Books

Tell-all family biography

The Family by Kitty Kelley; Bantam Press; Price: Rs.1,140; 704 pp

And don’t buy the self-righteous cant of post-independence India’s politicians, bureaucrats and intellectuals who rave and rant against America and its wicked, wicked ways. Three former presidents of India and almost every heavyweight politician, bureaucrat and intellectual have moved heaven and earth to help their children emigrate to America.

Of course absolute freedom of speech extracts a price from the citizenry. There’s no shortage of people ready, willing and able to exercise this right which can make life very uncomfortable for the high and mighty and even for popular, duly elected presidents and pontiffs. One such person who exercises her right to freedom of expression fearlessly, confident in the protection of the system, is Washington-based biographer Kitty Kelley who specialises in writing tell-all biographies of the richest and most powerful people in the US. Over the past three decades she has written best-selling unauthorised biographies of Jackie Onassis, Frank Sinatra, Nancy Reagan and the British royal family. And you can be certain that the subjects of these intensively researched life stories weren’t pleased by her handiwork. But quite evidently the public laps them up because all her books have been massive bestsellers.

Unsurprisingly, Kelley’s latest book is the unauthorised history of contemporary America’s most high-profile family — the Bush dynasty of Kennebunkport, Maine (their summer home) and the king-size state of Texas. This is only the second family in American history after John Adams (1735-1826) and John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) to have produced father-son presidents. Moreover the Bush family has produced several senators, governors and other public officials. The rivetting history of the Bush dynasty which has not only produced two presidents but is already grooming more for the future, is the subject matter of this unputdownable book.

A self-professed believer in writing biographies of "living icons who for better or for worse substantially influenced our culture", while they are alive to "give them a chance to defend themselves", Kelley says that despite their affinity for public office, the Bushes are rabidly averse to content and assessments they can’t control.

"In writing contemporary biography, I’ve become accustomed to reluctant subjects who do not want their lives to be depicted without being able to control the content, but the Bushes — public figures for over fifty years — have been, by far, the most reluctant. The family is obsessed with secrecy and their potential for retaliation is great. Consequently, some people were afraid to go on record for fear of losing their jobs, getting hit with an IRS (income tax) audit, or worse," writes Kelley in the preface of this racily written history which also offers educative insights into the American electoral system and the subtly dominant WASP (white Anglo-Saxon Protestant) establishment which rules America.

The Bush political dynasty began with Senator Prescott Bush, the father of George (41st president) and grandfather of George W (43rd). While a student at Yale, Prescott married into the Walkers — a solidly haute bourgeos St.Louis clan, almost all of whom were Yale graduates. Prescott made sure his son George went to Yale and followed him into politics. The Family traces the career of George who took any and every government job that came his way and was finally rewarded with the Republican party’s nomination for the presidency after Ronald Reagan — perhaps America’s most loved president — served two terms, and went on to win the presidential election of 1988.

The high point of the presidency of George (41) was the Gulf War I when following Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, he unleashed the awesome technological and military power of the United States to crush Iraq’s armed forces within two days. But ill-advisedly, for reasons which have never been satisfactorily explained, he stopped short of marching on Baghdad and capturing or eliminating Saddam. According to Kelley, he calculated upon Saddam’s humiliated generals to finish him off. As former CIA head, he should have known better.

That unfinished task was left to his son George W who together with his more fancied brother Jeb was being groomed for the presidency following the humiliating electoral defeat of George by Bill Clinton in 1992. After Clinton served two terms and queered the pitch for his vice president Albert Gore by his sexual escapades in office, George W who in the meanwhile had been blooded as governor of Texas (while Jeb had become governor of Florida) and in the process had amassed the largest election war-chest in American history, was ready to make his run for the White House. The career and character of George W who won the closest presidential election ever in 2000 and his transformation into a war-time president following the Al Qaeda suicide attacks on the twin towers in New York on 9/11/2001 are presented in all their salacious detail in this engaging book.

In contemporary India the popular excuse for the middle class shunning public office is that upward mobility in politics is very difficult. The value of this book is that it contradicts this popular belief and highlights how determined people of limited talents and ability can — and do — rise to the highest office once they set their course. Even in the most powerful country in the world.

Dilip Thakore

Che’s epiphany

The Motorcycle Diaries by Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara; Harper Perennial Publication; Price: Rs.290; 165 pp

Ernesto Guevara de la Serna was born in Rosario, Argentina, in June 1928. An intense young medical student, he made several journeys across Argentina and South America, which stimulated his political awareness and shaped him into one of the world’s most popular revolutionaries. An eyewitness to the CIA-backed overthrow of the elected government of Guatemala in 1954, Guevara met Castro in July 1955 and enlisted in the latter’s guerrilla army to oust Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. The Cuban revolutionaries nicknamed him ‘Che’, a popular form of address in Argentina, and it stuck.

In September 1958, Guevara led guerrilla columns from the Sierra Maestra mountains and won a famous victory against government forces in Santa Clara. Following the overthrow of Batista he emerged as a key figure in the new revolutionary government and in February 1961 was appointed the minister of industry. In this capacity he headed numerous government delegations and addressed the United Nations speaking out against US Imperialism, and campaigned for the dispossessed people of the third world making common cause with them.

It is a tribute to Che’s idealism that his high office in the Castro government didn’t soften him and he returned to guerrilla warfare in Bolivia in November 1966 to fight against that country’s military dictatorship. But his luck ran out a year later when he was captured by Bolivian troops and executed, reportedly on orders from Washington.

The revival of youth interest in Guevara and his enduring appeal has also aroused great curiosity about the man behind the legend. Who or what defined him? What incidents in his childhood and teens transformed him into one of Latin America’s most revered revolutionaries and heroes?

Luckily, we have some answers. A motorcycle journey he undertook with his friend Alberto Granado across South America, is believed to have made an indelible impression upon him and shaped his life. The Motorcycle Diaries is his account of that mind-bending seven-month adventure undertaken when he was a 23-year-old medical student.

The first leg of Che’s epiphanic odyssey began in late December 1951 from Cordoba to Buenos Aires. Over the next month and a half they would head south to Bahia Blanca, circle down and cut across to Temuco in Chile. The landscape keeps changing — sea, sand, lakes, and the foothills of the Andes. The romantic in Guevara was aroused by the awesome natural beauty of Latin America and his journey became as much spiritual as physical. "I now know, by an almost fatalistic conformity with the facts, that my destiny is to travel, or perhaps it’s better to say that travelling is our destiny..." he wrote.

Inevitably given the youthful animal spirits of the young students, their escapades are joyfully detailed. But soon the fun is over and in Valpraiso while treating an old woman with asthma, Che makes his first statement on the unjustness of the world, a social injustice which provoked him to attempt to create a just social order. "It is there, in the final moments, for people whose farthest horizon has always been tomorrow, that one comprehends the profound tragedy circumscribing the life of the proletariat the world over," he wrote.

The Motorcycle Diaries would have been a wonderful piece of travel writing even if Guevara had not attained iconic eminence in his later years. The narrative — translated by Alexandra Keeble — sparkles with wit; at times nostalgic, at times sad. Guevara displays an unusual dexterity with words. In his fertile mind, the hills "sweep down to their deaths in the sea", the imagination "stops in its ascending flight to turn somersaults at the very thought", and he tries to cope with "a decent asthma attack".

This is a work of wild adventure, the escapades of two idealistic young men, and is likely to prove as appealing to students of politics as to those looking for a good travelogue.