BOOK REVIEW
“Crisis of Character” - By Gary J. Byrne
283 pages – Center Street
Reviewed by: Jeb Ladouceur
In the interest of full disclosure, it should be noted that this reviewer is not a fan of Hillary Rodham Clinton. Thus, we will attempt to soft-pedal this book’s many caustic criticisms of the current Democratic candidate for president … because it should not be assumed that the critique is intended as a device to promote the candidacy of Clinton’s opponent, Republican Donald J. Trump.
It is widely known that ‘Crisis of Character’s’ author, Gary J. Byrne, has written a no-holds-barred condemnation of the former First Lady and Secretary of State. What prospective readers of this runaway best seller might not know, however, is that the book is loaded with incidents in the career of the retired Secret Service Officer that touch on interesting aspects of life as a presidential protector, but refer only obliquely to Clinton. These vignettes may be referred to, it seems to me, without castigating Hillary Clinton in the process.
For instance, we might be surprised to learn that smoking cigarettes is very popular among Secret Service people. Indeed Gary Byrne reveals that during the Clinton administration, agents assigned to protect the president and his wife, knowing that Mrs. Clinton hated smoking and despised those who smoked, often intentionally lit up out of doors when they saw her coming … just to provoke her. The practice was not forbidden, and there was little that FLOTUS (the First Lady of the United States) could do about it.
Or this … a frequent White House guest of the Clintons, sex guru Dr. Ruth Westheimer, claimed she had been the one to persuade Bill Clinton finally to run for president. That fact is interesting in itself, but it’s perhaps compounded by the knowledge that the tiny woman had been a sniper in the Israeli Army during the early days of its founding . She once poked none other than Officer Byrne with her finger and boasted, “I can put a bullet in your chest from 200 yards, young man.”
As mentioned, we will not find it necessary to cite the litany of Secret Service complaints about FLOTUS, but it should be pointed out that for all his faults, the president enjoyed a reputation that was just the opposite of his wife’s: he was loved by those assigned to protect him. As Byrne says, “Find yourself in the same room with Elvis (his code name) and you are hooked. POTUS was very generous. You can’t help but like him.”
Of course, ‘Crisis of Character’ would probably be disappointing to most if it failed what I call the ‘Lewinsky test.’ In that regard, it shouldn’t disappoint. White House voyeurs will be titillated to know that Bill Clinton provided the notorious young intern access to his private phone line. We learn that the number was so secret it required not only a four-digit pass code, but one that was rhythmical in nature as well. Which is to say, entering numbers and letters had to be done at just the right pace for the code to work. Now that’s secret!
Another sample of this memoir’s intrigue comes in a heretofore unreported incident when the author tells of his concern regarding Ms. Lewinsky. Having become aware of the fact that “…she and the president (had) a behind-closed-doors relationship…” Gary Byrne detected a potential danger to the presidency. Accordingly, he went to Bill Clinton’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Evelyn Lieberman, and told her what he knew. “The next day,” Byrne writes, …Monica was gone.
It won’t come as any surprise that many Secret Service personnel are reported literally to have gone mad, and that over the years several turned to drugs and alcohol … performance enhancers and prostitutes … as well as illicit sexual affairs on the job. After reading ‘Crisis of Character’ one may well wonder how any of these beleaguered people managed to avoid such a fate.
Unfortunately, his book is poorly written (blame the editors at Center Street for that). It is not for literary purists, but it certainly is interesting, timely, and a bit disconcerting. Indeed, anyone contemplating a life as a Secret Service agent … or for that matter, a politician … might give that a second thought by the time they get to Chapter Eighteen.
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Award-winning writer, Jeb Ladouceur is the author of eleven novels, and his theater and book reviews appear in several major L.I. publications. His newest book, THE GHOSTWRITERS, explores the bizarre relationship between the late Harper Lee and Truman Capote. It maintains that each wrote the other’s most famous work. Ladouceur’s revealing website is www.JebsBooks.com