geeky
In 1964, a series of letters written by future president Warren Harding to Carrie Phillips, were located in Phillips' home after her death. Phillips, who was the wife of one of Harding's close friends, was also very pro-German at a time when the world was torn apart by the First World War. At first, pro- and anti- German sympathies divided the neutral nation, but after the United States entered the war on the side of the allies and a wave of anti-German sentiment swept across America, the hunt was on for spies and those who leaked military information to the enemy. Mrs. Phillips was one of those strongly suspected of such unpatriotic activity, complicating Harding's relationship.
The book also tells the story of the Baroness Zollner, aka Iona Pickhardt, whose cousin was betrothed to Carrie Phillips' daughter Isabelle. When the Baroness is caught in a hotel room in Tennessee with a young army lieutenant, she is arrested and a preliminary hearing is held to determine if she should be put on trial for spying. Robenalt weaves in this tale and its proximity to Carrie Phillips and Harding. The author does a superb job of telling all of the aspects of this story including the amusing, the sensational, the legitimate and the unfair.
Though we see that Harding is Clintonesque in his libido, Robenalt gives Harding credit for his statesmanship and sound (political) judgement at a time when the nation is suffering from the injury to free speech and other freedoms that accompany wartime. We only have Harding's side of the correspondence, which Phillips kept as for purposes of blackmail, but Robenalt does a superb job and a fair job of interpreting the letters, even in explaining the code which the lovers used. He gives the reader insight into how much Harding knew about his girlfriend's clandestine activity, and raises a number of questions about why Baroness Zollner was never tried or convicted, and why Harding's political opponents never used the affair or the investigation of his mistress as a political weapon against him in his run for the presidency in 1920.
History as mystery is always wonderful to read, and it's also a bonus when the author can tell us interesting things that we never knew. History geeks will appreciate and enjoy this book. Those who aren't history fans, but who like a spirited tale, will also find this to be a fun book. It's like eating delicious candy and being told it's good for you. In spit of some of its salacious subject matter, this is an intelligent and brilliant work.