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Washington Goes to War

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By sheer coincidence, I read Ben Bradlee's memoir, A GOOD LIFE, Andy Rooney's MY WAR and David Brinkley's WASHINGTON GOES TO WAR in immediate succession.

Each of these books covers a different aspect of America's involvement in World War II. Taken as a grouping, these three may be the definitive report of the social history of the moment, as impacted by that War. Obviously, Tom Brokaw's book of individual reminiscences, THE GREATEST GENERATION, must be included with this list as well.

In common with all of these others, David Brinkley, too, is an excellent writer who makes history lively and interesting. As with each of the other books mentioned in this group, WASHINGTON GOES TO WAR can stand alone on its own merits. Yet each of these books gains synergistically by being read in tandem with the others.

This was a fascinating moment in modern history, and David Brinkley tells tales that most readers would have no other way of learning.

I am only 17 years old but when I was reading this book I felt like I really knew the world that Brinkley was talking about. Ashley in DC

In 1940 Washington, DC was a town that hosted our national government. By the end of 1945 it was a city and the central focus of a government that managed the sixteen million men and women in uniform who fought the Second World War and the other millions who supported the effort at home.

This required office space, housing, entertainment and above all people, people, people. More people than anyone imagined could be supported in our ten mile square federal district.

David Brinkley saw the transformation first hand. People and buildings could literally not be deployed fast enough in our nation's capitol city to keep up with the demands of World War. The effort to accomodate this change is an interesting story told well by the author. The pace and magnitude of change is fascinating to behold. One wonders how the bureaucracy that took a 250,000 man fighting force from wooden training rifles to the millions who had 50,000 aircraft alone to deploy against our enemies were able to undertake this phenominal expansion in reasonably good order. As Brinkley tells it, it was part good old American "can-do" attitude coupled with a near unanimous belief in our mission and dedication to winning the war.

Somehow the City, and the people responsible for running its only true industry (government) managed the task and its transformation fairly well.

Brinkley is a good story teller, and his chronicle of how Washington changed during the war years is also the story of America coming of age. He brings a fresh descriptive narrative to what turns out to be a pretty interesting story.

I found this book very interesting. As someone who is currently living in the D.C area, I was fascinated to travel back in time while reading this book and picture how D.C. has become what it is today. There is much to learn in this book especially about Roosevelt's presidency and the turmoil around the war and it is presented in a very fun, easy to read style. I recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn about the development of our nation's capitol.

Living in DC, this book make you really think about what was once going on around the place where you live. This novel is about the mentality that people had during World War II, and what it meant to be living in the nations capital. The stories really let you into the minds of the characters, and how hard life could be sometimes. There was a lot going on in Washington, and it is amazing that such pure history can be so interesting to read.

"Washington Goes to War" is an extremely insightful and interesting book. It provides a unique view of history. I learned things that I could never have found in a text book. The book often dealt with individuals and how they had an impact on the whole, rather than just explaining events. I learned a great deal about what Washington was like during the time surrounding WWII and how that connects to what is like today. I also learned a lot about WWII and how Roosevelt dealt with issues he was confronted with. I definitely recommend this book to people who want to see the personal side of history rather than just the facts.

David Brinkley's well known dry wit here mixes with his delight in all things human to produce one of the finest books on wartime life 'back home'. Moreover, with the possible exception of Gore Vidal, few writers have given us a sharper look in any age at the doings within and around our nation's capital.

Brinkley was there when Washington left behind forever its previous role as a quiet government town living at a Southern pace, and morphed suddenly into a bustling wartime metropolis. Washington suddenly was engulfed in hundreds of thousands of new workers, all desperately seeking housing that simply didn't exist. This population explosion ceated a crazy shortage, where tens of thousands of newly hired government workers slept in different shifts in the same constantly used beds, inside row upon row of uncomfortable temporary thrown-up quarters.

Here is Brinkley on the fundamental changes air conditioning wrought;

"...by the late 1930's some members (of Congress) had discovered the comforts of the air conditioning in the Fox, the Capitol, the Earle and the RKO Keith movie theaters downtown. They asked to have cool air pumped into the House and Senate chambers and into their office buildings across the street. And so, in 1938, the United States Congress made a fateful decision that a few of the more canterkerous members said foretold the collapse of the Republic. It installed air conditioning. With its chambers and offices cool and pleasant, some predicted, Congress would stay in session all year and pass the additional time making even longer and more tiresome speeches, enacting more laws, spending more money and running the national debt still higher. Longer sessions, they said, would mean more government and more taxes, more forms for the people to fill out and more bureaucrats hired to read and file them...(the Senate) was a gentleman's club with but one woman senator, Hattie Caraway of Arkansas, who sat in the chamber every day, knitting, listening and saying nothing."

Or this line, presaging today's, "A Crisis is a terrible thing to waste."

Quotes Brinkley of Senator Vandenberg in his diary, "The worst of it (The usurption of Congressional authority by FDR's endless wartime agencies) is that there is still a substantial New Deal sector in high places which will constantly think of the war in terms of new opportunites for further New Deal experiments."

Brinkley writes with a fine journalist's sharp eye for concrete details - names, places and dates all mix together the anecdotal and the factual in a swirling tempo of good writing and delightfully engaging story-telling. He manages the remarkable feat of making something interesting out of the drab universe of Washington's Alphabet agencies, endless bureaus, and engulfing confusion of regulations and petty political interests.

Most impressive of all is Brinkley's unflinching writing on the conditions faced by Washington's largest citizen group - the thousands of poor blacks struggling to survive in ghettos all but under the shadow of the Capitol dome.

One of the best American memoirs I've ever read.

Highest recommendation!

For a humorous take on the Washington wartime housing shortage, consider watching George Stevens film, "The More the Merrier" with Jean Arthur, Joel McCrea and an Oscar-winning supporting performance by Charles Coburn as industrialist matchmaker "Mr. Dingle". The More the Merrier There is also a hilarious play from the period on the housing shortage, "The Doughgirls", made into an farcical film (1944) starring Ann Sheridan, Alexis Smith and featuring a wildly zanic performance by Eve Arden as a Russian woman sniper who takes midnight strolls back and forth with rifle between Washington and Baltimore!

Imagine, being able to eat your lunch on the White House lawn! This was once possible. David Brinkley brings out the humor and silliness as well as seriousness of the storm clouds of approaching war. As he descirbed it, Washington was not like New York or Paris. It was a sleepy Southern town, that just happened to be the HQ of the Federal Government. Anyone interested in American history will have fun with this book. Much of it is downright funny. The diplomats who wont talk to each other is like scenes out of the movie Casablanca. The woman who was told by the Sanitation Dept. to get rid of her bricks by leaving them on the bus. I reread bits of the book when I need a laugh. Keep Washington Goes to War in a Prominent Place.

Life in Washington, DC, and how it changed during the years of World War II. Brinkley says in the preface that the book "is less a work of history than of personal reminiscence and reflection"; I'd go so far as to call it gossip. It's pretty much nothing but a collection of anecdotes, but without an index(!) you can't even go through it looking for anecdotes about any one specific person. Some parts were interesting to read--the stuff about the move to income tax withholding, which I didn't know about before, for instance--but once only at most, no replay value.

David Brinkley was born in 1920 Wilmington NC and wrote for his hometown newspaper while still in high school. After Army service he joined NBC News and became famous on television, winning many awards. This book is journalism, not history, in covering the many colorful characters that flourished in what was a sleepy provincial town. This helps to understand life in those days. The 'Acknowledgments' mentions the many who helped; Charles Curtis and Clifford Sloan began gathering this material. There is no 'Index'. 'A Note on Sources' mentions the others who contributed to this book. If "history books" tend to concentrate on names, dates, and battles this is an addition or correction. It is interesting and worth reading even if it is necessarily incomplete ("my own observations and experiences").

In 1941 an ordinary citizen could walk into the White House grounds (p.84). The story on page 43 about the Enigma coding machine differs from other published accounts and seems improbable but colorful. Before the war Washington shut down for summer (p.194). Air-conditioning later allowed year-round operations. Commuting to work was difficult for many. The local Washington newspapers were mostly against Roosevelt and the New Deal. Housing was difficult given the expansion of the population (p.231). Tires were scarce, gasoline, food, and clothing were rationed. Congress had (and still has) its perquisites (p.195). The President and the military got all the money and power they asked for (p.196). What was the average Congressman like (p.206)? [Shouldn't that date be "February 1942" (p.211)?] Brinkley describes the older system of paying income taxes (pp.216-217). The Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank proposed paying taxes by payroll deductions (p.217). [Today the FED still gets this cash.]

The story on pages 233-235 seems like a personal experience. Chapter IX has some details of the housing shortages. [If peasants had pictures of Woodrow Wilson (p.255) it was because their countries gained independence after WW I.] The last chapter tells about FDR's final months. This memoir is a good addition to any history of the 1940s and is worth reading by itself. I suspect a lot was omitted to limit the pages.