Customer Reviews

Turmoil and Triumph My Years As Secretary of State

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This is one of those rare memoirs that combine ease of reading, common sense, and substantive greatness. Much much easier to absorb that Henry's Kissinger's turgid prose.

Although no longer in print, there are a number of copies floating around, and as long as I was using the book for a new article on strategic intelligence, I thought I would offer up my notes from the flyleaf for the Amazon community. My page numbers are from the 1993 hard cover edition.

Secretary Shultz is a former Marine and says early on in the book that his wife is part of a "package deal."

Some extremely thoughtful views on competition in the information age, and very strong explicit angry statements against the "cult of secrecy." Clearly understands the revolution in communications and information technology. p 18

Has some real issues with flaws in raw open source information loaded with unfiltered bias. p. 26

First director of OMB, p. 29, does not evince concerns over the disappearance of the Management function over the years.

Crisis management still not making proper use of open sources of information including commercial imagery, p. 44

CIA under Bill Casey too independent and unreliable. p. 50

Diplomatic "gardening" consists of SecState visiting counterparts on their home turf. p. 128

Vatican intelligence, p. 150

Emphasis throughout on values, integrating cultural policy, cultural strategy, cultural warfare

Firehose of information, nothing offered by intelligence or by information technology managers helped deal with it. p. 272

CIA "wild plan" for Surinam, p. 297

CIA "out of control" in mining Nicaraguan harbors, p. 307

Faulty intelligence to the President, p. 312

Intelligence pattern over time: first alarming and then vague, -. 425

On Strategic Defense Initiative, going to a briefing only to be asked, "Is the Secretary cleared?" Dumbfounded by this. p. 492

"So much for our intelligence" faulty biography on Soviet Premier Tikhonov, p. 493

State/Schultz versus Defense/Weinberger "poison" sapped government cohesion, p. 498

Security reviews, ridiculous impositions, p. 544

CIA botches Yurchenko, p. 595

Intelligence cooking the books, p. 619

Bottom line: Intelligence let this Secretary of State down, and does not appear to have gotten any more competent since then despite a doubling of its budget from $25M to $50M or more (some estimates suggest $70B total).

If you are interested in grand strategy, unified national security (using ALL of the instruments of national power wisely), and the vagaries of a really rotten Presidential inter-agency management process, this book is well worth buying used.

This book is certainly a landmark in political autobiography: not only for its sheer size (1138 pages excluding the bibliography ) but also for its depth of knowledge and information on foreign policy during the Reagan era. The prose can be tedious and the detail at times is exhaustive, but the book is priceless and could serve as an excellent source for anyone interested in politics in general. Highly recommended.

George Shultz was one of the best Secretaries of State America has ever had. He was the foreign policy brains of the Reagan Cabinet- and President Reagan trusted him completely with many critical decisions which helped shape the Reagan Revolution and change the course of American foreign policy for years to come. Shultz is an extremely talented, intelligent, worldly wise economist (he has a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago) who served as Labor Secretary for President Nixon and has advised many Presidents since then. His choice to be Reagan's Secretary of State (after Reagan relived Alexander Haig following his infamous "I'm in control" statement regarding Reagan's narrow esacpe from being assassinated) was one the best decisions he made as President.

Shultz discusses in detail his many foreign policy initiatives, their foundations, strategies and implementation. His interaction with Gromyko and other Soviet counterparts is legendary- his cool, calm demeanor during times when the Cold War could have erupted into a bomb-launching nihilist world campaign- caused even his detractors to admire him. In the PBS documentary on Reagan in their Presidential series, Shultz recalls the meeting Reagan had with Gorbachev at Rejkavic- and says the meeting which was then viewed as a disaster was actually a turning point in the Cold War. Reagan's steely resolve at Rejkavic, not agreeing to dump plans for the Strategic Defense Initiative (missile defense shield) was interpreted as a major accomplishment- but not until years later. It showed the Russians that Reagan was a tough, serious politician, principled, pragmatic and one with a solid, strong core set of values which he would not compromise. Shultz helped Reagan all along the way- and Reagan deeply appreciated his advice.

I met George Shultz at the great restaurant Dobson's in downtown San Diego when he was there in the Summer of 1996 during the Republican National Convention. I was stunned to actually shake the hand of this great man- and later sent him my copy of "Turmoil and Triumph" for his autograph, a book which I now treasure in my private collection. Shultz was part of many critical decisions during the turbulent 1980's- the time when thousands of nuclear peace activists were convinced that Reagan was ready to "push the button" and kill us all. Yet, it was Reagan who reached the most important set of treaties with the Soviets reducing nuclear arms, establishing a new course in world relations. Shultz should be credited with saving our country- and the world- from nuclear disaster, along with Reagan and the team that changed the course of history.

-Gene Pisasale
Author, "Lafayette's Gold- The Lost Brandywine Treasure" and
"Vineyard Days"

I ordered a book from Bingofred1. The book apparently arrived at my post office but was sent back by the post office to Bingofred1 as I was out on deployment for several months and unable to retrieve the book. I emailed Bingofred1 asking them to resend me the book that I had paid for but they refused. I would appreciate Bingofred1 resending me the book that I paid for. Until then I would be wary of ordering from them.