Category Archives: Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training

Book Review: Donald P. Gregg, Pot Shards: Fragments of a Life Lived in CIA, the White House, and the Two Koreas (Vellum, 2014)

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Pot Shards presents the life and times of Ambassador Donald P. Gregg (above), an individual who contributed greatly to US foreign and national security policy. Readers are taken on a journey through Northeast and Southeast Asia and halls of power in Washington, DC. Readers will discover how much Gregg valued others and his value to humanity.

The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training (ADST) is an independent, non-profit organization that advances the understanding of diplomacy and supports the training of foreign affairs personnel through a variety of programs and activities. As part of its Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, it has prepared thousands of transcripts of interviews recorded with US Foreign Service veterans.  These excellent oral histories present the realities of diplomacy to include thought provoking, sometimes absurd, and often horrifying stories from which valuable lessons can be drawn.  In April 2014, ADST graciously authorized greatcharlie.com to present the oral history of Ambassador Donald P. Gregg, an authentic intelligence professional and consummate diplomat.  In July 2014, Gregg published his extraordinary, must read memoirs entitled, Pot Shards: Fragments of a Life Lived in CIA, the White House, and the Two Koreas (Vellum, 2014).  It is part of ADST-DACOR’s Diplomats and Diplomacy Series. (DACOR is an organization of foreign affairs professionals.)

Donald Gregg was an employee of the US government for forty-three years, working in the fields of intelligence and diplomacy.  Gregg served in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for thirty-one years from 1951 to 1982.  Paramilitary trained and airborne trained, he spent most of his career in assignments overseas and advising the most senior leaders of the CIA.  He was assigned to Japan, Burma, Vietnam, and Korea.  He was special assistant to the Ambassador of Korea from 1973 to 1975.  Gregg also served as a member of the White House National Security Council staff from 1979 to 1982. Upon retirement from CIA, Gregg became National Security Adviser to US Vice President George H.W. Bush from 1982 to 1989, and US Ambassador to the Republic of Korea from 1989 to 1993.  Outside of government, Gregg served as a senior consultant to Goldman Sachs, the chairman and president of The Korea Society in New York, and he currently serves as the chairman of the Pacific Century Institute in Los Angeles.  Gregg was born in New York. He enlisted in the US Army upon graduation from high school in 1945.  He received training as a cryptanalyst and reached the rank of sergeant.  He went on to attend Williams College from 1947 to 1951, majoring in Philosophy.  Gregg has received numerous awards from CIA, the US Department of Defense and the South Korean government and five honorary degrees from American and foreign colleges.  Gregg has visited the North Korea several times and advocates for the normalization of relations between that country and the US.

On its face, Pot Shards is a significant contribution to the record of the US experience in the Far East written by a major player, an intelligence icon.  Pot Shards covers some weighty matters regarding intelligence, diplomacy, and defense policy.  Some of the issues and events discussed by Gregg have never been revealed in other texts. Gregg could have limited the book to the audience of policy scholars, analysts, historians, intelligence professionals and veterans and all those familiar with the subject matter.  However, he presents Pot Shards in a way that everyone can understand and enjoy at some level.  There is much in Pot Shards that would especially thrill those beguiled by spy novels and films and spy craft enthusiasts.  Yet, what makes Pot Shards most exciting is the story of the man: Donald Gregg.  With good humor, he recounts many satisfying exploits, but also reveals vicissitudes and trials he faced.

Individuals that Gregg mentions in Pot Shards are those with whom he had continuous contact as managers, mentors, and friends. Some of are well known, “foreign policy celebrities,” such as Robert McNamara, Henry Kissinger, Creighton Abrams, Richard Helms, William Colby,  Harold Brown, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Richard Holbrooke, and Richard Allen. Others may be remembered only by a few.  Gregg sheds light on their impact and exactly how their ideas ignited events from the inside. Moreover, Gregg indicates those individuals helped him develop a greater understanding of the world and other ways of thinking, allowing him to become something that he perhaps would not have been without them.

In Cloud of Witnesses, George Rutler examines sixty-six individuals, who have influenced his life, based on what Aristotle would refer to as their ethos (an honest use of talent), logos (an honest use of mind), and pathos (an honest involvement in the suffering of the world).  That would be the best way to examine Gregg’s presentation of his life and career.  At Williams College, Gregg was influenced by the thinking of Professor John William Miller, the head of the Philosophy Department, who taught him the simple definition of morality, “Never treat another human being as an object.”  Gregg explained that he has tried to live by that definition.  Gregg was also influenced by Miller’s interest in people taking action and being defined by, and held responsible for, the actions they took.  Miller taught him that “Man does not have a nature, he has a history,” Gregg recalled Miller urged his students to act upon what they believed in and to “cut behind appearance toward reality.”

It was clear from many anecdotes in Pot Shards that Gregg has had a genuine interest in people.  He has looked beyond differences, avoiding being caught up with race, ethnicity, or other things which had been used particularly in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s to determine how one should relate with another.  For example, when he first came to Washington, he would enjoy going to jazz clubs which catered to African-American patrons.  That was notable because Washington, DC at the time was a segregated city. Serving in the military at a young age, he learned about different men and different behaviors, and witnessed racial and ethnic prejudice which repulsed him.  In Kai Bird’s excellent work, The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames, it was indicated that racial and ethnic prejudice was apparent at CIA.  It was manifested in the casual and official discussions of some, and even worse, in decision making.  That was certainly not Gregg’s way.  His type of clearheaded, solid judgments resulting from giving situations and individuals a deeper look, was always needed.  Virtue shines in the presence of vice.

Having served as a cryptanalyst in the US Army, Gregg was sought by the National Security Agency in the middle of his senior year at Williams.  However, the recruiter rather than take Gregg suggested he join CIA.  Gregg knew little of the CIA and what it did.  However, the recruiter, with what Gregg now thinks was a bit of cynicism said, “Oh, they jump out of airplanes and are going to save the world!” That attracted Gregg, and initiated his thirty-one year career with the Agency.  Gregg has provided an incredibly intriguing discussion of his paramilitary training at CIA and the others he met during it. Gregg makes it clear in that discussion though, that so-called “good old days” in CIA were not always so good.  There were crazy events. Some people were not best serving the needs of CIA or their country. Managers who were very most often former OSS officers tried to recreate approaches taken by their former organization in German and Japanese held territory in Europe and Asia.   Often proposals for covert operations were based on questionable judgment and scant research.  Real possibilities for success were not fully considered by decision makers.  They were praised and approved by management as displaying a “Gung-Ho”, “Go Get ’em”, motivated attitude.  Yet, those operations more often resembled suicide missions.  Gregg found himself on such an assignment.

In March 1952, Gregg was assigned to fly to Bangkok, Thailand, where he would pick up a group of North Vietnamese whom he would train in sabotage and small unit tactics at a secret base. Following the completion of the training, Gregg and his team would be parachuted into North Vietnam.  Gregg spoke neither Vietnam nor French, and knew nothing of Vietnam or its history, and he was far from a veteran saboteur or guerilla leader. Gregg discovered an attractive post-debutante in her mid-thirties was the Vietnam plans officer and he had heard her say that her “Vietnam plan” had been accepted.  A cocktail party was given to celebrate the occasion, but Gregg was not invited.  When Gregg met his team, they turned out to be totally untrained Vietnamese with whom he had no way of communicating.  Gregg said they looked childlike.  Later he further learned that they were ethnic-Vietnamese from Thailand and had never set foot in Vietnam.  The potential for disaster was enormous. Gregg had no intention of backing out, but the truth behind the operation eventually revealed, and things worked out for the best. The operation was exposed as a fraud.  It turned out that a corrupt principal agent had hoodwinked CIA officers in Bangkok and had “taken the money and run.”  The mission was cancelled.

However, Pot Shards does not serve as some expression of some longstanding of primal doubt.  Gregg never moved about stating “Something is rotten in the Agency.”  Readers discover that through coping with those problems he learned not only what to do, but more importantly, “how not to do it.”  Gregg could recognize what was good, as good.  Gregg also worked with many in CIA who were true professionals.  He modeled his own management and decision making style in part from theirs. Gregg’s loyalty to his country and conviction toward duty was surpassed by no other.  He is proud of his years in CIA. So much of that experience was central to his personal life.  Through CIA, he met some life-long friends.  Through CIA, he met his wife.

Gregg makes it clear that his wife Margaret (“Meg”) has been central to his life.  A fortuitous encounter while hailing a taxi at Washington, DC’s Union Station set off of chain of interesting events that led to their life-long partnership.  Unbeknownst to Gregg, Meg, fluent in Russian, was actually Gregg’s superior in the Operations branch at CIA when they met.  However, as Gregg makes clear he was irresistibly taken by her combination of beauty, intellect, and charm, which made her something supreme to him.  Whether accompanying him in Japan, Korea, or Burma or remaining back in the US with their three children while Gregg served in Vietnam, she was the rock on which Gregg was able to build a career while raising a family. Relating the course of their marriage, Gregg leaves no doubt that meeting Meg was the best luck he ever had.

As Gregg rose through the ranks at CIA, he saw more clearly how many policies that drove CIA activities were not carefully considered and constructed. Gregg saw how euphonious policy speeches by political officials would often be based on captivating assessments of positive outcomes and capabilities of foreign partners not based in reality. He could see that near desperation on wanting a situation to be certain way led many, even the well-intentioned, to project their thinking on that of senior foreign counterpart, or worse, an adversary.  Only a negative outcome would reveal the error of a flawed approach for some.  In the early years of the US involvement in Vietnam Gregg witnessed this.  Gregg recalled accompanying US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to Vietnam in 1963. McNamara was told by General Paul Harkins, who commanded the US Military Assistance Command in Vietnam (MACV) that “We will be out of here with a military victory in six months.”  McNamara was disturbed by the unrealistic reporting, and told US President Lyndon Johnson that things were really not as good as Harkins’ people seemed to think they were.  Gregg also recalled a war game in 1964 on the use of airpower in the North Vietnam.  He participated with: General Maxwell Taylor, US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; General Earl Wheeler, US Army Chief of Staff; General Curtis LeMay, US Air Force Chief of Staff; John McCone, CIA Director; and, in the presence of McGeorge Bundy, the National Security Adviser.  Gregg, as the CIA representative of the Blue Team, gave CIA’s analysis of the plan to bomb North Vietnam.  Gregg described the rationale of the plan and then proceeded to explain why it would fail.  The rest of that story will not be spoiled here.  One will have to read Pot Shards to discover what the response to Gregg was from the many powerful men in the room.  Gregg’s description of it all makes the moment palpable.

Writing about his second tour in Vietnam, Gregg provides good lessons on how to function effectively as a manager or leader under extremely adverse circumstances.  His lessons hold true for professions beyond intelligence for they primarily concern human nature and the wonders and realities of human interaction.  There were many difficult experiences that were a part of that period.  One evening Gregg received a frantic call from a member of his crew who he described as a gifted and committed paramilitary officer, with several tough tours under his belt.  The officer had married a Vietnamese war widow with children and lived in her Bien Hoa apartment.  He had just returned from a mission to find one of his children “desperately ill.”  Gregg rushed to the officer’s apartment with medical assistance in tow.  Yet, by the time he arrived, he found the tragic scene of a beautiful young girl, eight years old, lying silent and still, with her frightened siblings and anguished mother, who was being comforted by the officer.  The girl was confirmed dead and the officer asked Gregg to take her away.  Gregg picked up the child and walked out.  Doing so reminded him of carrying his own small daughters Lucy and Alison to bed after they had fallen asleep. He searched for an answer on how to handle the situation.  This was a CIA matter and had to be kept confidential.  Gregg eventually decided to bring the child to the emergency room of the US Army hospital at Long Binh, where US Army Military Police told him where to go to have the body cared for.

In this segment of Pot Shards, there are also fascinating stories of Gregg’s exploits in combat.  He was in the thick of things as CIA Regional Officer in Military Region 3 (War Zone D).  There are accounts of Gregg managing paramilitary operations and interrogations of his crew.  He flew with forward controllers, directing fire support for US and allied troops.  He described radio communications from battles, the descriptions of which bring the reader right to the scene.  Gregg’s efforts were appreciated by US and allied commanders he worked with such as: General James Hollingsworth (US);  General John McGiffert (US); General Nguyen Van Minh (South Vietnam); General Jangnai Sohn (Korea); and General Roh Tae-woo (Korea); Colonel Nguyen Cong Vinh (South Vietnam); and, Colonel Bach Van Hien (South Vietnam).

On his second tour, Gregg could still see how different ideas, among policy and decision makers, about what was truly happening in there impacted the decisions being made and the lessons the US military as well as other security organizations as CIA, were learning from the experience.  At the very end of his tour in Vietnam, General Creighton Abrams hosted a lunch for Gregg at his MACV Headquarters in Saigon, a place where he had been excoriated in the past.  At lunch, Gregg sat next to Abrams and six or eight of his subordinates.  He felt Abrams was the best of the three commanders the US sent to Vietnam.  Knowing Abrams had been in Vietnam for some time, Gregg asked him how long it had actually been.  Abrams proudly responded, “Six years.”  Gregg then asked him how he kept going, and Abrams stated, “Well, I keep learning things.”  Gregg then politely asked him what he had learned so far, and Abrams replied that just finished reading Bernard Fall’s Hell in a Very Small Place, an account of the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu. Abrams said that he “now” understood Fall’s reasoning as to why the French had failed to reestablish their colonial rule in Vietnam.  When Gregg asked “How did Fall explain it,” Abrams explained, “Fall said that the French lost because they failed to politically organize the terrain.  I think I understand that now, but I would not have understood that a year ago.”  Gregg had no response to that, but explained that when he later saw pictures of heavy US battle tanks, named after Abrams, crashing around Iraq and Afghanistan, he thought of Abrams’ answer.

Through his achievements in Vietnam, Gregg developed a reputation in CIA as a very wise and capable officer.  He knew how to present ideas and concepts to develop agreement or consensus on issues. Bringing his thoughts to precise declarations took skill.  This was one of the many skills that Gregg honed through interactions with a number of accomplished professionals.  One who helped Gregg elevate his capabilities while he served in his next overseas assignment as CIA Station Chief in Seoul, was US Ambassador Philip Habib.  Habib was gruff and outspoken.  However, by Gregg’s account, he understood people well and was an excellent diplomat for whom he developed tremendous respect.  Gregg indicates that it was Habib’s maneuvering that help to save the life of liberal South Korean politician, Kim Dae-jung, after he had been kidnapped from his Tokyo hotel room by the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA).  Habib never accused the Korean President Park Chung-hee of ordering the kidnapping but sent a message to him explaining that the US was aware of the action and hoped he could do everything to keep Kim alive.  This allowed Park a chance to avoid direct embarrassment and contrive a story in which he accused rogue elements of the Korean government had alone committed the act, and in which he took credit for saving Kim.  Gregg said Habib’s astute handling of the situation kept Kim alive and allowed Park to save face.  Gregg explained saving face was always a major concern in Asia.  Habib’s actions allowed Washington’s relations with Seoul to improve.

Gregg completed his career at CIA on a high note at the US National Security Council.  He had achieved success maintaining an ethic of his own, a moral code.  There was goodness living inside a good man.  He saw the greater good that would result from his actions against Communism.  Gregg was invited to join the administration of US President Ronald Reagan as the National Security Adviser to then Vice President George H.W. Bush.  His job made use of all of his skills and experience from CIA.  During those six years with Bush, Gregg traveled to 65 countries.  Along with those visits came his attendance at endless formal events.  Gregg recounts some of rather unusual happenings at such gatherings, providing readers with a gift bag of humorous stories.  Yet, while in the Reagan administration, his self-image was put to the test.  Gregg dedicates a chapter to a painful period of that service: IranContra, which was the purported attempt by the administration to sell surplus arms to Iran in exchange for it to ensure the release of US hostages being held in Lebanon.  Claims that Gregg was involved with that matter were invalidated.  Gregg’s account of it all is captivating.

As Ambassador to South Korea in the administration of President George H.W. Bush, Gregg successfully made use of his experience at CIA as well as the White House.  However, Gregg did not tap into his training as an intelligence officer to manipulate Korean officials or simulate closeness with Koreans he met.  There was no deception at all. Gregg was genuine, natural, in his interactions and that is what helped him gain their respect and confidence.  There was a type of communion between Gregg and many of his senior Korean counterparts.  One of the issues Gregg was determined to confront as ambassador was the continuing negative note in US-South Korean relations over the alleged US involvement in the Kwanju Uprising of 1980.  Then Korean President Chun Doo-hwan had brutally cracked down on protests in Kwanju in the wake of the arrest of Kim Dae-jung on charges of treason. At least two hundred Koreans were killed in the streets.  Chun claimed that the US had fully supported his actions.  That was not true, but by the time Gregg arrived in Korea as ambassador, hostility toward the US was still strong in the city.  The US Cultural Center in Kwangju was often attacked with fire bombs by rioters trying to drive the US out.  Gregg after consulting with others, including Kim Dae-jung, went to Kwangju in January 1990.  While there, Gregg met with six leaders of anti-US groups for over three hours.  Gregg explained that he came to Kwangju to lessen the hostility that the people in the city seemed to hold for the US.  Gregg explained to them that the US was not connected at all to the incident, and many of the actions by the US at that time, such as moving an aircraft carrier to Pusan were not a show of support for Chun. That particular move was meant to signal to North Korea not to intervene.  The anti-US protesters believed the US was close to Chun administration, but Gregg let it be known that there was general distaste for it.  In that vein, Gregg explained, that at the time, the Reagan administration had agreed to receive Chun at the White House if Chun agreed to lift the death sentence imposed on Kim Dae-jung, and to release him from prison.  Most important in the conversation was Gregg’s apology over the fact the US had remained silent for so long on the Kwangju issue.  Gregg diffused the hostility toward the US and attacks on the Cultural Center in Kwangju stopped.  Gregg explained his first visit to Kwangju was deeply valuable in showing him how Koreans can hold feelings of han (deep-seated resentment) when they are dealing with events caused by others and which they feel are unjustified, immoral, and unfair.  When Gregg made his first visit to Pyongyang in April 2002, he explains that he encountered the same feelings of han that he had encountered in Kwangju twelve years before.  However, he notes that lessons learned in Kwangju were helpful as he tried to establish a dialogue and some degree of trust between his North Korean hosts and himself.  Ambassador Philip Habib certainly would have been proud of Gregg’s performance.

There is much more in Pot Shards to enjoy!  It is a book one will want to read again and again.

Quam bene vivas referre, non quam diu!  (It is how well you live that matters, not how long!)  There have been a few stories written about Gregg in books, articles, in anecdotal form.  Many were written in the troubled time of the Iran-Contra Affair.  Pot Shards presents the true life and times of Gregg, an individual who contributed greatly to US foreign and national security policy. Readers are taken on a journey through Northeast and Southeast Asia and halls of power in Washington, DC.  Readers will also discover how much Gregg valued others and his value to humanity.  Gregg continues to make a valuable contribution to US foreign and defense policy efforts as a private citizen.  Pot Shards is an absolute pleasure to read.  Without reservation, greatcharlie.com highly recommends Pot Shards to everyone.

By Mark Edmond Clark

Book Review: George William Rutler, Cloud of Witnesses: Dead People I Knew When They Were Alive (Scepter, 2010)

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Ambassador Vernon A. Walters, a US diplomat, general, and senior intelligence official, was one of the many individuals, now deceased, from whom some passing influence, some remark or circumstance, was personal enough, says George Rutler, to have made him something that he would not have been without them.

In greatcharlie.com’s book review of Robert Gates, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War (Alfred A. Knopf, 2014), it was discussed that during his career at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Gates likely came in contact with officers with whom dozens of stories of ingenuity, courage, sacrifice, and patriotism are coupled.  It was also noted that as Gates reached the senior ranks of the organization, especially the job of Deputy Director of CIA, his work at headquarters was supplemented by travels worldwide, to establish or ensure understandings and agreements the Agency had with foreign personalities.  Contacts with both renowned figures from the Agency and a multitude of others helped Gates develop a greater understanding of the world and other ways of thinking. We are shaped by those around us. In part as result of those contacts Gates’ counsel was remarkable and highly valued among senior foreign and defense policy officials and presidents.

In his book, Cloud of Witnesses: Dead People I Knew When They Were Alive (Scepter, 2010), George William Rutler provides very intriguing stories of sixty-six individuals, all of whom have passed, who have influenced his life.   Rutler, a Catholic priest, explains that he did not intend to write biographies of these individuals. He admits that others could undoubtedly say much more about them. However, by writing vignettes, Rutler wanted to make the point that some passing influence, some remark or circumstance, was personal enough to make him something that he would not have been without them. It is quite obvious that Cloud of Witnesses is not a book on foreign and defense policy, and greatcharlie.com readers might question why it is being reviewed. However, as his book looks at the characteristics of individuals, some from the foreign and defense policy arena, to understand how they managed to influence him, Rutler’s work falls within greatcharlie.com’s objective of shedding light on players in international affairs and their ideas that have ignited events from the inside.

Reared in the Episcopal tradition in New Jersey and New York, Rutler was an Episcopal priest for nine years, and the youngest Episcopal rector in the country when he headed the Church of the Good Shepherd in Rosemont, Pennsylvania. However, in 1979, he was received into the Catholic Church and was sent to the North American College in Rome for seminary studies. A graduate of Dartmouth, Rutler also took advanced degrees at the Johns Hopkins University and the General Theological Seminary. He holds several degrees from the Gregorian and Angelicum Universities in Rome, including the Pontifical Doctorate in Sacred Theology, and studied at the Institut Catholique in Paris. In England, in 1988, the University of Oxford awarded him the degree Master of Studies. From 1987 to 1988 he was regular preacher to the students, faculty, and townspeople of Oxford. Thomas More College and Christendom College awarded him honorary doctorates. For ten years he was also National Chaplain of Legatus, the organization of Catholic business leaders and their families, engaged in spiritual formation and evangelization. A board member of several schools and colleges, he is Chaplain of the New York Guild of Catholic Lawyers, Regional Spiritual Director of the Legion of Mary (New York and northern New Jersey) and has long been associated with the Missionaries of Charity, and other religious orders. He was a university chaplain for the Archdiocese. Rutler has lectured and given retreats in many nations, frequently in Ireland and Australia. Since 1988, his weekly television program has been broadcast worldwide on EWTN. Rutler has made documentary films in the US and England, contributes to numerous scholarly and popular journals and has published 16 books on theology, history, cultural issues, and the lives of the saints.

Being an outstanding scholar and theologian, Rutler’s counsel was highly valued among prominent individuals worldwide. Many of those prominent individuals are discussed by Rutler in Cloud of Witnesses. However, Rutler does not place any emphasis on their power and influence in their societies. By focusing on their power and influence, one would miss the point of Rutler’s book which is to discuss their pertinence to his development.   Emphasis also should not be overly placed on the fact that Rutler is a Catholic priest. Indeed, it would be mistake for a potential reader to view his book merely as a religious work. True, Rutler on occasion brings theology into his discussion, mentions God, and goes as far as to state about the individuals he discusses, “God in different ways blessed them. I have written about characters I have known and who impressed me because God in different way impressed them.” Yet, In Cloud of Witnesses, Rutler also goes further.   He also seems to examine them based on what Aristotle would refer to as their ethos (an honest use of talent), logos (an honest use of mind), and pathos (an honest involvement in the suffering of the world). Rutler does not engage in an exercise in flattery or criticism. He is forth-right about each individual. He looks introspectively at, and is appropriately candid, about his own past judgments and situations in which he might have learned more or could have acted differently.

Those individuals discussed in the sixty-six vignettes presented by Rutler in Cloud of Witnesses that had been engaged in foreign and defense policy or had served in the military were truly extraordinary people. Among them were Vernon A. Walters, James Charles Risk, and George Charles Lang, whose backgrounds alone are incredibly interesting. Rutler notes that Vernon A. Walters had served as an aide for seven US presidents, helped to shape the Marshall Plan, and served as deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency, served as a member of the NATO Standing Committee, and as US Ambassador to the UN and Federal Republic of Germany. He describes Walters as a tee totaling, nonsmoking, chaste, bachelor, which made him appear as an ascetic James Bond with the added advantage of being real. Walters certainly appeared to love the drama of it all. As an aide to General Mark Clark in World War II, he entered Rome on June 4, 1944, giving King Hassan of Morocco a ride on his tank. He alone filmed Truman’s meeting with General Douglas MacArthur on Wake Island in October 15, 1950, and took only notes when US President Harry Truman fired the general. Among his silent missions included a visit to see Cuban leader Fidel Castro and smuggling Kissinger into Paris for the peace talks on Vietnam. Kissinger remained incognito in Neuilly. On one occasion, Walters brought Kissinger in to France from Frankfurt, West Germany under the pretext that he was the mistress of French President Georges Pompidou. When Rutler asked former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger about Walters’s diplomacy, he labeled it as “flamboyant discretion.” Rutler, himself, found Walters to be an individual with bravery and integrity who conjured a brand of diplomacy that fooled many who thought his honesty was a clever deceit.

Other diplomats included, James Charles Risk, who Rutler described as an individual whose knowledge of, and enthusiasm for, protocol and ritual was not for amusement, but for purpose. Risk served in anti-submarine and convoy escort duty in the US Navy in the North Atlantic during World War II, and participated in the invasion of Sicily. However, in what Rutler refers to as an eccentric case of the Navy not wasting a man’s talents, he was ordered to write the administrative history of Mediterranean Naval Operations and then served on the Allied Commission on the Democratization of Italy. A protocol officer between the Vatican and the Quirinal Palace, he had frequent contacts with Pope Pius XII. He was present when the Communists destroyed ballots outside the Italian Ministry of Interior after a referendum on the monarchy, deducing that the US had allowed Interior Minister to fix the vote in favor of a republic. In addition to embracing formalities, Risk had a gift for establishing friendships and a love for intrigue. He would annually visit the deposed monarch, King Umberto, in Cascais, Portugal. Risk also befriended the Duke of Wellington. And often stayed with him at Stratfield Saye, England and attended the Garter Service at Windsor in a front row seat. Risk spent eleven days on the Trans-Siberian Express to a posting in Vladivostok, Russia as vice consul. He told Rutler of his experiences as a vice consul in Vietnam. They included going on a hunting trip with Emperor Bao Dai, who after holding a sumptuous banquet under a tent in the jungle, stood a relied himself before all the foreign dignitaries and their wives.

George Charles Lang was a Medal of Honor recipient. Having just become a squad leader, and rightfully deserving leave, Lang was leading his men in an engagement against enemy bunkers in the Kien Hoa Province in Vietnam on Washington’s Birthday in 1969. Having destroyed two bunker complexes single-handedly, with grenades and rifle fire, Lang attempted to cross a canal to within a few feet of the enemy. His troops suffered six casualties from rocket and automatic weapons fire from a third bunker. One rocket severed his spinal cord, but he continued to shout maneuvers in blinding pain. Two years later, Lang was decorated with the Medal of Honor by US President Richard Nixon. Rutler met this courageous individual away from combat and was impressed by his indomitable spirit. Lang produced a two volume set on Medal of Honor recipients which he painstakingly dictated. He promoted the cause for sainthood for US Marine chaplain Father Vincent Capodanno, who was killed in action giving last rites and had also received the Medal of Honor. Moreover, Lang displayed courage in peace, seeking peace within and winning the inner struggle of faith.

Of those mentioned who were not foreign and defense policy field were authors, royalty, philanthropist, scholars, theologians, and religious leaders. Here are snap-shots of a handful of those presented. Among the authors, Rutler discusses William F. Buckley, Jr. What Rutler appreciated most in Buckley was his effort to combat the devilish conceit that peace might issue from a concordance with evil. Rutler notes that Buckley engaged in that struggle with a tongue that was the pen of a ready writer and he was unusual among in that he both spoke and wrote well, writing over 50 books and 6,000 columns, plus filming 1,500 episodes of Firing Line. He often offered material help to those with problems from shaky mortgages to taxes and tuition.

Rutler encountered Robert Frost as an undergraduate at Dartmouth. Frost, as Rutler states, did not “warm my New England winters for there was a cold battle going on in him between a benevolent and even elegant God and the God of arbitrary anger and unmerited predestinations.” Rutler does not believe he was an atheist as often stated by others. Rutler perceives Frost’s grandfatherly benignity as “a calculus of charity in the face of all these deep questions about God that had no resolution ion the flinty recesses of as Yankee mind.”

Richmond Lattimore attended church in Rosemont, Pennsylvania, where Rutler was the pastor. Lattimore was a scholarly model for Rutler long before they met. Lattimore, known as Dick, kept himself, as Rutler explains, immersed in ancient Greek studies. While in the US Navy during World War II, he wrote Sappho and Cattulus, and translated Homer, Aeschylus, and Virgil for his book War and the Poet. After his monumental translations of the Odyssey and the Iliad, Lattimore as Rutler puts it “Englished” the Four Gospels, the Book of Acts and Epistles, and the Revelation. While in the hospital recovering from surgery, Rutler quotes him as saying that his doubts about the Faith had disappeared somewhere in Saint Luke.

Among the royals, Rutler described Elizabeth Windsor as an Edwardian lady, who had been called the most dangerous woman in Europe by Hitler and flushed quiet approbation over the postwar sunset of the British Empire. However, he notes that she never made a public speech until her 100th birthday. As a respite from the lifelong treadmill of public events in crinolines and ostrich feathers, always smiling through migraines and aching feet, she would spend “Cold Highland hours in trout streams.” Rutler valued his occasional discussions with her over tea, or gin and sherry.

Rutler met with John Paul II (now St. John Paul II), many times during his seminary studies in Rome. He states that only after a year of meeting the pope on a visit, his parents converted. Rutler explained that he did appreciate his poetry or drama, and supposed what sounded turgid was lost in translation, as is almost the inevitable way with verse. It was tempting to neglect his paradoxes as romantic flights, too. Yet, Rutler concedes, in the reflected light of those Roman years, those of us who heard him were like the man on the Emmaus road, wander why he did not notice the sunset when all the while he was squinting at a sunrise.

Rutler first met Blessed Mother Teresa in 1980 when he was studying in Rome. In conversation with her, she always gave the impression that she has all the time in the world and the one she was speaking with was the only one in the world. Rutler recounted that once he arrived at the ancient church of St. Gregory with his cassock disheveled having been chased by a dog over a wall. Yet, Mother Teresa gave the impression upon seeing him that it was the normal way to prepare for Mass. However, Rutler also indicates there was nothing humbug about her, and she could give orders much as a US Marine sergeant and her counsel was pointed, but not piercing.

Rutler explains that his friend Avery Cardinal Dulles was from a family that claimed a Civil War general, two secretaries of state, including his father John Foster Dulles, and an uncle, Allen Dulles, who was the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. He decision to become a Jesuit priest confused his Presbyterian family. Perhaps his greatest impression on Rutler was not his conversion, but his authoring of 23 books and 800 tracts that exercised the critical faculties of disparate theological camps. He encouraged Rutler’s writing, inspiring a book on the history of many hymns. Rutler described him as follows, While his physical architecture was likened to Lincoln, the man was discerned in the details: from his conversion to the Faith when noticing the first spring blossom on a tree, to his intimate regard for all the ranks of people, never wasting on professional dialectic time that could be better spent discussing cookies with a rectory cook.

Rutler writes that Jean-Marie Lustiger, as a convert from Judaism, seemingly made him an unlikely Archbishop of Paris. His life in the clergy was rattled by lesser men on every side for whom he was not enough of this or that. Rutler knew Lustiger from his visits to New York, and noticed, on those occasions, an eloquent sadness in Lustiger that was “too ancient for any one race to claim.” His parents sent to Auschwitz Concentration Camp, he was protected by a Protestant family in Orleans with whom in he converted to Christianity.  Rutler states that when speaking at a 1999 public remembrance of deported and dead French Jews, including his mother, Lustiger spoke with a voice as old as Exodus and as old as the first day outside Eden.” He knew the heights depths of man, as well as the deadly shallows, and spoke of modern superficiality as the sentimental seed of dire cruelties.

Reviews of Rutler’s previous books consistently express the view that Rutler is a great writer and uses language beautifully. One reviewer once stated Rutler’s command of the English language was unequaled and a lesson in writing as an art form. He again demonstrates his extraordinary expertise as a writer in Cloud of Witnesses. /he is brilliant from start to finish. The book is an absolute pleasure to read.

The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training (ADST) is an independent, non-profit organization that advances the understanding of diplomacy and supports the training of foreign affairs personnel through a variety of programs and activities. As part of its Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, it has prepared thousands of transcripts of interview recorded with US Foreign Service veterans. These oral histories present the realities of diplomacy to include thought provoking, sometimes absurd, and often horrifying stories from which valuable lessons can be drawn.   ADST’s efforts have been very successful and Rutler in many ways mirrored that success with Cloud of Witnesses. Rutler’s vignettes may not be biographies, but they are nonetheless histories. They tell the history of the individuals, warts and all, as they relate to Rutler and the history of Rutler, himself.

Perhaps by allowing moments of calm and peace, Rutler gave himself a chance to reflect on his life and find what was really inside himself. After reading his sixty-six vignettes, readers might find encouragement to take inventory. They might consider who it was that influenced them. As for younger readers, reading Cloud of Witnesses will hopefully lead them to think more deeply about themselves and others they encounter.

Cloud of Witnesses would unlikely have been included on the summer reading lists of greatcharlie.com readers before the posting of this book review. However, it is hoped that after reading this review, the title will be added to everyone’s list. This book will be difficult to put down. It is a book that readers will think about when unable to continue reading it. Presumably, for most greatcharlie.com’s readers, reading books on foreign and defense policy is de rigueur. Cloud of Witnesses will be a much deserved respite, but at the same time it will intrigue and will have value to those interested in foreign and defense policy. There is nothing disappointing about the book. Without reservations, greatcharlie.com recommends Cloud of Witnesses to its readers.

By Mark Edmond Clark