In May 1948, George Polk, a foreign correspondent for CBS news, was murdered in Greece. His murder was a tragedy. It was a tragedy for his family. It was a tragedy for truth. It was a tragedy for journalism. It was a tragedy for Greece. It was a tragedy for the future political direction of the United States.

Greece was the setting of a civil war between a royalist government and Communist guerilla forces. But it was not the simple good guys versus the bad guys. The origins and course of the civil war were vastly more complex. Churchill and Stalin had cynically divided the Balkans-with Churchill selecting Greece for the British. Stalin kept his part of the deal. He did NOT support the communist guerillas. While still fighting the Nazis, Britain sent an expeditionary force into Greece to expel the occupation forces; restore the king; and support the Greek army in the civil war. When it became apparent that the British--having fought the Germans for over five years-the longest of any allied power-were depleted and were unable to maintain their empire they successfully prevailed upon the United States to take over for them. And so the Truman Doctrine was born.

The situation in Greece was tragic. The German occupation had depleted a country that had been Europe's poorest. Its infrastructure had been destroyed. Many were homeless and/or starving. The corrupt fascist government that had been imposed by Briton favored a mere 2% of its citizens. Its response to dissent was mass executions or banishment to barren islands. It withheld hundreds of millions of dollars in American aid to prevent a drop in the high prices of goods. Having rid itself of the Nazi occupiers a bitter struggle ensued between these royalists and those longing for a "people's Greece". With the United States on the scene-to prevent the spread of communism--it now backed this corrupt, fascist, royalist government.

George Polk was a most outstanding journalist. He was courageous, truthful and thorough. He was a loner who did not socialize with those he would report on. He told it like it was. Unlike most reporters, he was not influenced by the political consequences. His truthful reports embarrassed the corrupt Greek government and its American supporter as well. Continuation of the American program, that would soon terminate unless renewed, was endangered by these reports. News of his murder was met with shock and a public outcry. The Truman Administration had a crisis on its hands. The murderer had to be found.

With considerable pressure from their American patron the Greek authorities solved the case. And guess what? SURPRISE. The communists did it. An innocent man confessed to his part in the crime-after he had been brutally tortured so that he could recall all of the things he was supposed to recall. Very prominent Americans dutifully endorsed the tribunal's verdict, even though they were fully aware of the duplicity. Among these were Secretary of State George Marshal, and columnist Walter Lippmann. The major news media patriotically approved the result and quickly and quietly the issue vanished.

"The Polk Conspiracy" is an excellent well-written book. It provides a biography of Polk; indicates how highly he was thought of by his colleagues, the top newsmen of the day; describes the background and living conditions in Greece during the civil war; the corruption of Greek officials; and the duplicity of both Greek and American investigators in the fraudulent resolution of the murder trial.

This was the first scene of the Cold War drama that continues to the present day. When people in various countries throughout the world rise up against cruel dictators or colonial governments Uncle Sam is there to assist them with financial aid, military advisors, and/or the CIA, to help them select appropriate new leaders. News of what caused the overthrow are frequently unreported or distorted because patriotism rides high in the major news media. The Cold War drama has been a long running show. Some of the actors-foolishly chosen by the their fellow citizens--that Uncle Sam escorted from the stage were: Mossadegh of Iran; Arbenz of Guatemala, Sukarno of Indonesia; Lumumba of the Congo; Balaguer of the Dominican Republic, Marcos of the Philippines, Allende of Chile, and the Sandanistas of Nicaragua. Will the next act of the continuing drama be Colombia?

The first hot battle of the Cold War, the global war between the forces of freedom and the forces of Soviet-controlled communism, was fought in Greece. It was the battle for Greece that precipitated the Truman Doctrine, the resolution of President Harry Truman to do whatever it took to stop the spread of communism. And it was in Greece that the first great test of the Truman Doctrine was passed. With massive financial assistance from the United States the Greek government was able to put down a Soviet-supported communist insurrection.

That, at least, is one side of the story, and it is the side that most Americans who still pay any attention to such "ancient history" have come to accept. Our view of the Greek Civil War of the late 1940s--and the war itself--might have turned out differently had George Polk lived, had he not been murdered in 1948 while attempting to get an interview with the insurrection's leaders. Polk, as our military folk used to say in Vietnam, couldn't be persuaded to "get with the program."

This much one can easily gather from Kati Marton's gripping narrative of the perilous and ultimately fatal path that this chief Middle East correspondent for CBS News followed in his dogged search for the truth about the war. Going beyond Marton's account one can also deduce that the future of America's press as a watchdog on its own government would have been quite different if Polk's surviving colleagues in the news business had been equally as dogged in demanding the truth about his murder, instead of accepting the Greek government's transparent cover-up story that the communists did it and allowing a pigeon to be railroaded.*

One colleague who didn't fall for the fiction, but who was not among the high-level journalists who were allowed to attend the trial to duly give it their seal of approval, was CBS national news commentator, Don Hollenbeck. Unfortunately, according to a short blurb in The New York Times, Hollenbeck committed suicide in June of 1954. According to Marton, Hollenbeck was a man broken from the relentless pounding he took from the cold warriors in the press. According to The Times, he couldn't stand the pain of a bleeding ulcer so he turned on the gas jets in his apartment. At any rate, until Edmund Keeley came along in 1989 with his scholarly account of the whitewash ("The Salonika Bay Murder," see amazon.com review) and now Marton, that was about the last we saw of journalists standing up for Polk. These days, ironically, they make a big fuss about it when they get the George Polk Award for investigative reporting.

I look forward to the Mel Gibson movie to be made from this book and trust that this review will not lessen the prospects for that eventuality.

* Among those abandoning Polk in favor of the Greek govrernment's whitewash, according to Marton, were leading columnist Walter Lippmann; Eugene Meyer of The Washington Post; William Paley, Joseph C. Harsch, Winston Burdett, and John Secondari of CBS; and James Reston of The New York Times.

Kati Marton's book, HIDDEN POWER, examines the marital relationships of twelve couples who occupied the White House between 1916 and the present. This book has a number of good aspects. First, it is fascinating and holds the reader's interest from the introduction through the epilogue. Second, Ms. Marton succeeds in humanizing some larger than life personalities (for the first time, I saw an appealing, sympathetic and human side to FDR). I constantly found myself relating to the couples featured in this book. Third, Ms. Marton draws interesting comparisons between the presidential marriages and discusses the impact of those relationships upon history.

I must say that I noticed a surprising number of factual errors, exaggerations and authorities cited out of context. For example, Ms. Marton begins her chapter on the Nixons with an anecdote that Pat Nixon had a cup of cottage cheese sent up to her bedroom on her first night in the White House while Richard Nixon had a celebratory steak dinner with his daughters and their husbands (Nixon did not have two sons-in-law in January 1969 -- Tricia didn't marry until August 1971 in memorable Rose Garden ceremony). I understand that Ms. Marton was trying to demonstrate the pathos in Pat Nixon's relationship with her husband. However, the obvious misstatement in that anecdote made me wonder what else was erroneous. Also, Ms. Marton cited J.B. West's UPSTAIRS AT THE WHITE HOUSE out of context in at least one instance. There were additional inaccuracies and exaggerations in the chapters on the Wilsons, Nixons and Fords.

HIDDEN POWER is an insightful and enjoyable work in spite of the inaccuracies. Read this book for the general themes, but double-check the facts before quoting this book or using it as an authority for a research paper or thesis.

This was an enjoyable light, but informative book about presidencies from a different perspective than most. I differ from one of the panning reviews in that I thought it was refreshingly not leftist liberal journalism. The author seemed to take a non-political view of the characters with an expected sympathetic eye towards the first ladies. I also found some factual discrepancies that a fact checker should have found which - as always - puts a cloud on the author's credibility; i.e.: Ford was an All-American center for Mich, not a star quarterback at Yale. But her countless quotes from insiders were well chosen, very informative and interesting. She did her homework on those. If there were half stars to give, I'd give this a three and one-half. Certainly worth the time.

In contrast to the star-struck cheeriness of the well known pop-historian of first ladies, Carl Sferrazza Anthony, Kati Marton's book is excellent. Marton's reason for not writing on certain presidential couples is essentially that these relationships offer little that would interest a reader--a trick Sferrazza Anthony would have done well to consider. Although Marton offers few new facts, her book is unique because of the side-by-side analysis--often comparison--of presidential couples. Anyone who doesn't appreciate good gossip has no buisness picking up this book. Analyzed at length is the issue of presidential mistresses--continually present in the White House, it appears. Interesting is how the first ladies--Roosevelt, Kennedy, Johnson, and Clinton each handled these affairs in her own way. Seeking clues with regard to enhancing my own marriage, I found lots and lots of help--and I'm only up to the Johnsons.