their charisma? How could Napoleon manipulate the masses without TV ads? Why were people so perceptive to a madman in Germany? Recurring questions.  [Proposed by Janos Posfai] 

Wednesday, November 13, 2019 [Two weeks earlier because of Thanksgiving and another conflict] History of Farming in America.  Examine the American Indians and their farming techniques, the early colonists and the skills they brought from their home countries;  the food discoveries in the New World; Tobacco and Cotton and slavery; Farming and the Dust Bowl; Government and Agriculture; Modern Agribusiness.  [Proposed by Sam Coulbourn] 

 NO MEETING IN DECEMBER