The Past Has Another Pattern: Memoirs

By George W. Ball

Book Overview

“George Ball’s memoirs are everything that most of the art is not. While he does not neglect his achievement, he is candid on the things that went wrong. His public life has provided him with a very great deal of very great importance to tell. And much of his story amusing.” ?John Kenneth Galbraith

In his long and multifaceted career as a diplomat, international lawyer, and statesman, George W. Ball has been at the center of many crises. His book is filled with candid portraits of major figures on the world stage, as well as keen and controversial insights into past and present international problems. Perhaps the most dramatic chapters describe the lonely and protracted fight waged by Mr. Ball, then undersecretary of state in the Johnson and Kennedy administrations, against our Vietnam involvement. He presents a spirited account of that struggle and reveals how Nixon and Kissinger, through a fatal error in negotiating strategy, prolonged the war for four years.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393301427
• ISBN13: 9780393301427
• Release Date: October 1983
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 544 Pages
• Weight: 1.57 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 1.4" x 6.2"

Customer Reviews

A voice in the wilderness

I got this because George Ball was the only person in the Kennedy Administration with access to JFK to oppose involvement in Vietnam. No one listened of course, and that ignorant hawk, Walt Rostow, whom Ball calls an amateur tactitian, prevailed with JFK and especially with LBJ. The early life of Ball is interesting, though his account is fairly bland, and the parts leading up to Vietnam and JFK are a scrapbook of minor issues in US history, except for a few pages on Speer. Ball has none of the eloquence of George Kennan, but he sure was right about Vietnam; his descriptions of JFK and then LBJ are worth the price of the book. He seems to be a wonderfully sensible, intelligent man, with a sound grasp of both the big picture and myriad details. He has no use for John Foster Dulles, and thought Ike was sagacious to stay out of Asia. His portrait of LBJ is nuanced and brief, makes a fine addition to the file on that strange man.

An fascinating epic

This is a lucid, firsthand account by an instrumental post WW2 player. His was a generation that dealt with how the world would be put back together after the most devastating war in history. His service includes questioning Nazi prisoners as part of the US Strategic Bombing Survey (with his friend JK Galbraith), encouraging the formation of the Common Market (Jean Monnet), and guidance in the most contentious periods of the Cold War. The author's anecdotes are invaluable. An accomplished man, he recounts intimate views of luminaries in years of service matched only by his own admirable accomplishment. The latter included early principled opposition (and resignation) over the Vietnam War. This memoir is a pleasure to read: the author is a genuine American hero.