Citizen Nader

by Charles McCarry

McCarry, Charles, Citizen Nader

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1972

About the author

McCarry served in the United States Army, where he was a correspondent for Stars and Stripes, was a small-town newspaperman, and was a speechwriter in the Eisenhower administration. From 1958 to 1967 he worked for the CIA, under deep cover in Europe, Asia, and Africa. However, his cover was not as a writer or journalist.

McCarry was editor-at-large for National Geographic and contributed pieces to The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and other national publications.

McCarry was best known for a series of books concerning the life of super spy Paul Christopher. Born in Germany before WWII to a German mother and an American father, Christopher joins the CIA after the war and becomes one of its most effective spies. After launching an unauthorized investigation of the Kennedy assassination, Christopher becomes a pariah to the agency and a hunted man. Eventually, he spends ten years in a Chinese prison before being released and embarking on a solution to the mystery that has haunted him his entire life: the fate of his mother, who disappeared at the beginning of WWII. The books are notable for their historical detail and depiction of spycraft, as well as their careful and extensive examination of Christopher's relationship with his family, friends, wives, and lovers.

Reviews

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

A CRITICAL (BUT NOT UNSYMPATHETIC) "EARLY" PICTURE OF THE CONSUMER ADVOCATE

At the time this book was published in 1972, Charles McCarry was "a former newspaper reporter, speechwriter, and official for the International Labor Organization (a United Nations agency) in Geneva, [who] has published some two hundred articles..."

About Nader's first book, ‘Unsafe at Any Speed’, he quotes an official, "The advocate presents his case to win it... The scientists can't do this and that's something that Ralph can't accept. There's a difference between scientific detachment and inertia, but Ralph seems to think that a careful approach to the facts betrays a lack of zeal. To Ralph, there is no substitute for zeal." (Pg. 69) Later, he notes, "Nader does not normally deal with phenomena, like drinking, that shift the focus on the auto safety problem away from the vehicle." (Pg. 101)

He recounts, "Nader is not unaware of the plight of women in society, and he doesn't think that the Women's Liberation movement is likely to relieve it. 'There's a tiny militant majority, about ten people in the East, that controls the grapevine for everyone,' he says. '...The presumption, the arrogance, of these so-called militants, looking over the scene of desolation and alienation that they call women, and then to say only that we---all ten of us---only we are going to do something about it!'" (Pg. 130)

He quotes Nader, "'Some of these [lawyers] want to do good in the world for $18,000 a year to start...' The money question, Nader says, is the principal reason for the total absence of blacks in his organization. He offered to set up an independent black public-interest law firm, paying its members his usual $4,500 a year and giving them a free hand to pursue whatever issues seemed relevant to them... He had no takers. 'They're tired of poverty,' Nader explains. Young women, few of whom have joined Nader at a professional level, don't mind economic discomfort as much as the idea of being under the control of a male. When Nader tried to set up an all-female law firm, the women he contacted were afraid of the ridicule they would attract from their militant sisters." (Pg. 212-213)

He concludes on the note, "This is a great deal to attempt outside the boundaries of traditional political action. Nader clearly falls outside those boundaries. He is a revolutionary---in despair over what he regards as a society on the brink of shipwreck, animated by a burning sense of righteousness, endowed with the gift of personal magnetism, and gripped by the ruthless love of an idea." (Pg. 320)

Nader has changed in the last 40 years, as has society; but this early book is still of some interest to those studying his early history

[False · Rating 3 out of 5]

I rated the book "like" based solely on the writing skills and research by the author. I've never been able to stomach Ralph Nader. I only read this book because I am currently reading all of Charles McCarry right now. I was around Nader a few times, the last time in the Rayburn Building in Washington, D.C. where he was waiting for an elevator in his rumpled torn raincoat--an idea that works better on Leonard Cohen. I've always felt he was a zealot, a hypocrite, self absorbed. Even though this was written in 1972, probably at the peak of his powers, many things still hold true today. Lives in forced poverty. Never had a 9-5 job where he had to answer to someone else, seems to have a real misogyny toward women. I should change that to misanthrope and say "humanity." My way or the highway. Someone who will browbeat you over drinking a Coke while he flies back and forth across the country giving speeches and leaving a carbon footprint that could choke Yeti. I have zero idea what he's up to these days. I know his diversion during a Presidential election cost a valued candidate their win with the distractions. And how do we define that? Ego? In this book he swears he would never run for office. How about a monastery with a silence vow? That might work.