Amid the clatter of the presidential caucuses and primaries, some excellent political books have been coming in over the transom. Here’s my report on one of them: others to follow as time permits.
Kathryn McGarr’s The Whole Damn Deal: Robert Strauss and the Art of Politics. This is a biography of Robert Strauss, born in Jones County, Texas and a successful but little-known Dallas lawyer until he entered national politics as Democratic National Chairman in 1973. Strauss’s election was seen as a rebuke of George McGovern and the antiwar Democrats who had supported him for the party’s nomination in 1972, but he took care to include them as well as just about everyone else he could. “I remain committed,” he said in his first speech to the full Democratic National Committee, “to the proposition that our conservatives are not bigots, our business community is not evil, our liberals are not foolish and that our Democratic party is not leaderless or without purpose.”
Strauss has been a Washington insider ever since, though at 93 he has slowed down. He was Special Trade Representative during the Carter administration and was appointed Ambassador to the Soviet Union by George H. W. Bush. He did not pretend to be an expert on trade or Soviet policy, but took care to have experts at his side and proved himself capable of absorbing their knowledge and putting it to work in negotiations. His great gift, I think, has been his judgment of people, his knack for assessing their strengths and understanding their weaknesses. This knack is apparent in his choice of Kathryn McGarr to be his biographer. Many of his friends, he told me at his December book party, had said he should seek out an experienced Washington journalist, but instead he picked McGarr, a political writer and graduate of Stanford and Columbia Journalism School who also happens to be his grand-niece.
It was an excellent choice. McGarr has done extensive research, writes gracefully and does not shy away from critical judgments about her subject. She also captures his ebullient personality on page after page. This is a fine book which puts into print many facts and stories which might otherwise be lost—an excellent contribution to history. As one who frequents neoconservative circles, I am sometimes asked whether I am a Straussian. Sure, I say, but not Leo–Bob. The Whole Damn Deal gives you an idea why.
