Talking Back: ... to Presidents, Dictators, and Assorted Scoundrels
By Andrea Mitchell
Whenever possible I avoid reading autobiography. I rarely read fiction, and essentially autobiography is fiction. Who can resist fine tuning ones achievements or smoothing the bumps of a relationship; not to mention flat-out lies? If such a paragon of virtue existed, writing an autobiography would be an anathema to them. “Talking Back: ...to Presidents, Dictators, and Assorted Scoundrels”, is an exception in so far as it is more a journalistic memoir than an autobiography. However, there are chunks of personal history that Lady Greenspan (Alan Greenspan was knighted by the Queen of England in 2002), chose to omit. Perhaps the most telling of these is the not inconsequential matter of a first marriage. There were also children, though non-biological, that she treated as her own. It is poignant that while she extols the virtue of her friends; even labelling their offspring as “…children she never had”, she is silent about her own children. Would it be unreasonable to suggest that this might betray a propensity to edit out inconvenient truths? Alan Greenspan doesn’t mention it either in his book “The Age of Turbulence”. “But then statements of fact pertaining to both parties have been scrupulously edited and they don’t differ even by a comma. That said, Andrea Mitchell describes her three or more decades of journalism in a modest, balanced narrative which moves along at an exhausting pace. She resists the temptation to ‘drop names’, but she does inflate the purity of journalism. I wonder how many people would crave a career in journalism if their contributions lacked a by-line? I have the feeling that the insatiable desire for a scoop would loose its appeal if the story was anonymous. Ms Mitchell’s volume does not betray anything about her. She tells us that she is Jewish. We can deduce that as a couple they are very rich because they don’t spend any of their own money. Every event she describes; including her honeymoon, was funded by someone else. All their travel is tacked-on to official business somewhere in the world. If there is ant ‘self-funded’ travel, she doesn’t mention it. After reading her book, you come away with the impression that she is a very modest person in most things. There is one area where I perceived a little insecurity. She wants to be judged as an intellectual. She reminds us that she went to an Ivy League college. Whilst this is technically true, it is stretching the distinction a little. She tells us that she was accepted for a woman’s college at Cambridge, but she doesn’t tell us which one – and there are only three. Her attention for detail in other areas exaggerates her amnesia about Cambridge, even though she mentions it twice. Her writing style is predictably journalistic and a little tedious, but none-the-less an excellent commentary on current affaires of the last three decades. There are no attempts to take credit for successful events; indeed she describes everything with brutal honesty – warts and all. Ms Mitchell shares few personal details with us, and the work is the poorer for it. One is left with the impression that she is the definitive spinster married to the definitive bachelor. She does her thing and he does his and they meet occasionally at the White House for dinner. If you are already a student of current affaires, then this volume will add nothing to your fund of knowledge. However, if you need a crash course in the happenings of the last thirty years,