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Memoirs of a Cold War Son (Singular Lives: The Iowa Series in PDF

249 Pages·2000·1.78 MB·English
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Memoirs of a Cold War Son s ingular lives The Iowa Series in North American Autobiography Albert E. Stone, Series Editor Gaines Post, Jr. Foreword by Albert E. Stone Memoirs of a Cold War Son University of Iowa Press Iowa City University of Iowa Press, Printed on acid-free paper Iowa City 52242 Copyright © 2000 by the Library of Congress University of Iowa Press Cataloging-in-Publication Data All rights reserved Post, Gaines, 1937– Printed in the United States of America Memoirs of a Cold War son / Design by Richard Hendel by Gaines Post, Jr.; foreword by http://www.uiowa.edu/~uipress Albert E. Stone. No part of this book may be repro- p. cm.—(Singular lives) duced or used in any form or by any isbn 0-87745-701-8 means, electronic or mechanical, 1. Post, Gaines, 1937– 2. Cold War. including photocopying and recording, 3. United States—Politics and without permission in writing from the government—1945–1989. publisher. All reasonable steps have 4. Europe—Politics and been taken to contact copyright holders government—1945– I. Title. of material used in this book. The II. Series. publisher would be pleased to make ct275.p6885 a3 2000 suitable arrangements with any whom 973.92—dc21 99-057732 it has not been possible to reach. 00 01 02 03 04 c 5 4 3 2 1 The publication of this book was generously supported by the University of Iowa Foundation. To My children, Katherine & Daniel My nephews, John Gavin Post & David Gaines Post My godsons, Maury Sterling & Sebastian Dawson-Bowling Contents Foreword by Albert E. Stone ix Acknowledgments xiii Introduction xv 1 Rue St-Julien-le-Pauvre 1 2 Americans Abroad 29 3 The Home Front 51 4 From Cornell to Fort Sill 78 5 Honest Johns and Germans 131 6 Maneuvers 168 7 War over Berlin? 198 Epilogue 217 Foreword albert e . stone Gaines Post, Jr.’s Memoirs of a Cold War Son is the twentieth volume in Singular Lives: The Iowa Series in North American Autobiography. All au- tobiographies are unique, yet they share common literary features and conventions. This work is no exception. Post’s evolving self is shown as an ac- tor in, or a witness to, significant public events and processes of the Cold War. The accepted term for such a literary convention is mem- oir, but pigeonholing this book as such can also be misleading. Post’s story asserts throughout allegiance to the forces of time, place, event, and institution as determinants of his autobiographical identity. History dictates the terms on which the immature teenager living in Paris in 1951 with his once-motherless family turns into the adult Army officer in Germany caught in the Berlin airlift crisis of 1961. Moreover, the creator of both selves—the insecure son and the first lieutenant—is the much older and wiser college professor- historian writing in nineties California. Post is, therefore, doubly caught and at the same time doubly liberated. Cold War history has molded him in essential ways that are honestly and sensitively chron- icled here. But the maturing author makes sure that Gaines Post is

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