Harold and Jack

May 19, 2014
Sandford (Masters of Mystery) provides a glimpse behind the sheen of diplomacy with this examination of the relationship between Harold Macmillan and Jack Kennedy. Personal letters and telegrams, private communications during extreme political crises, and even birthday greetings show that there was a “special relationship” between these two heads of state, and perhaps this relationship served the world well during a time of unmitigated anxiety and potential for destruction. One would think that three years is a short time to document, but considering the volumes of correspondence, reports, and the vast cast of characters involved gives a better idea of the scale of the job. Since Kennedy did not live to write his memoirs, readers come away with a better understanding of Macmillan than of Kennedy. The far-sightedness of both is brought to the fore, and the reader sees that, in fact, Macmillan defied his physical image of a “figure out of P.G. Wodehouse.” Interesting personal glimpses, and the difficulties that figures such as de Gaulle created for Macmillan, enliven a narrative that sometimes gets bogged down in details. Those with an interest in Cold War history will find this perspective intriguing. Agent: Andrew Stuart.

June 1, 2014
Exploration of the deepening friendship between two contrasting Western leaders at a time of perilous Soviet brinkmanship.A prolific British-American biographer who grew up in Washington, D.C., Sandford departs from his usual subjects from the world of arts and entertainment (Masters of Mystery: The Strange Friendship of Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini, 2011, etc.), providing a comparative portrait of two consummate politicians who helped mend the "special relationship" that had soured during the Suez Crisis. Harold Macmillan (1894-1986), a middle-class publisher's son with a doting American mother, had acceded as British prime minister in the wake of Anthony Eden's resignation in 1956 and had already been trying to mend fences with the frank President Dwight Eisenhower. With his election in 1960, President John Kennedy, more than two decades Macmillan's junior, was just the brash, charming and intellectual personality to foil and complement his more formal counterpart's "mandarin inscrutability." Sandford delights in contrasting the two characters, ancient and modern, rendering engaging reading through the alarming crises that erupted during the course of Kennedy's administration. Over numerous visits and increasingly warm communications between the "dear friends," the two leaders had to work together to manage Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev's blustery threats in Berlin and Cuba, where the United States' highly secretive Bay of Pigs debacle of April 1961 had already chastened the American administration. While Kennedy did not confer with Macmillan before the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962, he was "extraordinarily receptive to British counsel," despite British criticism of Macmillan as "passive" and "supine." Sandford has an effective sense of character development as the leaders moved from one embroilment to the next.Crisp personal portraits of two leaders (and their wives) shaping the new world order.

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