cover image Angles of Vision: A Memior of My Lives

Angles of Vision: A Memior of My Lives

Philip M. Klutznick. Ivan R. Dee Publisher, $27.5 (405pp) ISBN 978-0-929587-64-6

This intensely interesting memoir by Klutznick, a public servant and Jewish community leader known for his WW II and postwar public housing developments, recounts his many interwoven interests, and global history as he has witnessed it. Collaborating with Orthodox Jewish scholar Hyman, the 84-year-old author recalls both friends and adversaries encountered while he served in various roles under seven presidents--as U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Economic and Social Council, as Secretary of Commerce under Carter, etc. His loyalties, he notes, were sometimes torn between his native U.S. and Israel, and his presidencies of International B'nai B'rith and World Jewish Congress involved him in sensitive U.S.-Israeli problems, as did his efforts to reconcile conflicting American Jewish interest groups. Klutznick formed close friendships with Eleanor Roosevelt, Truman, Adlai Stevenson and international Jewish leader Nahum Goldmann, among many American, Israeli and other world figures. Photos. (Sept.)