The great rift Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, and the broken friendship that defined an era

Jim Mann, 1946-

Book - 2020

"A sweeping history of the intertwined careers of Dick Cheney and Colin Powell, whose rivalry and conflicting views of U.S. national security color our political debate to this day. Dick Cheney and Colin Powell emerged on the national scene more than thirty years ago, and it is easy to forget that they were once allies. It was Cheney who pressed for Powell's appointment as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, over the initial skepticism of the White House. And the two men collaborated closely in the successful American wars in Panama and Iraq during the George H. W. Bush administration, riding together in joyous victory parades. But from that pinnacle, conflicts of ideology and sensibility drove Cheney and Powell apart. Under Ge...orge W. Bush, they fell into ever-deepening conflict. Cheney personified the idea that America should use its unrivaled power to reorder the world, using military force and ignoring objections from its longstanding allies. Powell believed that the United States should operate through diplomacy as much as possible, relying on the alliances it had forged. In this wide-ranging and deeply researched reassessment of these two major figures, James Mann explores each man's biography and philosophical predispositions to show how and why this deep and permanent rupture occurred. Through dozens of original interviews and surprising revelations from presidential archives, he brings to life the very human story of how this influential friendship turned so sour and how their enmity colored the way America acts in the world."--

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Subjects
Genres
Biographies
Published
New York : Henry Holt and Company 2020.
Language
English
Main Author
Jim Mann, 1946- (author)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
x, 416 pages ; 25 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN
9781627797559
  • Preface
  • Part 1. Indispensable
  • 1. Useful Young Men
  • 2. The Quiet Conservative
  • 3. Climbing the Ladder
  • 4. "Your Buddy, Colin"
  • Part 2. Forty-One
  • 5. Appointments
  • 6. The First Invasion
  • 7. A Much Bigger War
  • 8. Deciding Not to Go to Baghdad
  • 9. The Soviet Collapse
  • 10. Cheney's Blueprint
  • 11. Departures
  • Part 3. Interregnum
  • 12. On the Outside
  • 13. The Returns
  • Part 4. Forty-Three
  • 14. From the Very Start
  • 15. September 11 and Its Aftermath
  • 16. The Two Tribes
  • 17. The Nondecision
  • 18. The Road to Baghdad
  • 19. Chaos
  • Part 5. Dispensable
  • 20. Isolation
  • Epilogue
  • Notes
  • Acknowledgments
  • Index
Review by Kirkus Book Review

A useful review of the hard-right shift of U.S. foreign policy since the end of the Cold War, delivered via a comparative study of two of the seminal players.As Mann (George W. Bush, 2015, etc.) shows in this illuminating dual biography and history lesson, early on in their careers, Colin Powell and Dick Cheney both hitched their stars to top government insiders who helped propel them to the highest levels of power. Powell, the amiable, popular soldier, was an aide to both Frank Carlucci and Casper Weinberger at the Defense Department and National Security Councilbefore becoming national security adviser in 1987. Cheney, "the quiet conservative," became Donald Rumsfeld's aide during Gerald Ford's brief administration before assuming the role of White House chief of staff. Both men, notes the author, achieved stellar appointments during George H.W. Bush's administration and led a "good war" that expelled Iraq from Kuwait while agreeing, prudently, not to extend the war into Baghdad. Yet it was in George W. Bush's administration that the twoCheney as VP, Powell as secretary of statebegan to diverge in thinking and action. Cheney's "blueprint" was essentially to keep the U.S. as the world's dominant military superpower after the collapse of the Soviet Union and actively "block" any hostile rival. Powell maintained a centrist position and urged caution and restraint, especially regarding another war with Iraq. Cheney pushed for aggressive "antiterrorist measures," including the controversial and ultimately self-defeating "black sites" and "enhanced interrogation" measures, while Powell emphasized working with U.S. allies. Both men would develop their own "tribes" of followers. Yet, tragically, it was Powell who became the poster child for the invasion of Iraq, duped by U.S. intelligence into making a false casus belli of Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction. The friendship was over, and the split caused deep rifts in the country at large. Still, as Mann demonstrates thoroughly in his insightful dissection of their relationship, Powell was as complicit and eager a participant in the nation's disastrous ventures as Cheney.A significant work of American history. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.