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Was Richard Holbrooke “our man” or his own man? 5-6 minutes _____ Book Review <https://www.nytimes.com/section/books/review> |Was Richard Holbrooke “our man” or his own man? Letters to the Editor Richard Holbrooke To the Editor: It’s revealing that Walter Isaacson’s review of George Packer’s “Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century” (May 12) is almost exclusively about relationships among Americans and not about foreign relations. The major diplomatic achievement to Holbrooke’s credit is the Bosnian peace settlement, but Isaacson can’t spare an adjective to flag how problematic that accord was. Bosnia is “a faraway place with unpronounceable names”; as a real place with real people, it’s irrelevant to Isaacson’s assessment of Holbrooke’s career. The foreigners who appear in this review of a “great” American diplomat are “Bosnian warlords,” “Serbian war criminals” and “prideful” Afghani “warlords,” and the verbs Isaacson conjures to describe his subject’s diplomacy are “cajole,” “push” and “browbeat.” Isaacson wants to convince us that Holbrooke’s greatness lies not in any good he did but in his “appetites.” (The “unvarnished drives were part and parcel of their greatness.”) Two years into #MeToo, Isaacson offers the grotesque justification that “Holbrooke couldn’t help himself” and even celebrates his lack of restraint. In writing a review of a diplomat that is all about the internal dynamics of the American elite, Isaacson inadvertently spotlights the narcissism at the heart of United States foreign policy since the Vietnam War. What does he think makes for greatness in U.S. foreign policy? Ideals and good intentions, not outcomes. Appetites and ambition, not restraint. What he has written beautifully captures the American foreign policy elite’s own worldview. BARBARA KEYS MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA The writer is a history professor at the University of Melbourne. ♦ To the Editor: As someone who worked with and for Richard Holbrooke as his assistant while he was vice president of a Washington-based consulting firm, I came to appreciate his brilliance, passion and, yes, ego. He was a generous and wonderful mentor. George Packer obviously knows his subject well and masterfully captures both Holbrooke and his era. I doubt we’ll ever see his like again. But what really made me chuckle was imagining Holbrooke’s reaction to the book’s lack of an index. I can just picture his frustration at not being able to do a quick “Washington read,” turning to the index first to see how many times one was referenced. But since the book was all about him anyway, perhaps — just this time — he wouldn’t have minded. MARIA ZAMMIT VIRGINIA BEACH, VA. ♦ To the Editor: Walter Isaacson’s review overlooks the telling incident at Brown University when, in 1961, as editor of The Brown Daily Herald, Holbrooke threatened to publish off-campus if the trustees would not honor the students’ invitation to Malcolm X to speak to the student body, an early test of Holbrooke’s brand of diplomacy. DAVID SARLES BAYVILLE, N.Y. ♦ To the Editor: As the grandfather of five young women, I hope to live long enough to read a New York Times review of a book entitled “Our Woman.” Packer’s book, like Holbrooke, may well be “charming,” “brilliant” and “exasperating,” but I’m tired of men detailing the lives of other men as though theirs is the only history that matters. BRUCE W. RIDER GRAPEVINE, TEX. The Iraq War To the Editor: In the first two paragraphs of Andrew Bacevich’s review of Michael J. Mazarr’s “Leap of Faith: Hubris, Negligence, and America’s Greatest Foreign Policy Tragedy” (May 12), he dismisses the author’s claim that the United States’ war in Iraq resulted from “the messianic tradition in American foreign policy.” Bacevich is so certain of his own explanation that he can’t listen to an explanation on a different level. Yes, there was “stupefying incompetence” and “an impulse to lash out,” but that doesn’t explain why the United States has constantly blustered into wars in faraway places. From its origin, the United States has declared itself to be the light to all nations, with the duty to spread its idea of liberty everywhere. Bacevich says that this messianic explanation was “the faintest afterthought.” It doesn’t have to be thought at all; it underlies the existence of the United States. GABRIEL MORAN NEW YORK The writer is the author of “America in the United States and the United States in America.” The Times welcomes letters from readers. Letters for publication should include the writer’s name, address and telephone number. Letters should be addressed to The Editor, The New York Times Book Review, 620 Eighth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10018. The email address is [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> . Letters may be edited for length and clarity. We regret that because of the large volume of mail received, we are unable to acknowledge or to return unpublished letters. Follow New York Times Books on Facebook <https://www.facebook.com/nytbooks/> , Twitter <https://twitter.com/nytimesbooks> and Instagram <https://www.instagram.com/nytbooks/> , sign up for <https://www.nytimes.com/newsletters/books-review> our newsletter or <https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/books/books-calendar.html> our literary calendar. And listen to us on the <https://www.nytimes.com/column/book-review-podcast> Book Review podcast. A version of this article appears in print on May 26, 2019, on Page 6 of the Sunday Book Review with the headline: Letters. Order Reprints <http://www.nytreprints.com/> | Today’s Paper <http://www.nytimes.com/pages/todayspaper/index.html> | Subscribe <https://www.nytimes.com/subscriptions/Multiproduct/lp8HYKU.html?campaignId=48JQY> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "SERBIAN NEWS NETWORK" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/senet. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/senet/009101d51304%2481ca66a0%24855f33e0%24%40gmail.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
