The Foreign Service Journal, June 2021

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JUNE 2021 81 Remembering a Power Broker The ManWho RanWashington: The Life and Times of James A. Baker III Peter Baker and Susan Glasser, Doubleday, 2020, $35/hardcover, e-book available, 720 pages. Reviewed by Joseph L. Novak For his smooth, Machiavellian ways, James A. Baker III was called the “Velvet Hammer.” The ManWho RanWashington makes a convincing case that he was the power broker of his era, as well. A deeply sourced account of Baker’s consequential life, it also provides a window on a time whenWashington was less polarized and government more effective. Best known for his tenure as the 61st Secretary of State (1989-1992), Baker also served as Treasury secretary and twice as White House chief of staff. He played key roles in five presidential campaigns and was George W. Bush’s lead lawyer during the 2000 Florida recount. The husband-and-wife authors are well placed to tell his story. Peter Baker (no relation to James Baker) of The New York Times and Susan Glasser of The New Yorker are highly regarded journalists with many years of Washington experience. They spent 70 hours interviewing Baker, who remains active fromhis home base in Houston at age 91. The narrative arc is somewhat sprawl- ing as it richly details the dimensions of Baker’s long and varied career. The book is written with verve, however, and the pages move quickly. Arranged chronologically, it sets out in-depth background on Baker’s privileged upbringing and how, after ser- vice in the Marines, he returned to Texas and focused on his legal career. Along the way, he met George H.W. Bush, then entering Republican politics. The authors make clear that this is the turning point in which Baker, emulating his friend Bush, became overtly ambitious and began to disregard his father’s stentorian advice to “keep out of politics.” Years later and with considerable irony, Baker tapped into this fatherly admoni- tion by using it in the title of his folksy 2006 autobiography, Work Hard, Study … and Keep Out of Politics! The authors cogently relate how Baker, following George H.W. Bush toWashing- ton, quickly gained respect even while managing two losing presidential cam- paigns (Ford in 1976 and Bush in 1980). He reaped additional accolades for his service as Ronald Reagan’s first chief of staff. As a reward, Reagan named Baker Treasury secretary in 1985. Although he had “nothing more than an undergraduate course in economics,” as the authors put it, Baker was effective at Treasury. Wheeling and dealing with Democrats, he led the successful effort to rewrite the tax code; and in exhaustive negotiations with fellow foreignministers, he reached grand bargains on currency policy. The authors astutely note that Baker’s act of recommending Alan Greenspan as Federal Reserve Board Chair in 1987 had an especially long-lasting effect, given that Greenspan served until 2006. The chapters detailing Baker’s service as Bush’s Secretary of State are particularly absorbing. The authors shine a spotlight on Baker’s starring role in ending the Cold War, in easing the way for German unifica- tion, and inmanaging the U.S. response to the breakup of the Soviet Union. The authors examine how Baker led the all-out diplomatic effort to form the inter- national coalition that countered Iraq after its invasion of Kuwait in 1990. They high- light the impressive metrics: Baker, inmak- ing the case, traveled some 100,000 miles crisscrossing the globe for meetings with more than 200 leaders and foreignministers. Baker’s incisive thinking and self-dis- cipline in conjunction with his support for bipartisan consultation, policy planning andmultilateralismproduced numerous accomplishments, the authors underscore. The ManWho RanWashington is not a hagiography. It points out Baker’s flaws, including his tendency to transform into a tough-as-nails campaign operative when- ever election time rolled around. The authors characterize the Bush 1988 campaign’s use of the “Willie Horton” television advertisement as a step over the line. They trenchantly observe that the ad became “a metaphor for racially coded campaign tactics, aimed at divid- ing Americans for political benefit.” Like a cage fighter in a Savile Row suit, Baker has never expressed regret. Sir Isaiah Berlin in his celebrated 1953 essay identified two types of thinkers: the “hedgehog,” rigidly focused on a single path forward, versus the “fox,” flexibly willing to go inmany different directions. Within this duality, Baker—a technocrat “in whomdrive is more important than destination”—was the classic fox. Even though he operated without much of an overarching vision, Baker was “the most important unelected official since WorldWar II,” according to one com- mentator. The authors contend that Baker personified “an era when serious figures could put aside their differences in a crisis, bargain and lead.” After reading The Man Who RanWashington , it’s hard to disagree with those assessments. n Joseph L. Novak is a Foreign Service officer serving with the Bureau of International Organization Affairs at the State Department.