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Review of Pure America: Eugenics and the Making of Modern Virginia, by Elizabeth Catte.

High reviews greeted the 2021 publication of Pure America: Eugenics and the Making of Modern Virginia. My reading didn’t leave me so enthralled.

Author Elizabeth Catte does a fine job laying out the injustices done in the name of eugenics. She goes on and on about the grievous wrong, the unfairness, the immoral and unjust way some people were sterilized and forced into virtual slavery by being labeled mentally deficient. I get it.

But the case studies she shares are mostly of poor White people, not people of color. I wish she had included more case studies overall, and not just the few which began the eugenics program in Virginia. A more representative sampling of the victims of this program through its duration into the late 1960s and early ’70s would have provided a more balanced view.

Here’s an example I know of from my childhood in rural Virginia from the late 1960s. The town drunk, a Black man who lived in a wooden shack with his daughter, “Jean”, was our nearby neighbor. Jean had the mind of a child, and her father repeatedly raped her, producing three children.

Jean frequently sent her sons to our door to beg for food, which we always gave them. The three boys did not display obvious cognitive disabilities. In fact, many years later, one of them applied for a college internship where I was working.

Two concerned women in the community took Jean to be sterilized. Afterward, her father probably still raped her, but she had no more children. No, this wasn’t the right way to solve this problem.

Had it been twenty years later, I suppose the boys would have entered foster care and Jean would have been institutionalized. The judicial system would have incarcerated her father for incestuous rape. The financial burden on the community would have multiplied many times over and been shared with all Virginia tax payers. That proved not to be the ideal solution, either.

Some of what Catte describes does not involve those with mental health issues, simply people who were oppressed and taken advantage of. But in cases of cognitive deficiencies, Catte does not suggest alternative solutions. She does not propose how those sticky problems should have been addressed.

There are no easy answers to the mental health problems of Virginia citizens. Just look at the tragic story of Virginia State Senator Creigh Deeds’ son, Gus. Senator Deeds now works for mental health reform in the Commonwealth.

When you go on a crusade against injustice, plenty of people will jump on the bandwagon. Catte personalizes the immorality of the eugenics program to the point where the physical structures of what was Western State Hospital are appalling to her.

We know the eugenics program was wrong. But I also think it is wrong to grovel in the injustice. Catte should have frankly presented the history and trusted her readers’ ability to discern the missteps of Virginia’s early policymakers.

#mentalhealth #eugenics #Staunton #WesternStateHospital #Virginia #CommonwealthofVirginia #SenatorCreighDeeds #GusDeeds

@elizabethcatte @belt_publishing

Review of Project Mind Control: Sidney Gottlieb, the CIA, and the Tragedy of MKULTRA, by John Lisle

John Lisle (author of The Dirty Tricks Department) has written a thoroughly researched book about the clandestine activities of the CIA, focusing particularly on mind control experiments dubbed MKULTRA.

Lisle doesn’t cover much new information, but backs up what he writes with meticulous attribution. Much of his book is based on the testimony of CIA chemist Sidney Gottlieb, who told all (or nearly all) supposedly because he wanted to unburden his conscience.

I think Lisle has only scratched the surface in pulling back the curtain to reveal the immoral and deadly actions of the CIA. A similar book, CIA Rogues and the Killing of the Kennedys, by Patrick Nolan, goes into an equally detailed examination of MKULTRA. While Nolan credits MKULTRA for controlling Sirhan Sirhan to act as Bobby Kennedy’s assassin, Lisle stops short of attributing any success to the mind control experiments.

Favorite Quote: Within the CIA, there existed a group of personnel that plotted the assassination of foreign leaders. Insiders flippantly referred to this group as the “Health Alteration Committee.” Just as flippantly, they referred to its work as “wet affairs” because it concerned the liquidation of people.

I once was naïve, believing the United States Government was overall noble and good. I once was skeptical of conspiracy theories. Was I persuaded by propaganda, a form of mind control?

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the advance reader copy of this book.

Pre-order now on Amazon. Available May 20, 2025.

@JohnLisle @StMartinsPress

#CIA #mindcontrol #NetGalley #SidneyGottlieb #MKULTRA #LSD

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White House Ghosts: Presidents and Their Speechwriters, by Robert Schlesinger.

Robert Schlesinger descends from a family steeped in history and politics. His father, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., was an advisor to John F. Kennedy and a renowned historian. Robert’s grandfather, Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr. was also a prominent American historian. Such a lineage may have given Robert an entrée to interview the ghosts, the behind-the-scenes ghostwriters who prepared speeches for the president, in this thoroughly researched book.

In rare cases, speechwriters actually formed policy for the administration, proving the power of the pen. Too often, as in the case of the Roosevelt and Ford presidencies, speechwriters competed against each other instead of collaborating. But in most cases, bureaucratic gatekeepers hacked to pieces the carefully crafted speeches, rendering the final draft dissimilar to the original.

Speechwriters tried to capture the speaking style of the president. Truman, who said, “Never use two words when one will do best,” used a presidential speech to fire General MacArthur. Plain-spoken Eisenhower navigated the Cold War and civil rights issues with speech which was “very direct, very un-flowered, very unornamented.” Speechwriter Ted Sorensen had rare access to the president and developed such a close understanding of JFK, Kennedy called Sorensen his “intellectual blood bank.”

Johnson rejected speeches unless they had content that would produce a news lead. Nixon instructed his speechwriters to include, “more parables, stories, anecdotes and similes”. Upon succeeding the disgraced Nixon, Ford spoke, “My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over,” but failed to take leadership within his own administration. Carter was precise and technical in editing his speeches, often cutting the lifeblood out of them.

Many of the exceptional speeches came to have names, such as Reagan’s Pointe du Hoc Speech on the 40th anniversary of the Normandy landings. Some speeches contained a catch phrase which took on a life of its own, as in Reagan’s Brandenburg Gate speech, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

Tragedy sometimes led to memorable speeches, as when the space shuttle Challenger exploded. Reagan told the nation, “We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and ‘slipped the surly bonds of earth’ to ‘touch the face of God.'”

Speechwriters attempted to characterize an administration with a phrase, such as George H. W. Bush’s “thousand points of light” and “a kinder and gentler nation”.

President Clinton, known for straying from prepared texts, reportedly wrote his own speech telling attendees of the White House Prayer Breakfast, “I have sinned”, after the Monica Lewinsky affair.

George W. Bush appeared to be a strong leader after the events of September 11, 2001, when he said, “We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail.” But the book’s section on Bush turned sour as his speechwriters came under fire for using spurious information about weapons of mass destruction.

Newly elected presidents typically hired speechwriters who made valuable contributions during their campaign and selected others from the realms of academia, law, journalism, and business. Only a handful were Black or women.

The book covers speechwriters through the 43rd president. During that time, some of the better known presidential speechwriters include Welliver, Rosenman, Clifford, Sorenson, Price, Safire, Buchanan, Fallows, Noonan, Snow, Gerson, Frum, McConnell, and Scully.

There have been many others, some familiar, but the remainder are “lost to the ash heap of history”. These are the ghosts, but their words live on.

@rschles @simonschuster

#ghostwriter #speechwriter #politics #history #presidents

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**Spoiler Alert**

Review of This Side of Heaven, by Karen Kingsbury

This Side of Heaven is not a recent release. First published in 2009, many of you have no doubt read it. I just now encountered it. I usually read and listen to several books a week, but this one is special enough that I am posting a review.

It shocked me when Karen Kingsbury killed her protagonist midway through the book. It takes literary audacity to create an endearing character only to put him to death with the balance of the book looming. Such a move pressures the author to keep the reader interested long enough to complete the character arcs of less likeable figures.

At first I wondered if it was a ploy to lead me to believe this main character was dead, only to find out later he’s miraculously alive. That’s the cheap way out, like a prankster pointing to the ground to divert your eyes, then flicking at your nose. I don’t appreciate cheap writing tricks.

Kingsbury doesn’t resort to writing pranks. She skillfully leads the reader to a satisfying conclusion. After the book ends, she explains why she wrote this story. It’s loosely based on the life of her brother, Dave. Some of the story’s components are fictitious, but the real story shines through as heartbreaking and redeeming and aching to be told.

I hope I haven’t spoiled the plot too much for those of you just discovering this gem of a book by a seasoned author. Available at Amazon.

@KarenKingsbury

#CenterStreet #HachetteBookGroup #ChristianFiction #Hero #ICanOnlyImagine

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Guilty Until Innocent, by Robert Whitlow

Available February 4, 2025

Joe was a talented musician and college student in North Carolina when he stumbled into drug addiction. One night while playing a gig at a bar, Joe got so high on crystal meth he couldn’t recall the evening. The next thing Joe knew, he was in jail, charged with double murder.

During the next twenty-six years in prison, Joe gets clean, emerges as a leader, and becomes wholly committed to God. Joe sees more fellow inmates turn to God, and a prison revival begins.

Ryan is a young attorney whose career got off to a rocky start. He gets another chance when his second cousin, Tom, also an attorney, hires him. Ryan isn’t sure the job will work out, and he has increased financial pressure when his wife, Paige, becomes pregnant.

Tom assigns Ryan as the lead attorney on a case which seems doomed from the start. Joe’s relatives hire the law firm to overturn Joe’s conviction. Just as Ryan begins investigating the old case, Tom has a health crisis and Ryan is on his own. Ryan soon discovers not everyone can be trusted, and he, Paige, and Joe are in danger.

As Ryan tries to determine Joe’s guilt or innocence, he is working through his own relationship with God and a sense of guilt over his father’s death.

Robert Whitlow, an attorney, doesn’t get too technical with the legal aspects of the story, and explains unfamiliar terms and procedures. Whitlow portrays Joe’s Christianity as realistic and natural. Joe prays, and God answers.

I was already a fan of Whitlow’s Christian-themed legal thrillers. If you enjoy this genre, I invite you to get a copy of Guilty Until Innocent. Available now for pre-order. Release date February 4, 2025.

“I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.”

@whitlowwriter @ThomasNelson

#NetGalley #ChristianFiction #LegalThriller