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Crossroads
The prosecutor at the Watergate and Nazi war crimes trials looks back on his life and career in light of his strong Christian faith, illuminating the ways his belief in God has helped him deal with problems and make decisions
216 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 1981
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 12, 2007
This is one of the best books I've read the past few years. It is one autobiography of Leon Jaworski, a Christian trial attorney from Texas who speaks of his family, his faith, and how simple truths have guided his decisions in harrowing situations as he prosecuted nazi war crimes trials, watergate, and more.
March 14, 2016
I love the history in this book and the empathy it gives the reader for the people and situations in the mid 1900's. It's easy to read about things of the past and mentally file them away with our knowledge of dates, times, and places. Reading Jaworski's accounts of World War II, the war trials, the civil rights movement, and Nixon's impeachment takes these historic events out of our mental file and lets us see the human impact they had on the people involved. Instead of reading facts, we read about human beings who struggle with moral and ethical choices that either make them heroes or make them traitors.
When I first read the book, I gave it 3 stars, feeling it got a little preachy. Jaworski's religious views are brought up numerous times as he contemplates what makes us do the things we do in critical situations. After I read the book, however, I read his account of why he wrote the memoir. In his account, he explains that a number of people came to him and asked him to write about his religion and how it influenced him over the years. Knowing that was his purpose changed the way I look at the book, thus I changed my rating. I would actually give it a 4+. I think about the book a lot, and find myself telling people about it when we are talking about books, history, or philosophies. I'm sure it is a book I won't forget.
When I first read the book, I gave it 3 stars, feeling it got a little preachy. Jaworski's religious views are brought up numerous times as he contemplates what makes us do the things we do in critical situations. After I read the book, however, I read his account of why he wrote the memoir. In his account, he explains that a number of people came to him and asked him to write about his religion and how it influenced him over the years. Knowing that was his purpose changed the way I look at the book, thus I changed my rating. I would actually give it a 4+. I think about the book a lot, and find myself telling people about it when we are talking about books, history, or philosophies. I'm sure it is a book I won't forget.
March 13, 2021
This is one of the most remarkable autobiographies I’ve read in a great, long while! I wish I were better with words and could help you more clearly see how extraordinary it is, especially in our day and time. We seem to live in a time when a party you attended as a 10-year-old can get you fired or disciplined as an adult if pictures of that party appear online somehow and if you were doing something that seemed rather innocent to a 10-year-old. The first chapter is a real slammer. Jaworski recalls being in a DC church on a Sunday morning at the height of the Watergate prosecutions. Jaworski had heard all the tapes in which Nixon had admitted to, well, scandalous things and taken the name of God in vain loudly and repeatedly. Jaworski’s first thought was to want to lash out in the spirit of condemnation toward the seemingly cocky president with his hunched shoulders and confident gait. But he simultaneously realized that Richard Nixon’s relationship to God was his and his alone to measure and resolve. This remarkable jurist for whom the teachings of Jesus had been such an integral part of his entire life found a way to extend personal grace and forgiveness to the one man whom he knew had lied to the people and covered up criminal activity. Jaworski determined in his heart to let Nixon and God sort out their issues whatever those are. What a refreshing change from today’s gotcha mentality in which there seems to be neither second chances nor redemption nor offers of forgiveness from any unflinching quarter.
You may not care anything about Watergate these days, reasoning that leaders have come to power since whose conduct make Watergate look like a child’s toy party. But you should care about this book, since it powerfully demonstrates the immense value the teachings of Jesus can have on one person’s life.
You see, Jaworski didn’t just fall out of the sky to preside over the Watergate trials. He lived a tempered, tested, and proven life that prepared him for that historic juncture. As World War II broke out, he determined to enlist despite a burgeoning trial law career in Houston. He becomes a military trial lawyer, and he investigated killings of German prisoners of war by fellow German inmates at U.S. POW camps. That experience prepared him to be one of the key members of the legal team who tried Nazi war criminals at the end of World War II. Throughout this experience, Jaworski explains how Christ’s influence shaped his decisions and thoughts. He celebrates the courage of a lone sheriff in Waco, Texas in the ‘20s who tried diligently to prevent a KKK parade in the community. And while Atticus Finch is fictional, Jaworski defended a black man accused of murdering a white couple at their farmhouse. In this case, it turned out that the black man lied about his whereabouts on the night of the murders, and a jury ultimately convicted him. But Jaworski took threat after threat from Waco’s white citizenry for even attempting to defend the black man. Jaworski insisted quietly and without rancor toward his fellow citizens that every person deserves legal defense. In providing defense for the black killer, Jaworski said he found peace from God, and it was that peace that enabled him to endure the rancor of people whom he thought were his friends.
I knew so little about Jaworski going into this book, and I came away with a new deeper appreciation for his courage and his love for the Savior—a love instilled in him by a pre-World-War-I-German-immigrant minister dad. I’ve had this on a hard drive since May 2016, and it languished there because I assumed it would be just another Watergate book. Granted, I wanted to read it. There was never any doubt that I would eventually read it, but I wish I had taken it on sooner. It’s so, so much more than another book about Watergate. It’s a book filled with prescient warnings for our time and reflections on a life spiritually lived.
One of the most impressive threads worthy of closer investigation in this book was the recurring perspective that good people will become evil when the secular religion of politics replaces God. Jaworski saw the path seemingly ordinary Germans followed from hoping Hitler’s extremism would smooth out to reluctantly joining a party they didn’t really believe in just to get leaders off their backs to a time when they can gleefully beat a group of captured American airmen to death with clubs and rocks, fiendishly screaming as they joyfully did it. Jaworski asserts that Americans are not immune from taking similar paths, and as they further distance themselves from God and as Christian churches grow increasingly weak and fearfully silent, such a path seems progressively more likely.
This isn’t a book about a man who never experiences a crisis of faith. Two of his grandsons died in separate vehicle accidents, and in both cases, the experience rocks the unwavering believer to his center.
At the end of the book, he summarizes his philosophy with a quote from Dag Hammarskjold: “For all that has been, thanks. To all that shall be, yes.” I had never read that quote before, and it struck me vividly as few things have in recent months.
I’m grateful I read this book. I’m not a person who rereads books, but I could redo this one every year or so. It’s just that good.
You may not care anything about Watergate these days, reasoning that leaders have come to power since whose conduct make Watergate look like a child’s toy party. But you should care about this book, since it powerfully demonstrates the immense value the teachings of Jesus can have on one person’s life.
You see, Jaworski didn’t just fall out of the sky to preside over the Watergate trials. He lived a tempered, tested, and proven life that prepared him for that historic juncture. As World War II broke out, he determined to enlist despite a burgeoning trial law career in Houston. He becomes a military trial lawyer, and he investigated killings of German prisoners of war by fellow German inmates at U.S. POW camps. That experience prepared him to be one of the key members of the legal team who tried Nazi war criminals at the end of World War II. Throughout this experience, Jaworski explains how Christ’s influence shaped his decisions and thoughts. He celebrates the courage of a lone sheriff in Waco, Texas in the ‘20s who tried diligently to prevent a KKK parade in the community. And while Atticus Finch is fictional, Jaworski defended a black man accused of murdering a white couple at their farmhouse. In this case, it turned out that the black man lied about his whereabouts on the night of the murders, and a jury ultimately convicted him. But Jaworski took threat after threat from Waco’s white citizenry for even attempting to defend the black man. Jaworski insisted quietly and without rancor toward his fellow citizens that every person deserves legal defense. In providing defense for the black killer, Jaworski said he found peace from God, and it was that peace that enabled him to endure the rancor of people whom he thought were his friends.
I knew so little about Jaworski going into this book, and I came away with a new deeper appreciation for his courage and his love for the Savior—a love instilled in him by a pre-World-War-I-German-immigrant minister dad. I’ve had this on a hard drive since May 2016, and it languished there because I assumed it would be just another Watergate book. Granted, I wanted to read it. There was never any doubt that I would eventually read it, but I wish I had taken it on sooner. It’s so, so much more than another book about Watergate. It’s a book filled with prescient warnings for our time and reflections on a life spiritually lived.
One of the most impressive threads worthy of closer investigation in this book was the recurring perspective that good people will become evil when the secular religion of politics replaces God. Jaworski saw the path seemingly ordinary Germans followed from hoping Hitler’s extremism would smooth out to reluctantly joining a party they didn’t really believe in just to get leaders off their backs to a time when they can gleefully beat a group of captured American airmen to death with clubs and rocks, fiendishly screaming as they joyfully did it. Jaworski asserts that Americans are not immune from taking similar paths, and as they further distance themselves from God and as Christian churches grow increasingly weak and fearfully silent, such a path seems progressively more likely.
This isn’t a book about a man who never experiences a crisis of faith. Two of his grandsons died in separate vehicle accidents, and in both cases, the experience rocks the unwavering believer to his center.
At the end of the book, he summarizes his philosophy with a quote from Dag Hammarskjold: “For all that has been, thanks. To all that shall be, yes.” I had never read that quote before, and it struck me vividly as few things have in recent months.
I’m grateful I read this book. I’m not a person who rereads books, but I could redo this one every year or so. It’s just that good.
September 15, 2021
This is a very readable account of the part faith in god played in the life of this influential lawyer who is best known as the chief prosecutor at the Watergate hearings. this is a perspective that seems to be rarely discussed nowadays which is one reason I would recommend this book.
April 7, 2012
Interesting man. A little preachy.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews