I thought I'd go to a bookstore and see what moved me.

I started reading the big histories and the small histories, the memoirs and so forth. At some point, I found the diary of William E. Dodd.

Reading Mission to Paris is like sipping a fine Chateau Margaux: Sublime!

Beneath the gore and smoke and loam, this book is about the evanescence of life, and why some men choose to fill their brief allotment of time engaging the impossible, others in the manufacture of sorrow. In the end it is a story of the ineluctable conflict between good and evil, daylight and darkness, the White City and the Black.

I thought I'd go to a bookstore and see what moved me.

I was never concretely aware of the extent of anti-Semitism in the United States and in the upper levels of the State Department.

Hitler was such an anomalous character - he was so over-the-top chaotic in his approach to statesmanship, his manner and in the violence which overwhelmed the country initially. I think diplomats around the world... felt like something like that simply would not be tolerated by the people of Germany.