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The Great Rift: Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, and the Broken Friendship That Defined an Era
Maybe someday
35
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
60/100Critics
10/100Scholars
Author:
James Mann
Publisher:
Henry Holt and Co.
Date:
January 14, 2020
The history of the intertwined careers of Dick Cheney and Colin Powell, whose rivalry and conflicting views of U.S. national security color our political debate to this day.
What The Reviewers Say
... depicts in depressingly vivid detail Powell’s inability to summon the political and moral courage necessary to check Cheney’s foolhardy plans.
Mann wants his readers to know that Cheney had no post-9/11 change of heart. He documents the consistency of his deep conservatism and unilateralism across decades. Mann is less clear in explaining what became of the GOP foreign policy establishment’s talent for teamwork and realism. He seems to believe that Cheney’s unilateralism and drive for power helped provoke the fatal errors of the Iraq War, while Powell’s 'passivity' prevented a meaningful challenge to the war from taking shape inside the administration. Or that is my interpretation—Mann never offers a judgment.
Mann goes beyond policy and philosophical differences to portray Cheney as a dark (i.e, 'conservative,' 'right-wing') and sinister ('neoconservative,' 'hawk') force who exercised too much influence over the inexperienced Bush 43. Powell, on the other hand, is portrayed as prudent, moderate, measured, diplomatic, George Marshall-like..
A useful review of the hard-right shift of U.S. foreign policy since the end of the Cold War, delivered via a comparative study of two of the seminal players.
