The Foreign Service Journal, October 2019

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | OCTOBER 2019 51 The Man in the Arena: The Life and Times of U.S. Senator Gale McGee Rodger McDaniel, Potomac Books, 2018, $36.95/hardcover, 416 pages. Gale McGee was elected as a senator fromWyoming in 1958 and would go on to have an influential career in both foreign policy and domestic politics. This biography, a volume in the ADST-DACOR Diplomats and Diplomacy Book Series, recalls an era of bipartisanship in policymaking that helped transform the nation. Senator McGee played a major role in the 1960s liberal con- sensus that gave the country Medicare, the minimum wage, the right to collective bargaining and significant civil rights reforms. He was nominated by President Jimmy Carter to serve as the U.S. ambassador to the Organization of American States during the successful approval of the 1978 Panama Canal Treaty. Rodger McDaniel is a pastor, a former lawyer and served as a Wyoming state senator from 1977 to 1981. He also served in the Wyoming state house from 1971 to 1977. The Sit Room: In the Theater of War and Peace David Scheffer, Oxford University Press, 2018, $29.95/hardcover, 360 pages. In this insider account of the White House Situation Room, David Scheffer reveals the intense debates that decided Ameri- ca’s response to the Balkans War. The Sit Room features an impressive ensemble of characters, from Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and National Security Adviser Tony Lake to lead negotiator Richard Holbrooke. The book depicts authentic policymaking at the highest levels of government, and recounts how differing views among diplo- mats, generals and the White House were ironed out within the policy process. David Scheffer served on the Deputies Committee of the National Security Council during the early 1990s. Afterward he became the first U.S. ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues, serving from 1997 to 2001. A graduate of Oxford, Harvard and Georgetown universities, he is currently the Mayer Brown/ Robert A. Helman Professor of Law at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law. White House Warriors: How the National Security Council Transformed the American Way of War John Gans, Liveright, 2019, $28.95/hardcover, 272 pages. Drawing from policymakers and more than 10,000 documents from presiden- tial libraries and archives, John Gans clarifies the purpose of the National Security Council, reveals how diversely the NSC has been used by presidents from John F. Kennedy through Donald Trump, and offers a look behind the curtain concerning foreign policy and security decisions in Washington. As former U.S. ambassador to NATO Ivo H. Daalder explains: “When it comes to U.S. national security policy, some of the most powerful and consequential people in Washington are also the least well known. John Gans shines a bright light on these National Security Council staffers and shows how they have influenced presidential decisions on war for decades.” Gans, who previously served as the chief speechwriter at the Pentagon, works as the director of communications and research at the University of Pennsylvania’s global policy institute, Perry World House. Meditating Murder Ann Saxton Reh, Prospect Street Press, 2019, $12.99/paperback, 320 pages. Meditating Murder is a good, old- fashioned mystery, the first in a series featuring diplomat sleuth David Markham, a Foreign Service officer. Kassandra Fitzwilliam is on the Northern California coast in the late 1980s, indulg- ing her passion for collecting South Asian antiquities and other people’s secrets. Her husband, Gerald, a retired ambassador, is worried when a group of houseguests come to prepare an exhibit of Kassandra’s collection because he is sure it contains stolen items that will discredit his career. He calls the only person he can count on, fellow diplomat David Markham, who soon finds himself looking for a murderer. Ann Saxton Reh is a retired educator and military spouse with a penchant for adventure who has lived in six foreign countries while raising a family. She is working on a prequel and sequel to the book, set in Saudi Arabia and India, respectively. n