Ep. 216 Jill Eicher, "Mellon vs. Churchill"

McCarthyism, Whitaker Chambers, Alger Hiss, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Paul Robeson, House Un-American Activities Committee, the Smith Act, the Hollywood 10, the Joint Anti-Fascist Committee, the Truman Loyalty Program, the Blacklist, book burning, and communism – all subjects of controversy during the 1930s, 40s, and 50s here in the United States. Clay Risen, a reporter and editor at the New York Times, has a fresh look at all this in his book, "Red Scare." Mr. Risen writes in his preface that his grandfather was a career FBI agent who joined the Bureau during World War II, and he recounted stories of implementing loyalty tests for the federal government in the late 1940s. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After a career in investment management and some time as a credit risk specialist at the US Treasury Department, Jill Eicher has written her first book titled, "Melon vs. Churchill: The Untold Story of Treasury Titans at War." It's all about the collection of war debts from World War I, which was fought between 1914 and 1918. Andrew Mellon, a wealthy industrialist, served as Secretary of the Treasury for Presidents Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover. 11 years total. He took on Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston Churchill. Jill Eicher tells a story that will be new to most readers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Hassan Tetteh, in his latest book, opens the introduction with a question: "How do we prepare for the future with AI?" His primary focus is on healthcare and AI, but it's subtitled "Harnessing Military Medicine to Revolutionize Healthcare for Everyone Everywhere." Dr. Tetteh is currently based at Howard University and Inova Hospital in Fairfax, Virginia, after serving 25 years in military medicine. His specialty is as a thoracic surgeon doing heart and lung transplants. He retired from the Navy in 2023. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

British writer Phil Tinline has written a book titled "Ghosts of Iron Mountain." The publisher Scribner calls it "an investigative masterpiece for readers curious about the surprising connection between John F. Kennedy, Oliver Stone, Timothy McVeigh, QAnon, Alex Jones, and Donald Trump." In his introduction, author Tinline says the book is the true story of a hoax. A hoax that shocked the nation in the late 1960s and that once created seemed impossible to extinguish. Those involved in the hoax included Victor Navasky, E.L. Doctorow, John Kenneth Galbraith, and Leonard Lewin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Richard Overy is a British historian who has spent most of his professional life writing books about war, primarily World War II. Professor Overy's current work is called "Rain of Ruin: Tokyo, Hiroshima, and the Surrender of Japan." Liner notes on the cover of the book say: "With the development of the B-29 Super Fortress in the summer of 1944, strategic bombing, a central component of the Allied war effort against Germany, arrived in the Pacific theater. In 1945 Japan experienced the three most deadly bombing attacks of the war." Professor Richard Overy is 77 and lives in Great Britain and Italy. He has written close to 30 books. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As a follow on to Stuart Banner's history of the Supreme Court, this week's Booknotes+ podcast features a 2002 interview with Dennis Hutchinson, a University of Chicago law professor emeritus. The subject matter: the forgotten memoir of John Knox, a law clerk to former justice James McReynolds, a native of Kentucky. Knox's year was the term beginning October 1936. In history, it is very rare that a law clerk at the Supreme Court has published an insider's view of the court or of a justice. Professor Hutchinson gives the background on where he found the memoir, which hadn't been published before. Justice McReynolds, as you will hear, was, according to historians, arguably one of the most disagreeable justices ever to sit on the bench. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

UCLA law professor Stuart Banner's book, "The Most Powerful Court in the World," is a history of the United States Supreme Court from the founding era to the present. In his introduction, Stuart Banner writes that: "Today, critics on the left accuse the justices of deciding cases on political rather than legal grounds. This book shows that the Court's critics have always leveled this criticism at decisions they did not like. These attacks have usually come from the left because the court has usually been a conservative institution." Author Stuart Banner has a law degree from Stanford and clerked for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in 1991. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

C-SPAN Founder Brian Lamb is in conversation with Sam Feist, the network's CEO, and Susan Swain, C-SPAN's former co-CEO, about his quest to bring live, gavel-to-gavel coverage of Congress into every American home. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Steven Gillon was a scholar in residence at the History Channel for more than 20 years. He has written 12 books on subjects including a history of the United States, the Kerner Commission, Lee Harvey Oswald, and the Life of John F. Kennedy Jr. His latest book is titled "Presidents at War: How World War II Shaped a Generation of Presidents from Eisenhower and JFK through Reagan and Bush." Steven Gillon closes his book saying: "Ironically, the threats facing America in the third decade of the 21st century are very real and, in many ways, similar to the challenges the nation confronted in the 1930s." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As a follow up to our recent podcast regarding the life and times of Anne Frank, we asked author Alexandra Ritchie to tell us more about the horrors of World War II and Poland. Ritchie, a citizen of Canada, now lives in the city which is the title of her book, Warsaw. Her focus is on 1944 and what was called the Warsaw Uprising. In her introduction, she writes, "Himmler and Hitler had decided that the entire population remaining in one of Europe's great capital cities was to be murdered in cold blood. Himmler referred to Warsaw as the great abscess, which was to be completely destroyed." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices