Clark Clifford : The Wise Man of Washington
ISBN: 9780813173467
Platform/Publisher: PQ ebrary / University Press of Kentucky
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Limited; Download: 7 Days at a time
Subjects: Statesmen : United States : Biography.;

Although not a household name, Clark Clifford (1906-1998) advised Democratic presidents from Truman to Johnson. Acacia, American history professor at William Paterson University, has absorbed a mass of material and delivers an insightful if not always flattering biography. Fiercely ambitious, Clifford was a successful St. Louis lawyer when fellow Missourian Harry Truman became president in 1945. A senior colleague invited Clifford to Washington, where within a year his organizational skills won him promotion to Truman's special counsel. Happy to take credit for Truman's spectacular 1948 election upset, Clifford kept his reputation as a political genius for the next 20 years, although his opposition to sending troops to Vietnam put him in LBJ's doghouse until 1968, when-thanks to the possibility of peace talks and his own deft maneuvering-he replaced Robert McNamara as secretary of defense. This astute political biography concentrates on Washington infighting, position papers, memos, debates and quarrels on subjects ranging from trivial to world-shaking. Clifford comes across as a clear-eyed political strategist with genuinely noble ideals, but who looked after his own interests, often claiming others' ideas as his own and "parlay[ing] his government service into a lucrative private legal career." (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

John Acacia taught American history at William Paterson University.


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