The Man Who Ran Washington: The Life and Times of James A. Baker III
Book by Peter Baker
DETAILS
Publisher : Doubleday; Illustrated edition (September 29, 2020) Language : English Hardcover : 720 pages ISBN-10 : 0385540558 ISBN-13 : 978-0385540551 Item Weight : 2.3 pounds Dimensions : 6.3 x 1.8 x 9.5 inches Best Sellers Rank: #23,779 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #10 in General Elections & Political Process #56 in United States Executive Government #106 in Political Leader Biographies , BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times • The Washington Post • Fortune • Bloomberg From two of America's most revered political journalists comes the definitive biography of legendary White House chief of staff and secretary of state James A. Baker III: the man who ran Washington when Washington ran the world. For a quarter-century, from the end of Watergate to the aftermath of the Cold War, no Republican won the presidency without his help or ran the White House without his advice. James Addison Baker III was the indispensable man for four presidents because he understood better than anyone how to make Washington work at a time when America was shaping events around the world. The Man Who Ran Washington is a page-turning portrait of a power broker who influenced America's destiny for generations. A scion of Texas aristocracy who became George H. W. Bush's best friend on the tennis courts of the Houston Country Club, Baker had never even worked in Washington until a devastating family tragedy struck when he was thirty-nine. Within a few years, he was leading Gerald Ford's campaign and would go on to manage a total of five presidential races and win a sixth for George W. Bush in a Florida recount. He ran Ronald Reagan's White House and became the most consequential secretary of state since Henry Kissinger. He negotiated with Democrats at home and Soviets abroad, rewrote the tax code, assembled the coalition that won the Gulf War, brokered the reunification of Germany and helped bring a decades-long nuclear superpower standoff to an end. Ruthlessly partisan during campaign season, Baker governed as the avatar of pragmatism over purity and deal-making over division, a lost art in today's fractured nation. His story is a case study in the acquisition, exercise, and preservation of power in late twentieth-century America and the story of Washington and the world in the modern era--how it once worked and how it has transformed into an era of gridlock and polarization. This masterly biography by two brilliant observers of the American political scene is destined to become a classic. Read more
REVIEW
Peter Baker has written books on Presidents Clinton, W. Bush, and Obama and contributed to one on the history of impeachment. He covers Trump for the NY Times along with Maggie Haberman and others, and is generally fair. His wife Susan Glasser founded Politico, probably the most important of the new online journals, and now is with the New Yorker. The New Yorker is very liberal and generally not a fan of President Trump under David Remnick. They do TV separately with MSNBC and CNN. Jim Baker, no relation, was the first secretary of state that I knew. So it was surprising for me to learn that foreign policy was not his specialty (it was that of Bush 43, who had served in the military, UN, CIA etc.). He was not a specialist in languages, but was street smart and could read body language and emotions. This was in contrast with Kissinger and Nixon, who were very book smart. The authors interviewed Baker a lot, but this is not an authorized biography because he didn't review the finished product. They also relied a lot upon Margaret Tutwiler. Baker's friendship with Bush Sr. went way back, decades before they became prominent politicians. Beginning in the 70s, we are introduced to the GOP establishment with figures like Gerald Ford, Bob Dole, Al Haig, Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld. Baker campaigned against Reagan twice, for Ford in 1976 and Bush in '80. But when Reagan won, he became the chief of staff and part of the "troika" with Deaver and Regan, eventually becoming the most influential of the competing factions. As a figure of the establishment, he emphasized getting things done, and contributed to Reagan's working with Speaker Tip O'Neill, who was as liberal as the Gipper was conservative. He knew the political history of LBJ when he was a Senate leader working with Eisenhower, and then Sen. Everett Dirksen doing the same with LBJ. Baker was not trusted by the more ideological Reaganites, but was affirmed by Reagan as a true Reaganite at the end of his service. Later in the Reagan administrations, Baker served as Treasury secretary, and so the book's emphasis moves to economic issues, taxes and the stock market, along with Iran-Contra. Baker was a strong partisan, but in multiple directions-against the Democrats but also the more conservative Republicans, such as Dan Quayle, Newt Gingrich and Jack Kemp, who had an infectious intellectual passion unbounded by his field of responsibility. On the international level, Maggie Thatcher generally pulled Reagan and Bush Sr. toward more hardline views. This is understandable- with Germany's reunification, it was only a few decades after the attacks on Britain. As Bush's secretary of state, the book turns to the all-important end of the Cold War on all its levels with Gorbachev and Yeltsin. The election of 88 brings the "Read My Lips" speech written by Peggy Noonan (along with 1000 points of light and kinder gentler), Lee Atwater and Willie Horton. As a kid I often heard about "Reagan and Bush" but they were two very different men with different strengths and weaknesses. It's a fascinating book as the different eras bring up the names of the various politicians and journalists who were part of the scenery. In the 2000 election with the Florida recount, Baker negotiated with Warren Christopher, his successor as Secretary of State for Bill Clinton. Another thing I learned was that Dick Cheney, while one of the hawks for the first Gulf War, was not as rigid as he was in his later days. This would be an interesting thing to explore. The authors also have great respect for Condi Rice throughout her career. In the Obama era, Baker lamented the loss of the solid center. With Trump's defeat of Jeb, most of the Bush clan were very anti-Trump. Baker remained a loyal Republican through all the different iterations, and was not a never-Trumper in 2016. But as 2020 came along he finally followed his grandfather's advice and stayed away from politics! The saga continues with Trump's covid hospitalization and this week's contentious debate.
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