Book Description:
Caspar Weinberger s life stretches over the American century. Born as America entered the First World War, with later boyhood memories of Herbert Hoover campaigning for president, Weinberger was a leading member of what is now known as the greatest generation. He fought in the Pacific in World War II under the command of General Douglas MacArthur. He entered California politics and eventually became one of Governor Ronald Reagan s top aides, sharing his chief s optimism and geniality as well as his budget goals. Another Californian, President Richard Nixon, brought Weinberger to Washington to cut the federal budget and advance the president s policy of social reform. In the 1980s, with the election of President Reagan, Weinberger became secretary of defense and oversaw the tremendous peacetime buildup of the U.S. military that restored America s confidence, brought the Soviet Union to the bargaining table, and led to the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Weinberger s warm and witty memoir, In the Arena, serves up all the insider details one would expect from a man who served in the highest reaches of government. But his book is also filled with sheer Americana, reminding us of where America has been and what she has achieved. Weinberger offers incisive portraits of: Ronald Reagan, whose very presence could make a cloudy day seem sunny, who understood the essence of leadership, and who achieved more foreign policy triumphs than any other postwar president Richard Nixon a man of great gifts, but deeply flawed, whose administration s compulsive secrecy and paranoia proved self defeating in the Watergate scandal General Douglas MacArthur, impressive even in his bathrobe a smoky voiced Tallulah Bankhead, interviewed by the Harvard Crimson s Caspar Weinberger Weinberger doesn t stint on controversy including the Iran contra scandal, an arms for hostages deal that Weinberger had always opposed and tried to stop, only to be persecuted by independent counsel Lawrence Walsh. Even now, in his eighties, the storms of politics behind him, Caspar Weinberger remains a globe trotting statesman for his country, and with In the Arena, he has written one of the most charming and important American autobiographies of our time.
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