'An American Epic'
MUHLEN, NORBERT
'An American Epic' Herbert Hoover and Germany. By Louis P. Lochner. Macmillan. 244 pp. $5.00. Reviewed by Norbert Muhlen Contributor, "Reader's Digest," "Saturday Evening Post" When only a very...
...Lochner uses all the skill, perceptiveness and understanding which have made him one of America's great foreign correspondents...
...Because in his lifetime Germany was the pivotal point in the struggle for international peace and prosperity...
...Reviewed by Norbert Muhlen Contributor, "Reader's Digest," "Saturday Evening Post" When only a very few Americans had heard the name of Herbert Hoover his name was known to almost every German child...
...Neither as President nor as elder statesman did he take lightly America's responsibility toward and involvement with the rest of the world...
...Although labelled an isolationist, and sometimes libelled as such, Hoover's active, voluntary contribution to foreign peoples has been on an unprecedented scale...
...What emerges from this exhaustive research is the story of a leader who foresaw the dangers of the future and suggested the correct means of overcoming them, but was frustrated by forces outside of his control...
...That was after World War I when the name Hoover stood for such unheard-of delights in the minds of German kids as the nourishing, sweet chocolate milk they got every morning in school...
...Hoover's influence on that country's destiny had a special meaning...
...The Belgians during World War I, the Russians after it, and the Germans throughout his life have been beneficiaries of this Quaker of Swiss descent who, whatever the politics of the day, put human brotherhood first, then efficiently translated it into action...
...Amidst the hunger which resulted from an Allied war-time blockade which continued after the armistice, the gifts of the Hoover-Speisung (Hoover's feeding) seemed truly wondrous...
...Lochner contributes interesting information which—in the 1920s and 1930s—he gathered as chief of the Associated Press bureau in Berlin and later as the correspondent attached to Hoover's post-World-War-II mission to Germany...
...Though no other "Old Berlin Hand" can add to Lochner's treasure of recollections, he has also diligently studied the files and memories of other observers, as well as the vast diplomatic and biographical published materials on Hoover and his works...
...in fact, Lochner today seems as much an elder statesman in his profession as Hoover in his...
...I enjoyed it as much today as 40 years ago I enjoyed the Hoover-Speisung chocolate milk...
...I was fed by Herr Hoover then and today, more than 40 years later, his name still is associated with the taste of goodness...
...And when in World War II the voice of "Doctor Win-the-War" swept the land, his was the lonely, virtuous voice of a "Doctor Win-the-Peace...
...While 86-year-old Hoover works at completing An American Epic, his three-volume history of this country's voluntary, international relief efforts and achievements, Lochner's Herbert Hoover and Germany supplies it with an impressive companion piece in advance...
...This relationship—between Herbert Hoover and Germany—is the subject of Louis P. Lochner's highly enjoyable and valuable book...
...Whether he fed starving civilians, or pleaded for an end to reparations payments, or tried to defer war debt payments to this country, he knew it was necessary to stop the threatening advance of the Nazis as well as the Communists when few others gave much thought to this threat...
...In fact, from the White House or his Waldorf-Towers apartment, he influenced foreign developments wisely and well...
Vol. 43 • August 1960 • No. 31
