Oops

Several months ago, I attended a fascinating lecture/book signing by Timothy Naftali, the new director of the Nixon Presidential Library. Held at the Spy Museum, he spoke about his new book, Khrushchev's Cold War, which he co-authored with Russian historian Aleksandr Fursenko. Based on newly released Kremlin archives, it told the story of the Kennedy-Khrushchev years from the Russian point of view, purporting to unravel what was really in the minds of the Soviet leaders, how they were misunderstanding us and how we were misunderstanding them. It was fascinating.

Today, I decided to go back to the Spy Museum for another booksigning lecture, this time about preparation for the invasion of North Africa by the Allies in 1942.

Much to my surprise, then, when I opened the Washington Post this morning, and found a review of the Khrushchev book. And much to my surprise, the review, by Michael Dobbs of the U.S. Institute of Peace who is writing a book about the same time period, was scathing.

Basically, although the Naftali book contained much new information (some from sources since re-closed), Dobbs claims that the book is short on accuracy. Very short on accuracy. He points out serious factual discrepencies between this book and a previous book by Naftali (for example, one individual was a Captain in one book and a Colonel in another, when he was in fact a Major; then there was an incident which one books tells of involving four submarines and the other book two submarines, but none of the ships are the same in both books). He also points out serious problems in the Russian material (Fursenko's responsibility) based on published versions and translations of some of the source material.

The problems were so widespread that the Post authorized Dobbs to contact the authors, something rarely done by reviewers. And, in fact, Naftali both admitted some mistakes and implied that he was unable to check the facts given him by Fursenko. Fursenko was less forthcoming.

This shows what happens when you collaborate with someone without sufficient safeguards, I guess. It may be a particular problem in dealing with Russian historians who were formerly part of the old Soviet intelligentsia.

Let's hope that "12 Apostles" does not suffer from the same deficiencies. Paris based American journalist Hal Vaughan narrated an interesting story, basically as follows:

FDR decided as early as 1940 that the U.S. would have to enter the war in Europe, and that this would be done first by wresting north Africa out of Axis hands, and then moving onto the European continent. In order to prepare the way, and to keep his preparation secret both from Congress and the American public, he recruited twelve individuals, working under the supervision of diplomat Robert Murphy, who under the guise of being involved in govenment regulation of American shipping, were able to map the country (we are talking about Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia) and set up clandestine partisan groups ready to spring into action, their goal being freeing France (all three countries were under French domination) from Vichy control.

The plans were successful, paving the way for the landing of British troops in Algeria and Americans in Morocco under Eisenhower, but everything did not go by clockwork. At times, it appeared that everything would backfire. People were approached who should not have been. Communications broke down. The landing forces were delayed. Problem upon problem, but all worked out for the best (assuming an invasion that cost life upon life could be looked upon as having worked out for the best)

The crowd was not very large (the topic? the weather?), and I am not sure how many books were sold. Vaughan told the story so well, that I decided whateverelse was in the book would not remain in my memory in any event.

It was certain a worthwhile hour. One more story about which I knew absolutely nothing.