Customer Reviews

One Step from the White House: The Rise and Fall of Senator William F. Knowland

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" Big Bill " Knowland is the " forgotten man' among the titans of post-war (and Cold war) American politics. Now, thanks to this compassionate, richly detailed biography,people might come to a better understanding of this very able, but tragically flawed , human being. This book also sheds light on the careers of LBJ, Nixon, Eisenhower, Earl Warren, Ronald Reagan , and Barry Goldwater, among others. However, even the reader uninterested in American politics, or the history of California, will find this book fascinating. Knowlands personal tragedies, and the amazing story of his family, are the stuff, if not of Greek tragedy, then at least of a novel by James Gould Couzzens or John O'Hara. Indeed, attentive readers might be reminded of "The Magnificent Ambersons", the real-life Knowlands in Oakland were very much like Tarkington's ( and Welles) fictional Ambersons, in Indianapolis.

I knew Senator Knowland well, having worked for twenty years for the Oakland Tribune, and having had the unenviable assignment of writing his obituary for the newspaper following his death. Gayle Montgomery and Jim Johnson have done a magnificent job of capturing the driving demons of a man whose brusque and hearty demeanor disguised a complex and, in the end, tortured personality. This is a compelling book for every reader, not just those interested in the social an political history of the time.

Gayle B. Montgomery and James W. Johnson have presented an excellent book on the complex life of Senator William F. Knowland. This book is great history of California and the (SF) East Bay Area;the Republican Party of the 1950's and the Oakland Tribune. Daniel Wyatt, the author of the life of Bill Knowland's father, Joseph Russell Knowland.

One Step from the White House is a very satisfying, well-written biography of a pivotal figure in both post-World War II U.S. political history as well as 20th century San Francisco Bay Area history. The book chronicles William Fife Knowland's life in a straight-forward narrative from his 1908 birth to his suicide in 1974. Knowland's life makes a compelling story -- from his early days as the favorite son of a politically ambitious father, to his Senate years as a strong voice for the Republican Party's conservative wing, to his self-destructive golden years. Montgomery and Johnson allow the story to unfold slowly and tell itself without too much analysis or summary. While this style gives the book good narrative momentum as the reader becomes more and more familiar with Knowland, this sometimes analysis-free style resulted in this reader wondering how certain events came about, such as Knowland's meteoric rise in the Republican Senate leadership. The book is also too "soft" on its subject for a post-Watergate era political biography. While the author's introductory remarks thanking the Knowland family for their confidence and trust seem polite and appropriate, they ultimately reveal an excessive concern for the subject's descendants at the expense of the story at hand. When Montgomery and Johnson do impose some analysis on the story, it is sometimes unconvincing. The most prominent example of this is naming the book "One Step from the White House," clearly an appropriate title for a biography of Thomas Dewey or Hubert Humphrey, but the author's do not successfully sell its applicability to Knowland. In spite of such lapses, Montgomery and Johnson deliver a effective chronicle of a fascinating man and flawed man.

... The story is truly an American tragedy. Knowland in today's political world would have been much different, and he would not have had to lead a double life. He was a victim of his times.