Book Review: "The Cardinal in the Chancery...."

This is a book that no one reads. It was published by Vantage Press, a vanity publisher, who will publish anything you write if you pay them to do it. Alfred Puhan, the author, is a retired U.S. Foreign Service officer whose last assignment was as Ambassador to Hungary in the late 1960s. The prose is not inspired.

Having said that, there are interesting parts of it, and in particular, the following:

1. Puhan was born in East Prussia (now Poland, near Gdansk) and lived there until he was twelve. His description of life in an East Prussian village in the early 1920s is interesting, as is his adolescence in Sandwich, Illinois, a farming community where his uncle had moved and prospered. His post-Sandwich life at Oberlin College, Columbia graduate school, as a budding academic, and employee of Voice of America were less interesting.

2. His posting in Austria during the time period when the four occupying powers reached an agreement for an independent Austria was interesting, although he was not at the highest level. But his explanation of the workings of the representatives of the USSR, USA, Britain and France in the only occupied country to emerge unified, and not communistic was interesting.

3. His posting in Thailand was interesting only to him, but when he was posted back in Washington and became the State Department's Germany expert was fascinating as he was growing in influence and coming into contact with American foreign policy big-wigs as well as European leaders.

4. This culminated in his years in Hungary as ambassador, during the time that Janos Kadar was liberalizing this communist country, and during the final years when Cardinal Mindszenty, who had been living in the American embassy in Budapest since 1956. Puhan negotiated the departure of the Cardina in 1971, and the description of those involved in these conversations was worth the price I paid for the book ($2). I recall when Mindszenty was living in the embassy, but only through this book learned what a difficult guest he was, avoiding socializing with the Americans or anyone else for the fifteen years he was our guest. Puhan reports that the Cardinal's gratitude for the sanctuary was offset by his detestation of Woodrow Wilson, on whom he put the blame of all of Hungary's troubles following World War II.

One more thing. Puhan dedicates the book to his grandchildren, so he will leave them his legacy. But, throughout the book, maybe he mentions his grandchildren once and his two children no more than twice. He does talk about their mother, Fairfax (whom he calls Fair), and in particular their courtship. As time went by, though, his comments about his wife (who seemed always to be with him) were limited to "my marriage continued to fall apart". Finally, at the age of 64, and after 31 years of marriage, he determines to divorce his wife (he had no choice, he said), much to her consternation, and to marry (on the day his divorce becomes final) his Budapest embassy secretary. After he retires from the Foreign Service, he and his new wife retire to Sarasota, where they (apparently) lived happily ever after. Sort of weird.

Was this book worth reading? Yeah.

But was it worth a blog book review? Probably not.