Man of the Hour

July 3, 2017
James Conant (1893–1978) is not a household name, but this extensive biography by one of his granddaughters, historian Jennet Conant (Tuxedo Park), should convince readers that he was an important figure in his time. A world-class chemist, Conant became chairman of Harvard’s chemistry department in 1931 and, to the surprise of many, university president in 1933. His reforms stirred controversy, but he attracted F.D.R.’s attention through early support of intervention against Hitler. In 1940, Conant joined the National Defense Research Committee, which had been created to mobilize the scientific establishment for military research. He quickly entered the debate over the possibility of developing an atomic bomb; long before J. Robert Oppenheimer was hired to build it, Conant was at work. His granddaughter composes a masterly account of his performance in organizing, recruiting, and supervising the immense Manhattan Project. Conant continued to serve Truman and Eisenhower during the Cold War. Retiring after working as the first U.S. ambassador to West Germany, he wrote several volumes that criticized America’s educational system. The minutia of political maneuvering occasionally becomes a hard slog, but mostly this is a perceptive portrayal of a major player in world events throughout the mid-20th century.

July 15, 2017
A biography of a "chemist, statesman, educator, and critic...[who] had within his grasp all the elements to help forge the new atomic age."James Conant (1893-1978) is only moderately well-known because, ironically, he accomplished not one but many things. He deserves better, and he receives it from his granddaughter, Jennet Conant (A Covert Affair: Julia Child and Paul Child in the OSS, 2011, etc.), a skilled historian. A quintessential New Englander (he possessed a "cold, clear-eyed Yankee pragmatism") and superb student, Conant excelled in private school and at Harvard, where he received a doctorate in chemistry in 1916. He was an exceptional researcher, rising to become chairman of the chemistry department in 1931 and president of the university in 1933. He was a vigorous, controversial reformer, abolishing Latin requirements and athletic scholarships and allowing women to attend Harvard medical and law schools. Appointed head of the National Defense Research Committee in 1940, Conant spent the war administrating massive scientific programs, most importantly the Manhattan project. After 1945, he remained a top adviser. He declined the position of High Commissioner of Germany in 1951 but accepted in 1953 and became the first ambassador to West Germany. Conant was a brilliant chemist, an outstanding college president, a talented administrator, and an accomplished diplomat, but he was not charismatic, eccentric, or ahead of his time. Generally liberal, he had no objection to Harvard's Jewish quota or firing teachers who invoked the Fifth Amendment. He is well-served by the 500 pages of his granddaughter's intensely researched, insightful, and rarely dull biography. Conant deserves a place among the traditional "wise men" (Acheson, Harriman et al.), an elite group of white, male, East Coast advisers, all pragmatic, realistic, and nonideological, who guided presidential policy from World War II through the end of the Cold War. This book gives him that place.

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April 15, 2017

Conant insisted on open admissions as Harvard president, served as adviser to Franklin Roosevelt and administrative director of the Manhattan Project, campaigned mightily for international control of atomic weapons and ended up as President Eisenhower's high commissioner to Germany. That's some life, told by his daughter, the New York Times best-selling author of The Irregulars.

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