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William D. Pawley: The Extraordinary Life of the Adventurer, Entrepreneur, and Diplomat Who Cofounded the Flying Tigers
Author(s): Anthony R. Carrozza (Author)
- Publisher: Potomac Books, Inc.
- Publication Date: 31 Mar. 2012
- Edition: Illustrated
- Language: English
- Print length: 432 pages
- ISBN-10: 1597977144
- ISBN-13: 9781597977142
Book Description
President Harry Truman appointed Pawley ambassador to Peru (1945–1946), and to Brazil (1946–1948). When Dwight Eisenhower ran for president, Pawley switched parties, campaigned for Ike, and was later assigned to the State Department. During this period, he dealt with world leaders on sensitive national security matters, such as backdoor diplomacy in the Dominican Republic under Rafael Trujillo, in Cuba at the time of Fidel Castro’s takeover, and in a plot to overthrow the Guatemalan government in 1954. Later, in an effort to discredit President John Kennedy, Pawley financed Operation Red Cross, a secret effort to help Russian missile officers defect from Cuba to the United States. This episode, involving a cast of characters from Mafia members to soldiers of fortune, was one of many in an adventurous life story nearly beyond belief.
Anthony R. Carrozza’s in-depth biography looks at the extraordinary life of a man whose work influenced thirty critical years of American and international relations during World War II and the Cold War.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“An energetic, flawed anticommunist businessman with a central–if often unofficial–role in U.S. foreign policy adventures from World War II China to revolutionary Cuba, Pawley makes for a fascinating subject. Backed by massive research, including access to Pawley family papers and interviews, Carrozza spins a fast-paced narrative that will delight anyone interested in diplomacy, war, or the spread of U.S. economic influence abroad.”–Alan McPherson, associate professor of international and area studies, University of Oklahoma, and author of
Intimate Ties, Bitter Struggles: The United States and Latin America since 1945“William Pawley is hardly a household name, but he was the consummate Cold War adventurer, diplomat, businessman, and wheeler-dealing American patriot. Anthony Carrozza’s biography of this extraordinary man offers a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the conspiracy and intrigue that characterized private and public U.S. operations overseas during the tumultuous middle years of the twentieth century.”–Tom Gjelten, author of
Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba
