By Tommy Bourgeois
Ex Libris. One of the best perks of my unpaid (not that I’m complaining) class office is my occasional receipt of galleys from publishers of the authors in our ranks. As 2017 rolled in, I was especially happy to retrieve from my mailbox the uncorrected proof of Chris Whipple’s The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency, due to be released by Crown Publishing in April. Chris’s book is the culmination of a project several years in the making, beginning with the development and production of his documentary film The Presidents’ Gatekeepers, which originally aired on the Discovery Channel in September 2013. Chris drew on his storied career as a journalist and broadcast news producer to secure interviews with all 17 living chiefs and two former presidents. Much as the chiefs have occupied front row seats at the making of national history, thanks to Chris’s frequent and always entertaining updates I’ve enjoyed a close-up view of this venture since I first learned of it in April 2011, when I was his guest at an oceanfront brunch in Santa Monica. As I file this column, I’ve been savoring daily visits to the book, darting here and there with no regard for chronology (Sorry, Chris!) and finding rich detail and illuminating context wherever I land. You don’t have to take my word for it, though, as the galleys also found their way to a couple of classmates whose names you’ll recognize even if you’ve never been formally introduced because, unlike me, they write for a living.
Among the publisher’s advance notices of praise for the book are the following encomia: Christopher Buckley calls it “a vivid, enthralling, and brilliantly reported account of the White House chiefs of staff, who are—with all respects to US vice presidents—the actual second-most-powerful people in Washington” and “a learned, welcome, and important addition to the study of the executive branch”; and Boston Herald columnist Alex Beam writes, “I loved The Gatekeepers! The reporting is superb, the writing engaging and wonderfully fair-minded. Unbuttoned at last, these chiefs have wonderful stories to tell. As one veteran remarks, ‘The presidents don’t send out a lot of thank-you notes.’ This book serves as a compellingly readable thank-you note to a motley crew of policy nerds, fixers, maniacs, and soon-to-be-ex-best friends of the president who have lost sleep—and probably several years off their lives—in the service of the White House, and of their country.” Well said, gentlemen!
Did someone mention Alex Beam? His own latest book, published last December by Penguin Random House, is The Feud: Vladimir Nabokov, Edmund Wilson and the End of a Beautiful Friendship. It chronicles the fatal blow to the writers’ deep bond—a bond forged by the well-established Wilson’s mentoring the emerging Nabokov and championing his work, as well as by their shared passionate interest in Russian culture and letters. That blow was dealt by their wildly escalating dispute over Nabokov’s translation of Alexander Pushkin’s verse novel Eugene Onegin, a work widely considered to defy translation. In addition to its being well received in the critical press, one month after its publication The Feud became the first selection discussed by the Class of 1975 Book Club. Moderated by Julie Sullivan and Jackie Austin, the club was launched in December on the class listserv, and it chooses its monthly subjects democratically. Charter members also include Rob Watson, John Levine, Jane Peppler, Dan Magida, Eric Goodman, and Stephanie Wald ’76 (aka Mrs. Steven Wald). If you’re interested in participating, please drop me a line.
On the evening of November 21, Treasurer Nancy Young hosted a class cocktail party at the Yale Club, and it drew quite a crowd, to wit: Paul Baumgartel, Michael Carlisle, David Cuthell and Catherine Cuthell ’76, Steve Dorsey, Jaime El Koury and Begonia Santos, birthday boy Michael Farewell and Kate Jones, John Friedman, Andy Gould, Reuben Jeffery, Lisa Kaslow and Jeff Korber, Peter Kaufman, John Lipsitz and Maria Scrivani, Jeff and Patricia McAulay, Carlos Morales and Tara Murphy, Michael Stein and his sister Susan, Laurie Stevens and Mark McAndrews ’76, Ariane Van Buren, and Nancy’s husband Paul Ford. A fitting celebration of class camaraderie and, though planned well in advance, a superbly timed occasion to toast Yale’s long-awaited gridiron victory over the Cantabrigians!
Finally, I’m deeply saddened to report that Jack August died on January 20 in his beloved Phoenix after a brief illness. The cause of death was liver failure. After earning his BA in history, Jack received a master’s degree from the University of Arizona and a PhD from the University of New Mexico. It would be an understatement to call Jack a distinguished historian and an accomplished author. Among other career milestones, he was a Fulbright scholar and a National Endowment for the Humanities research fellow. His 1999 book Vision in the Desert: Carl Hayden and Hydropolitics in the American Southwest was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in history. Arizona Secretary of State Michele Reagan, who early last year named Jack historian and director of institutional advancement at the Arizona Capitol Museum in the State Library, released this statement: “Dr. Jack was a tremendous person and amazing historian. I was honored he agreed to help us get the Capitol Museum going in the right direction, and I consider myself lucky to count him as friend. Jack’s skills, stories, and incredible mind will be greatly missed around the state, but his legacy in Arizona will endure for generations to come.” Phoenix mayor Greg Stanton described himself as “heartbroken” by the news of Jack’s death: “He loved this state with a passion and was truly the people’s historian. His meticulous research and gift for storytelling brought our state’s history to life in ways that have helped us better prepare for our future.” Mayor Stanton’s last comment was made in particular view of Jack’s status and contributions as a leading water rights scholar. I, too, counted Jack as friend, and I knew him as a gracious, genial, and gentle person who wore his brilliance without a hint of self-importance. I last enjoyed wonderful but all-too-brief visits with him at the Bowl before Yale’s contests against Princeton in 2010 and Harvard in 2013. I send condolences to his mother, Theresa; his widow, Kathy; his children Sommer, Shannon, Natalie and Sam; and his grandchildren and many friends who held him close.
As always, I welcome any and all news you’d like to share with classmates.