The Chairman: John J. McCloy and the Making of the American Establishment by Kai Bird

The Chairman: John J. McCloy and the Making of the American Establishment Reviews

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  Will

  McCloy was an interesting guy who made a few notable mistakes- letting Krupp recover his industrial empire being perhaps the most prominent. Nonetheless, by the standards of the time he was one of the talented and useful U.S. officials. The book does well to show the important moments of McCloy's life and does not shy away from some of his failures but I would have liked to have seen a lot more about his relationship with his bosses in Washington and how they influenced the level of autonomy he was able to have as a "man on the spot".
  
  Extra marks awarded for including this revealing comment of McCloy's re. opposition in Germany to rearmament:
  
  “Why, just give me a brass band and a loudspeaker truck. Then let me march from Lake Constance in the South to the Kiel Canal up north, and I will have a German army of a million men behind me- all eager-eyed.” [Chapter 16]
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  Anne Cupero

  I could only give this book three stars for a reason; it gave me many details of the rich and powerful who have influenced foreign and domestic policy in the country. McCloy came from very little, but if were not white, he wouldn't have gotten anywhere. That is neither here nor there, he did manage to use his brain well. Everything he was part of, the Council on Foreign Relations, the intricacies of Milbank, Tweed, and other expensive attorneys' firms he was part of, that is all fascinating and interesting. It is all a bit sickening as well. The lives that are controlled/manipulated by these men were many. Japanese-Americans who were interned in camps, McCloy did that. Not bombing Auschwitz and putting out the lie that Americans did not know what was happening in that camp, to protect I.G. Farben, was despicable. My father, who was of McCloy's generation (born 1909) believed a lot of the lies that the ruling elite put out there, about the country, about the necessities in wartime, what a sad commentary on our country. But my dislike of these men who controlled so much, is not the reason for my three-star review. It was because I never got to see McCloy as a person - he HAD to be monetarily driven, not just from "love of country" because that was the reason mentioned money so frequently, and even when his wife was dying, he mentioned to someone the cost of her nursing home care. So I never felt like I knew him from this long biography. I saw a man on a pedestal, which, like I said, sickened me. So he played a competitive game of tennis, so what? He supposedly had a diary - was that all generic information in there? Did he never write of feelings, emotions? Oh well, interesting that his funeral was not mentioned in the book, nor his interment in a little-known cemetery - from nothing to nothing, I guess.
• 
  Bob

  Read this after “The Arms of Krupp”. I was also interested in his contributions to the Warren Commission. All through my life, the name John J McCloy turned up in the news. Kai Bird’s vivid depiction of the Philadelphia Establishment made for informed discussion with my 90yo in-law , born & raised in Philadelphia. McCloy’s mother’s insistence of a private school education , & the rationale that, everyone was the same , and one learned from their peers better when they shared a commonality; pretty much reflected WASP attitude. This book reinforced my negative ideas about Truman & Eisenhower. All around, I enjoyed reading about historical events from a conservative establishment aspect, the beginning of NATO, ; how the French were cajoled into NATO by the US’s bribe of bankrolling Franc’s Indo-China (Vietnam) War; how the council on foreign relations. got it’s start etc., since it helped make sense of this country’s current stature in the world. Currently, the government is a facade for the Wall Street aristocracy., with billionaire celebrities
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  Vincent Lombardo

  Boring! Perhaps it would have been more interesting had it been shorter, but it was much too long. In addition, I found the subject unlikable since he was often on the wrong side of history.
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  towner77

  This was an interesting read, but a tough slog at the same time. In 800 pages you are given great detail about this behind the scenes power broker and how he came to position, but the same story could have been told in half the pages and saved the reader time and effort. My 3 Star rating is based on this complain, for this book does reveal much detail regarding the evolution of the Post WWI power establishment of the US, the World Bank, and the UN.
• 
  Ferris Mx

  Excellent.