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Showing reviews 1-5 of 20
 Great Reading! May 24, 2010
Alphonsus G. Paraguya (Lemoore, CA)
Highly recommended to history buffs. This should be made into a movie so it can be told to a new generation of readers!
 Reeves repeats the jelly doughnut myth May 5, 2010
Vincent E. Treacy (Washington DC)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
In a footnote on page 14, Reeves repeats the jelly doughnut myth years after it was exploded, claiming that Kennedy said "I am a jelly doughnut" instead of "I am a Berliner" when he spoke in Berlin in 1963.
[...]
This perpetuates a myth and mars an otherwise valuable book.
The author David Emery at Urban Legends correctly wrote "This is truly The Gaffe That Never Was, notwithstanding reports to the contrary in venues as prestigious as the New York Times and Newsweek magazine. Experts say Kennedy's grammar was flawless when he uttered those words in German near the Berlin Wall on June 26, 1963. The phrase had been translated for him by a professional interpreter."
[...]
If anyone has any doubts, consider this: Kennedy rehearsed the speech and its two German phrases for an hour in the Mayor's office with his interpreter, and with Mayor Willy Brandt himself. Brant, a native Berliner, would never have allowed the American President to make such a mistake in a speech vital to the very survival of his city.
Yet Reeves seems unaware of the twenty years of scholarship that has discredited this chestnut.
Emery went on to write "Linguist Jürgen Eichhoff laid decades of misinformation to rest with a concise grammatical analysis of Kennedy's statement in the academic journal Monatshefte in 1993. "'Ich bin ein Berliner' is not only correct," Eichhoff wrote, "but the one and only correct way of expressing in German what the President intended to say."
Try it on any online translator. "I am a jelly doughnut" does not become "ein Berliner" and "Ich bin ein Berliner" is rendered as "a Berliner."
The myth originated with author Len Deighton in the novel "Berlin Game," and took on a life of its own.
Len was joking.
Hundreds of unsung heros May 4, 2010
Robert J. Flynn (Sarasota, FL.)
When the Soviet Union thought it had us licked in Berlin, Harry Truman, contrary to the urging of every advisor,called up hundreds of WWII pilots from every walk of life to immediate duty to fly old planes over the blockade to keep Berliners alive with food, medicine and coal. At times, a plane landed or took off every minute in every kind of weather without all the scientific advances available today.This page turner tells this great American story of enormous heroic feats, sacrifice and ultimate victory that taught Joe Stalin a big lesson. Well written by an accomplished historian.
I love this book April 23, 2010
Winston (Canada)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Simply put this is one of the best books I have read so far this year. The great thing about the book is how personal it gets. The story is told through the eyes of those who participated in the 'Berlin Airlift'. It is a moving, touching and beautiful story of America's tough and caring stance during the early days of the cold war. My respect for President Truman grew ten folds by reading this book. This is a great book.
How Berlin was saved from Soviet domination April 22, 2010
Jerry Saperstein (Evanston, IL USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
In 1948, the war in Europe had ended only 3 years ago with the Germans being revealed as industrial scale murderers. Their collective guilt was quickly set aside as the Soviet Union grasped for more control over the few nations it hadn't already been awarded at the Yalta and Potsdam conferences. Germany was divided into an Eastern Zone, governed almost entirely by the Soviet Union, while Britain, the United States and (at British insistence) France, governed sections of the Western Zone. All of Germany was still under the military control of the former allies, though the Western powers were edging closer to creating a new German state.
Berlin was located in the Eastern Zone and it was sub-divided as well into Soviet, British, French and American occupation zones.
In June, 1948, the Soviet Union blocked all land and water access into Berlin from the West, expecting to force the other powers to cede Berlin to the Soviets in short order or force them to accept Soviet terms regarding governance of the Germans.
Initially one man stood in their way: Harry S. Truman, President of the United States.
His military and diplomatic advisors said the allies could not feed and supply 2 million Berliners - withdrawal or surrender were the only options visible to them.
Truman said "We stay in Berlin. Period" and left it to the diplomats and military to figure out how.
Airlift was the decision. There were three air corridors guaranteed to the Western allies.
Supplying a city of more than 2 million people entirely by airlift had never been done before. Large scale air supply efforts during the war generally ended in failure, as at Stalingrad.
But the Americans with the full cooperation of the British tackled the job and prevailed! For 11 months, much of everything required to feed, clothe and sustain Berliners was carried in the planes of the United States, Britain and, to a tiny extent, France.
It was an amazing and astounding feat of will, technology and organization and Richard Reeves has written a history of it.
Reeves approaches the task by providing also anecdotal coverage from every level: the inner-councils of government down to the men who were recalled from civilian life to fly the mainly military aircraft to the air controllers and the thousands of Germans, many former combatants, who were hired to assist the effort.
It is a spellbinding story, all the more so because less than 20% of the American population today was alive at the time and story of this great adventure is largely forgotten and untaught in the nation's schools. It is a story of the generosity of Americans, giving aid and comfort to men, women and children who just a few years before were part of a murderous war machine. It is the story of American bravery from the President down to the pilots, air controllers and loadmasters who literally worked night and day to deliver food, coal and raw materials into Berlin to keep it free.
Reeves has a light touch in his writing and makes the sometimes byzantine operations comprehensible.
In all, this is a wonderful book that provides a glimpse of an America that was unwilling to countenance tyranny, stood for freedom and was unstinting in its generosity to a vanquished foe. "Daring Young Men" is a reminder of just how special - exceptional - the United States is. A great read.
Jerry
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