Leah Cohen

By Leah Cohen

This article was originally published in The Washington Independent Review of Books here.

With his latest book, The Betrayal: How Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans Abandoned America, Ira Shapiro completes his critically acclaimed trilogy on the U.S. Senate. In addition to writing, the former Senate staffer and trade ambassador for the Clinton Administration serves as president of Ira Shapiro Global Strategies, LLC, a consulting firm focused on trade policy and international government relations. A new edition of The Betrayal includes an updated foreword that adds the events of 2022-2023 to the story.

The Betrayal first came out in 2022. Why did you feel compelled to publish an updated version so soon, in 2024?

I was delighted that my publisher (Rowman & Littlefield) thought that The Betrayal was an important book that warranted a paperback edition. Jonathan Sisk, R&L’s senior editor, and I quickly agreed that the past two years (2022-23) were part of a continuing story about the Senate’s performance during this period dominated by Donald Trump, necessitating a substantial new foreword to bring the story up to date. I believe the updated edition provides important perspectives on the success of the Biden presidency; the Senate’s role in a surprising set of bipartisan accomplishments; Trump’s unexpected resilience and continued dominance of the Republican Party; the rampaging Supreme Court supermajority; and the consequences of the Republican Senate’s catastrophic failure to stop Trump’s assault on our democracy when it had the opportunity and the responsibility to do so. America has watched as the legal system has struggled to make up for the failure of the Senate to perform its constitutional role.

What was the process like for writing from ideation to completion?

I wrote The Betrayal in 2021 in anger about the Republican Senate’s knowing and deliberate failure to protect our democracy from Trump, particularly in the crisis year of 2020, including their last clear chance in the second impeachment trial in February 2021. The book told the story of how the Senate Republicans repeatedly put partisanship above patriotism. They stood by while America had an unhinged president during a pandemic, which caused hundreds of thousands of Americans to die needlessly. The book also illustrated that it was clear that Trump was not going to accept the results of the election unless he won. I was incensed that McConnell and his Senate roused [themselves] from torpor only long enough to ram through the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett eight days before Election Day. By the time I wrote the foreword to the paperback, my white-hot anger had become deep concern and growing dread for the condition and future of our country.

How did your view of the Senate evolve over the decade you spent researching and writing the trilogy? Or did it?

I am very proud that Brookings Institution scholar William A. Galston, one of my wisest and most experienced political commentators, said that The Betrayal “completed an epic trilogy” about the modern Senate. I came of age during the last constitutional crisis, when Lyndon Johnson’s Vietnam War tore America apart and then led almost inexorably into Richard Nixon’s abuses of power known as Watergate. During that difficult period, the Senate was a beacon of hope that drew many idealistic young people to public service. I became a lawyer to work in the Senate, and I had 12 great years there from 1975-87. Decades later, dismayed by the Senate’s long decline, I circled back to write The Last Great Senate: Courage and Statesmanship in Times of Crisis (2012). I wanted to show how the Senate worked when it was at its best, hoping to inspire senators and Senate leaders to emulate their great predecessors. Can’t claim to have succeeded; unfortunately, the second and third books chart the decline and accelerating downward spiral. The once-great Senate becomes the “broken” Senate (2018) and then the Senate that betrayed America (2022).

It’s clear how you see Mitch McConnell’s legacy vis-à-vis the Senate, but how do you imagine he sees it? Is it “mission accomplished,” or did things go off the rails for him?

That’s a great question! The longest-serving Senate leader ever, McConnell is by any measure one of the most impactful political leaders in our history; he has profoundly affected all three branches of government. I have no doubt that McConnell was surprised that Trump might be president again; he expected Trump’s power to wither away after the January 6th attack on the Capitol. McConnell’s steadfast advocacy for Ukraine has been his finest hour; he knows with absolute certainty that Trump is a danger to Ukraine and [to] the security of our NATO allies and America. But he endorsed Trump anyway because ultimately what matters most to him is Republican power — and winning. In February 2024, McConnell waxed philosophical, saying: “History will settle every account.” His legacy will be one thing he didn’t do — stop Trump’s assault on our democracy — and one thing he did: create the radical Supreme Court supermajority. And at a time when America desperately needed a great Senate leader like Howard Baker to help bring us together, we had Mitch McConnell, a fiercely effective and endlessly divisive partisan.

What’s next for you as an author? Do you anticipate a fourth book?

Thanks for asking. There won’t be another Senate book; a trilogy is enough. I love to write, and I hope to find another subject that excites me. But for this year, I’m entirely focused on writing articles and speaking about the stakes in the presidential and Congressional elections. Everything else — other than family and friends — can wait.

By Leah Cohen

This article was originally published in The Washington Independent Review of Books here.

As a cardiologist on faculty at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Jonathan D. Reich is no stranger to research. The author of multiple articles for medical journals, he shifted his focus to historical research during the pandemic. After reading A. Scott Berg’s Lindbergh, Reich dove into studying the groundbreaking aviator and onetime presidential candidate. The result is his first book, A Convenient Villain: Charles A. Lindbergh’s Remarkable and Controversial Legacy Preparing the U.S. for War.

As a physician by training, how did you make the jump to writing a book?

Before I went to medical school, I was an aerospace engineer. I worked for the Navy designing airplanes and got a master’s degree. Part of my coursework was done in Israel. I had always known that Lindbergh had a legacy as an antisemite. So, during the pandemic, I read the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography Lindbergh. I expected to conclude this was his legacy. While reading the book, I had two realizations. First, although the author, A. Scott Berg, wrote an outstanding encyclopedic book, he had no appreciation for the aerospace contributions of Lindbergh’s life. I read a few other books about Lindbergh, especially about the period of his life when he lived in Europe and visited German air force facilities. I concluded that much of Lindbergh’s legacy was misrepresented. Second, Lindbergh’s legacy was too facile. He was a complicated man with a complicated, nuanced legacy. I decided that no one else would ever try to establish an accurate legacy of Lindbergh because it was unlikely there was another Jewish aerospace engineer who would want to spend years researching his life. I tried writing a magazine article but found it was impossible to condense the misrepresentations of Lindbergh’s legacy into 1,500 words. So, three years later, here it is: a biography of Charles Lindbergh’s life. I believe this is the first biography written by someone who is qualified to define his legacy.

What was your research process like?

During the pandemic, I had time to read nearly every biography I could find about Lindbergh and research references to see if statements had a valid basis. I also read dozens of other books about Europe in the 1930s, President Roosevelt, the 1940 presidential election, the Depression, and isolationism. I read [Lindbergh’s] journal and his wife’s journal. I read every New York Times article that mentioned Lindbergh and a host of other articles both critical and supportive of his legacy. As a physician, I concentrated on the two major medical advances that Lindbergh made: the first cardiac perfusion pump and his improvements in high-altitude aviation. I read about the different definitions of terms like “antisemite” and “Nazi sympathizer” and how they are applied to people from different eras. These figures existed and were sometimes dangerous, but using the definitions inaccurately hurts your credibility. Having a wife who is the daughter of a Holocaust survivor helped with perspective. Once the pandemic subsided, I made a trip to Yale University to go through Lindbergh’s papers. That was a fascinating experience; it felt almost as if I got to meet him.

What was the most interesting document you came across in your research?

The most interesting were the drafts of his speeches. Between September 1939 and December 1941, Charles Lindbergh gave five national radio addresses and 20 national speeches in opposition to the U.S.’ creeping involvement in World War II. The Yale archives contain not only the texts from which he read the speeches, some of which have handwritten edits, but the drafts of the speeches from his original handwritten notes (with his wife’s edits) to the final version of the speeches. But the most important document I came across was the letter from the U.S. embassy in Berlin on U.S. embassy letterhead in May 1936, asking Lindbergh to go to Germany to obtain information on Germany’s air force. Prominent historians have written that Lindbergh visited Germany because he admired the Nazis, and his intelligence work was “invented” later by his supporters. Finding this letter proved that no one “invented” Lindbergh’s intelligence work. It was the reason he visited Germany in the first place.

What made you want to take a closer look at Lindbergh’s life and politics?

I am continuously stunned by the poor academic scholarship and abject sloppiness that historians have engaged in when discussing this man. The more I write and the more feedback I get, the more examples I find. I not only find more misquotations and unsupported allegations, but I have found attempts at suppressing others’ opinions of him. We (defined as everyone, historians and non-historians, Jews and non-Jews) must be committed to the truth. He was a complicated, flawed man. I suspect we all are. Yet, his contributions to American security and medicine are remarkable and, in some respects, unparalleled. His flaws are discussed. But if we allow his flaws to supersede an honest discussion of his life, then we are truly doing a disservice to understanding the history of this country.

Did you uncover anything in particular that changed — or at least called into question — your previous understanding of him?

Reading his and his wife’s journals led me to an understanding of the times he lived in and the decisions he made. I tried strenuously to adopt a position of not judging people based on the ethics of our time. I spent a significant amount of time speaking to people who lived through the 1930s and 1940s to try and understand what it was like to be Jewish then.

Was Lindbergh a great man who had some flaws or a flawed man who did some great things? Does the distinction matter?

Fascinating question. Lindbergh was human. In his lifetime, his accomplishments are truly mind-boggling. However, he had major flaws — not just his legacy as an antisemite but in his personal relationships. He was not evil. He did not kill his son and he was not a Nazi. He was investigated by the FBI and exonerated. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover respected no restrictions on his investigative power and destroyed people when he had the chance. If he had found any evidence Lindbergh had any connection with any fascist power or organization, foreign or domestic, he would have produced it. He found nothing. I don’t think the distinction matters. We are all flawed. Few of us are great. Lindbergh’s contributions to the Allied effort to defeat both the Germans and the Japanese far outweigh his blemishes.