Customer Reviews

Inside: A Public and Private Life

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This is a terrific memoir. More than that though, it enables the reader to see an insider's view of Washington from 1961 through the nineties.

Mr. Califano starts with his personal history through 16 years of Catholic education, then Harvard Law, the Navy and a brief stint in big firm NYC law practive. From there the book takes off with his life in the nations's capital.

Hired by Cy Vance, he moves on to McNamara and then becomes Johnson's deputy for domestic affairs. After the Johnson administration he went into private practice where he represented the Democratic Party through the McGovern debacle/convention and then the Washington Post through Watergate. Thence on to be the last Secretary of HEW. After his firing by Carter he returns to law and then to his own foundation/think tank to combat addictions of all types.

In addition to the professional bio he balances enough personal history to understand the man without violating his own and his family's privacy. To leave it as an autobiography would be a great disservice to this book.

Oftentimes when we seek to understand our government we go back into history - to Jefferson, Hamilton or either Roosevelt. One of the most meritorious aspects of this memoir is that it helps us to understand the workings of our government through the much more relevant history of the past three and a half decades. Because Mr. Califano was in close to the major domestic issues of this time period (he happily had nothing to do with Viet Nam), the reader can see and understand the inner workings of the government. When Johnson powered through his domestic agenda of civil rights and the Great Society, Califano was one of his prime engineers. It was easy to see, and Califano shapes this point well, that the government was a smaller more intimate, less partisan institution back then run by powerful men (almost exclusively) who were not reliant on special interest money.

The book is a dense 494 pages with not a wasted word or page. It would be too cumbersome to go through each and every interesting topic covered in this book. As interesting as the topics covered is the viewpoint of the author.

Mr. Califano is a conservative Catholic with liberal politics. As liberal as he is and as religious as he is - both by his own admission - there was no agenda to this memoir.

There are lessons, however. One of the lessons he learned best from his Jesuit upbringing and he passes to the reader is the burden we all should share of social service. He obviously sees social service as a higher calling. Even when he was minting money in private practice of law he found the most satisfying cases those with social impact. He also made friend on both sides of politics. One would not expect such a liberal to count as a best friend Al Haig, but he does. The philosophy of doing battle during the day and remaining cordial and gentlemanly also came through loud and clear.

Mr. Califano could well have come off preachy or holier than thou, yet he did not at all. He espoused his philosophies without being demagogic and was never reluctant to admit his mistakes, short-comings and foibles.

This is a terrific book about an interesting man who lived through the most interesting domestic events of the 60's, 70's and 80's (most of the book centered on the 90's was more personal than historic). It is well-told and captivating. I consider myself politically conservative and I enjoyed every page of it. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys autobiographies and is interested in the seminal domestic events of the sixties to nineties.

I heard Mr. Califano on the radio plugging his book and eagerly sought it out. To me, a disappointment. The merits of his accomplishment - and they are many - aside, the book struck me as just a bit too self serving. It may be my frame of reference - I tend to be more middle of the road, he a bit more liberal. And as in the commercial, "Where's the beef" I'm not certain that all the programs he initiated and helped found have stood the test of time. The Great Society, for example, is far from achieving the wonderfully lofty goals it proclaimed. But perhaps I quibble.

Of very great concern to me, however is his profession of faith and how he sensed that it "guided" him so often in his career and personal life. His explanation of his annulment in the Catholic church and how it could not be considered a "Catholic divorce" left me more than a little puzzled. Words have a way of shaping reality and if nothing else, Mr. Califano is a master at that.

His is, I believe, very good view from a participant in history - the Nixon section was to my way of thinking fair and balance. But overall, the book to me was a let down.

I share some things with Califano, the same potical beliefs, faith and concern for this country's drug abuse problems. Califano brings his experiences in governmant to life, particularly his interaction with heros like Lyndon Johnson and Robert McNamara. He is fair with Jimmy Carter, who fired the author as Secratary of HEW. Interesting people like Edward Bennett Williams, Art Buchwald, Bill Paley (his father in law) and Mario Cuomo (not to best advantage) also appear; Califano knows them all. He also discusses his childhood and education, with emphasis on pride in being an Irish-Italian Catholic.

About two thirds through the book, I concluded that Califano
was telling to like it was -- but always with the skill of a great lawyer and bureaucrat. In other word, you are hearing his side of the story. Califano spends a chapter discussing his reluctance to seek an annulment from his first marriage. It is a wonderful chapter, touching on all aspects of a very difficult decision. Wonderfully told and moving, until you realize that Califano merely states, without explaining, that all three of his children from the first marriage did not attend his church wedding to his second wife (they had been married in a civil ceremony 7 years earlier).

I would still recommend the book; it's tough to put down because you never know what's coming next. Califano, at age 60, is advised by Lady Bird Johnson to work and play hard for the next 15 years because energy starts to flag after that -- great advice that Califano follows despite bouts of cancer. (Califano does not mention Lady Bird's recent victory over the history channel in geeting the channel to retract a program on LBJ's part in the JFK assassination - one wonders if he was partly responsible for the victory.)
getting

What is it to be a Washington insider? Consider this quote ': "? no legal fee can be too high for a large corporation with billions at stake on a phrase in the law ?" Meet Joe Califano: simultaneously General Counsel to the Democratic National Convention and Outside Counsel to the Washington Post during Watergate; and the reason you can't smoke in public.

Joe Califano's career as a Washington insider began as a member of the Kennedy administration and continues to this day as that most celebrated but shadowy of creatures, the Washington insider. His book is a very personal account, easily read, of a man who has exercised power and enjoyed himself doing it. His is a quintessentially American not-quite-rags to riches story, the result of hard work and dedication. A heroic figure to many (and quite pleased with himself), Joe Califano is also a card carrying member of the society of arch devils who comprised Liberal America in its pre-Reagan heyday.

Raised by a devout family, in a devout milieu, Califano attributes much of his social consciousness to his strict Catholic upbringing; Catholicism takes up a good part of the beginning of the book and a very large part of all of Califano's life; repeatedly woven into the story are the strength his faith gave him and the wrenching conflicts it forced him to face.

Switching from the reflexively anti-communistic Republicanism of his family, and while working for Republican Tom Dewey's law firm, Joe's policy instincts were first evident in his early support for Jack Kennedy. Supporting JFK in debates at New York City's Reform Democratic Clubs, he recalls "In all my debates, I was never able to capture a single vote for Kennedy". Which led directly to his becoming one of McNamara's "whiz kids" in the new administration, the springboard for all that followed.

He describes a level of intensity and excitement in his first days, in the depths of the Cold War, akin to what was ascribed to the early members of the New Deal administration: idealism, energy, commitment and controversy. A sample of the issues he faced:

- Reforming the military administration at the Pentagon
- Army protection of civil rights and enforcement of desegregation as Army Chief Cyrus Vance's special assistant
- Bay of Pigs, Cuban Missile Crisis, Fidel Assassination plots
- Kennedy burial duties
- Lawyer before an international tribunal on riots in Panama Canal Zone

At first reluctant to work for Lyndon Johnson after Kennedy's assassination, he came to admire the man's programs and the man himself; because of his intelligence, because of his abilities as a politician, and because Califano passionately believed in The Great Society programs which he was eventually to run as Johnson's domestic policy advisor. If a mentor is someone whose influence is evident throughout later life, Johnson was Califano's mentor. Califano's role working with Johnson was central to the making of who Califano later became; all else was prologue or epilogue.

Hate it or love it, Califano was the at the center of the greatest domestic legislative storm of our generation. He loved it: "? to me the public legacy of those years was nothing short of a revolution that saved the Nation ?"

Following the 1968 Democratic Convention fiasco (the Chicago 7, Abbey Hoffman, et al) and Nixon's election, all the strains imposed by Lyndon Johnson's divisive social activism and the unpopular war in Vietnam threatened to rip the Democratic Party apart despite its continuing dominance of Congress.

The 1972 Democratic Presidential nominating convention was a huge fight with McGovern's anti-war politics vs. Richard Daley's machine politics. These days, the convention is just a party but then it actually chose the candidate and a terrible battle ensued. Just as the Democratic Party seemed to be slipping into its grave, Califano filed a little-noticed lawsuit resulting from a little-noticed break-in at the DNC headquarters which would ultimately result in stoking the fires further but which probably saved the party from destruction, giving it a role as loyally opposed to governmental abuse.

When Jimmy Carter became president, he named Califano to head the sprawling Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) where many of LBJ's Great Society programs were located. It had gotten a well-deserved reputation for waste and incompetence and Califano saw it as an opportunity to strike another blow for "his" programs. Califano is openly contemptuous of Carter's na?vet? and felt that success was impossible as a result. Obsessed with detail and not open to compromise, Carter contrasted very unfavorably with LBJ's great skill as a domestic politician.

Some of the issues facing HEW Secretary Califano:

- Handicapped access
- Title IX collegiate women's sports
- Federally-funded abortions
- Sterilization
- Recombinant DNA
- Fetal Research
- Hospice

Califano's greatest contribution and his ultimate demise was his anti-smoking campaign. Commonplace today, no-smoking areas were both unusual and highly controversial then.

Califano's differences with Carter and his inner circle led to Califano's resignation in 1979. Carter was looking forward to the 1980 election and he desperately needed the tobacco interests in the South which Califano had alienated.

Califano has been out of the limelight for decades and he describes his displeasure with this state of affairs. He's been making money, doing and repaying favors, getting remarried to a rich socialite; all of which he describes with a style that makes you feel you know him. His restlessness led him finally to retire from the practice of law and devote all of his energies to founding and running the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. He describes his various encounters with the evils of addition, and he has decided to devote his considerable energy and resources to fighting it.

Apparently, the Secretary of Health, etc. neglected ever to get a colonoscopy and in 1993 he had bloody stool and now he has a considerably less lengthy colon. Almost immediately thereafter, he also discovered rather advanced prostate cancer. Ten years later, he seems still to be going strong and whatever difficulties he now faces because of his physical problems, they have not impaired his ability to write an interesting book about his exceptional life.

Obviously, 490 pages is not enough to cover a life of more than 70 years encyclopedically, but Joesph Califano's autobiography seems almost that thorough by the time the reader is finished. The memoir reads with an energy that carries the reader from Califano's upbringing, his Roman Catholic elementary and secondary education under the rubrics of the Baltimore Catechism, Holy Cross college and Harvard Law School, through private law practices, the administrations of Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Carter, two marriages, cancer treatments, and the establishment of the National Center on Addition and Substance Abuse. That all of this fits into one volume, along with some significant reflection, is impressive. That it all is the true story of one person's life, is inspiring.

As a progressive protestant, I do wish Califano had engaged in more critical reflection on his Roman Catholic faith, seeing his questions as seeds for growth in understanding. Perhaps unfortunately, he tends to view his questions as doubts overcome, with his traditional faith reinforced. But his traditional faith has made many lives better in this country so the disappointment is largely outweighed by admiration. As a spiritual autobiography, using the framework of James Fowler's seminal Stages of Faith, Califano might very well stand in stage 3 where many great leaders and servants have stood.

This book is a substantive undertaking for the reader, but they will most certainly feel rewarded at the completion of this memoir of a great American.

This is a fascinating, candid memoir of a pioneer of Washington's `revolving door' of public service and political and special interest advocacy. The author entered public service under Cyrus Vance in the Kennedy administration and ascended to prominence under McNamara and Lyndon Johnson. Returning to private practice with LBJ's retirement, he became general counsel of the Democratic National Committee in turbulent times and went on to play a critical role in exposing Watergate (filing the DNC suit against CREEP and representing the Washington Post). Restored to public office by Carter as HEW secretary, he was fired for launching the first anti-smoking campaign, and again returned to private practice.

Califano recounts a vast, rare, firsthand panorama of his time (Roman Catholic Brooklyn roots, Jesuit education and Harvard, Fidel Castro, Cuban exile training, the death of JFK, Robert Kennedy, the civil rights movement, the Great Society, Vietnam, Col. David Hackworth, post-LBJ Democratic party factionalism, the Washington Post and Watergate, Agnew and Nixon resignations, corrupt judges, Alexander Haig, Carter's administration, tobacco interests, political fundraising, corporate advocacy and board membership, Lee Iacocca, etc). The anecdotes alone are well worth the price of the book.

As might be expected in any long and varied life, contradictions surface. The author deplores the increasing influence of money and special interests in government, but revels in his mastery of both worlds citing Clark Clifford as a role model ("I aspired to be the next Clark Clifford. Clifford...set the standard for practicing law as an ultimate Washington insider. He dispensed wisdom, advised clients in deep trouble in Washington, saved their skins, or won for them laws or regulations worth enormous sums of money. In the process, Clifford amassed a personal fortune and advised Democratic presidents and House and Senate leaders. I had learned that no legal fee can be too high for a large corporation with billions at stake on a phrase in a law or the timing of a regulation. CEOs...dependent on solving some Washington problem, were eager for the sort of help I could provide."). Clifford ended in disgrace in the BCCI scandal.

Califano adopts addiction as a crusade, but admits instrumentality in postponing valium classification as a potential dependant drug (earning $500,000 from Pfizer and regretting not asking for twice as much). Watergate is rightly described as an illegal disgrace, but matched with the author's amoral view that Nixon should have burned the tapes (later offered directly to Nixon by partner Ed Williams). Carter is portrayed as an impotent outsider cornered by tobacco interests, yet justly acknowledged for his Camp David Accords. Religion (a touchstone of his life) is admirably described, yet his first marriage is uncharacteristically blurred (the chronology is unclear and no image of his first wife appears despite ample illustrations -almost as if the memory is still too painful).

I enjoyed this (hardcover) book in 2004. No better account of Washington's `revolving door' exists. If anything, it's lessons (and contradictions) loom even larger after the longest and most expensive presidential campaign in history.

Those interested in the subject may also want to consult `Friends in High Places' by Douglas Frantz and David McKean (Little, Brown 1995) for the tragic life of Clark Clifford and `The Power House" by Susan B. Trento (St. Martin's Press 1992) for the life of master-lobbyist Robert Keith Gray of Hill & Knowlton (the firm that advised Metropolitan Edison to install a special hotline after Three Mile Island and take the phone off the hook, as well as guiding George HW Bush through the first Gulf War).

I have immensely enjoyed reading Mr. Califano's memoir. He is quite candid in his assessments, even when his candor doesn't reflect well on him or his decisions taken while in public service. (A lot more candor from today's public officials would be most welcome.) Most Americans will not have a clue about the almost Zelig-like presence of Mr. Califano when important policy decisions were being formulated beginning with the Johnson administration and continuing through the Carter years. This book should be recommended reading for all those studying Public Administration and for any person interested in understanding the ways of the Federal government. Bravo!

Inside is the most interesting memoir that I have read in many years. I strongly encourage anyone who is interested in how to do the right thing while under tremendous pressure to do the opposite to study this book. I also recommend giving this book as a gift to young people who want to pursue professional and public lives, as a study from which they can learn much. If you are a Democrat, you will be especially interested in the inner workings of how many critical events occurred. If you are not a Democrat, you will be fascinated by the misdeeds of some Democrats while they were in office. If you are skeptical of government power, you will find lots of examples of unwarranted abuse. If you like juicy stories that you haven't heard before, you will find this book full of them.

Most people today have no idea who Joe Califano is of why he is important to American history. But if you tell people that he was legal counsel to the Army under Cyrus Vance and Robert McNamara, personal assistant to McNamara while he was Secretary of Defense, ran President Johnson's campaign to develop the social changes incorporated in the Great Society (including the elimination of government-sponsored racial discrimination), and was Secretary of HEW for President Carter (where he took ending discrimination much further, added important health reforms such as taking on smoking and began reforming the way HEW was administered), it's impressive. But there's more. He was also counsel to the Washington Post during the Watergate investigation and ended up being involved in both President Nixon's resignation and that of Vice President Agnew. His private clients have included many of the most important companies in the country. His law partner was Edward Bennett Williams, perhaps the most famous litigator of his generation.

But that's all beside the point, to me. Mr. Califano is of most significance for his candor in explaining his religious faith and how he has tried to follow it while walking the corridors of power and pursuing a challenging private life. It hasn't been easy, and he hasn't always done what he later felt to be the right thing. But he tells you where he thinks he did right . . . and where he went wrong. Other legendary insiders (like Justice Fortas and Clark Clifford) ended up their careers with a cloud over them. Mr. Califano seems to have avoided that path by increasingly taking up the challenges of public service in a disinterested, pro bono way. His latest focus is on a private foundation to help locate and eliminate the causes of addiction. I thought that the lessons he shared are important and timeless ones for us all.

Although the book is long, the prose is spare. He only provides enough information so you get the main point. He's lived through enough important events to fill 10 lives . . . and he seems to keep it all in perspective.

As a person who also graduated from Harvard Law School and found corporate law in a law firm to be less than thrilling, I appreciated his candor about the appeal of taking on challenges where you can make a difference in the world.

As President Kennedy said, "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country." Clearly, Mr. Califano has met that standard.

They say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Well if that is true then LBJ was the Chief Engineer and Joseph Califano was Chief Architect. LBJ was arguably the worst president in American history and Califano was his right hand man. These memoirs, while honest and well written, are irrelevant due to his relationship to the disastrous effects that resulted from the Great Society. As a Washington super insider for much of his career Califano represents everything that was/is wrong with modern politics and why the majority of eligible voters don?t bother to vote. Corruption is only one problem in Washington (albeit a major one). However, Califano, like G.W. Bush is proving now, demonstrates that a seemingly moral man with lots of power and little capacity for critical thought and understanding of the true issues and solutions can be just as dangerous as the crooks. A 512-page apology for injecting an unrecoverable dose of collectivism into US domestic policy making and creating the welfare state would have been more appropriate.