Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

Morris launched the interview with an appropriate question asked frequently of authors.  "Who were your writing influences?" Morris asked.  The question took me back to that period in suburban Los Angeles when my father gifted me with The Politics of Upheaval.  

My answer was appropriate in that I was then living in Massachusetts, what with Schlesinger having been one of Harvard University's most notable history professors.  The other author I mentioned was one of Harvard's most notable students in the social sciences, someone who had graduated summa cum laude, then launched a career as a journalist and ultimately became a leading political historian.

"I was strongly influenced by Arthur Schlesinger's The Politics of Upheaval," I explained.  "I liked the narrative historical style that he employed in that great book about those critical Depression years of 1935 and 1936 leading up to Roosevelt's election victory over Governor Alf Landon of Kansas.  The other book that also shaped my interest in history, and was also written in a fascinating narrative style, was The Making of the President by Theodore H. White, which was released one year after Schlesinger's work had appeared in 1960."

While Schlesinger's book covered an important period of history during a pivotal phase of the Great Depression, White's volume dealt with probably the most exciting presidential election in American history, Senator John F. Kennedy's cliffhanger victory over Vice President Richard M. Nixon in 1960.  

The 1960 election was the first in which television provided such a close look at the candidates and was cited by chroniclers of the period as being an instrumental force in Kennedy's upset victory.  

The four nationally televised presidential debates stirred tremendous interest in a contest pitting two youthful candidates in their forties who campaigned at a consistently energetic level from the race's beginnings to its conclusion.

Arthur Schlesinger was on the scene to render help to Kennedy as a speechwriter and adviser, just as he had during Adlai E. Stevenson's two campaigns against Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956.  Schlesinger, the son of a great historian who taught at Columbia University, also taught at the famous Morningside Heights institution.  

During that period the younger Schlesinger acquired two Pulitzer Prizes for historical volumes in his Age of Jackson series, which was then followed by his Age of Roosevelt works.  His first Pulitzer came when he was only 28.

Throughout his life, up to his death last week after being stricken with a heart attack while dining at a Manhattan restaurant, Schlesinger pursued a progressive agenda.  

He was one of the founders of the Americans for Democratic action and, during the pivotal fifties' period when the Democrats were out of power and seeking a return in 1960, worked diligently with former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and New York's other preeminent liberal voice, former Governor and later Senator Herbert Lehman.

Schlesinger worked with those distinguished liberals to help steer the Democratic Party in a pro-union, working class and internationalist-oriented direction at a time when its Southern wing sought to take it on a different course.  

The years when Schlesinger served as speechwriter and adviser to Adlai Stevenson were productively spent since his efforts aided the party in maintaining the kind of necessary momentum to nurture a progressive candidacy such as that offered by John F. Kennedy.

The famous historian served as an adviser under Kennedy with a specialty in Latin American affairs.  Schlesinger recalled well the period when the United States and the Soviet Union stood on the threshold of nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.  

In an insightful New York Times editorial article in April 2006, Schlesinger emphasized the need for restraint given the availability of nuclear tools of destruction possessing the capability of destroying humankind.  He noted that President Kennedy had rejected the recommendation of advisers who urged that Cuba be attacked with nuclear weapons.  

Schlesinger expressed the view that had this important decision been discussed in the neoconservative atmosphere of the current White House that such a strike would probably have been launched.  He stated further the grim reality of such an attack since we later learned that Cuba was then in possession of tactical nuclear weapons.  

Schlesinger praised Kennedy for his insight in using the Cuban Missile Crisis, which he defined as the most dangerous moment in world history, to recognize the importance of achieving peace.  

This objective was eloquently stated with Kennedy's famous speech promoting peaceful understanding in a nuclear world at American University in Washington and through his successful effort to achieve a ban on atmospheric nuclear testing on August 6, 1963, shortly before his assassination on November 22 of that same year.

His commitment toward international peace prompted Schlesinger to return to the world of presidential politics when Senator Robert F. Kennedy campaigned in the political primary season of 1968 with the main objective of ending the Vietnam War.  This effort was cut short by a second Kennedy's tragic assassination.

The day of his death, in his last interview, Schlesinger decried the failure of the Cheney-Bush Administration to learn from the lessons of Vietnam and for sending American troops into a comparable no win conflict in Iraq.  

As mistakes multiply America moved from death and tragedy in the jungles of Southeast Asia to the deserts of the Middle East, in each case confronting a determined response from those who do not wish to see a foreign power control their destinies.

When I began reading history in textbooks I decried their dullness as one confronted and was expected to memorize seemingly endless series' of dry facts.  Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. took history in an exciting new direction with a fascinating narrative style in which it was told with an emphasis on the important figures shaping it.  

For that we owe Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. a giant debt of gratitude, as well as for his effort in personally helping shape history in a positive forward direction through his adherence to progressive ideals and candidates.