Walsh, George 1931–

(George William Walsh)

PERSONAL: Born January 16, 1931, in New York, NY; son of William Francis and Madeline (Maass) Walsh; married Joan Mary Dunn, May 20, 1961; children: Grail, Simon. Education: Fordham University, B.S., 1952; Columbia University, M.S., 1953. Religion: Roman Catholic.

ADDRESSES: Home and office—35 Prospect Park, W. Brooklyn, NY 11215-2370. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Cape Cod Standard-Times, Hyannis, MA, copy editor and reporter, 1955; International Business Machines Corp. (IBM), New York, NY, communications specialist, 1955–58; Time, Inc., New York, NY, editorial trainee, 1958–59; Sports Illustrated, New York, NY, writer-reporter, 1959–62; Cosmopolitan, New York, NY, book editor, 1962–65, managing editor, 1965–74; Random House, Inc., New York, NY, vicepresident and editor in chief of Ballantine Books division, 1974–79; Macmillan Publishing Co., New York, NY, vice-president and editor in chief of general books division, 1979–85; publishing consultant and writer, 1985–. Military service: U.S. Army, 1953–55.

MEMBER: Association of American Publishers, University Club (New York, NY), Pamet Harbor Yacht and Tennis Club (Truro, MA).

WRITINGS:

Gentleman Jimmy Walker: Mayor of the Jazz Age, foreword by Robert Moses, Praeger (New York, NY), 1974.

Public Enemies: The Mayor, the Mob, and the Crime that Was, Norton (New York, NY), 1980.

Damage Them All You Can: Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, Forge (New York, NY), 2002.

"Whip the Rebellion": Ulysses S. Grant's Rise to Command, Tom Doherty Associates (New York, NY), 2005.

WORK IN PROGRESS: The third volume in the author's Civil War trilogy, Those Damn Horse Soldiers—True Tales of the Civil War Cavalry.

SIDELIGHTS: George Walsh frames Gentleman Jimmy Walker: Mayor of the Jazz Age, his political biography of flamboyant New York mayor James J. Walker, with a social history of the city in the Roaring Twenties. Lavish celebrity receptions, glamorous theatrical life, Ziegfeld Follies showgirls, and such notorious gangland figures as "Dutch" Schultz and "Mad Dog" Coll colored the era in which Walker flourished. Elected to office in 1926 with the support of the local Democratic party organization called Tammany Hall, "Gentleman Jimmy," as he was known to legions of admiring voters, presided over one of the most openly corrupt municipal administrations in New York City history. Nevertheless, according to Walsh, the debonair mayor managed to charm nearly everyone he met, from visiting dignitaries to show business personalities like Follies star Betty Compton, who became his mistress.

The onset of the Great Depression foreshadowed the end of Walker's political career. In 1930 the state of New York mounted an investigation of corruption in New York City's municipal courts, and the following year a judicial commission was formed to probe allegedly rampant malfeasance throughout Walker's administration. The commission uncovered evidence that many city officials had taken bribes and payoffs for political favors, and it surfaced that Walker himself kept secret bank and brokerage accounts totaling almost one million dollars, supplied by illegal payoffs from businessmen and contractors. At a removal hearing before Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1932, Walker defended the acceptance of what he called "beneficences." He nevertheless resigned his position before a judgment on the case was rendered.

New York Times critic Herbert Mitgang praised the Walker biography for getting "a great deal of information on the record without changing any past impressions about the charming rogue." Contrasting Walsh's treatment of the subject with two earlier, less formal biographies of Walker, the critic observed that "by playing it straight Mr. Walsh indirectly provides a case history of how not to govern New York City." And New York Times Book Review critic Richard F. Shepherd remarked that Walsh "accepts Walker as a very fallible man and chronicles his life, with little moralizing."

The subject of Walsh's Public Enemies: The Mayor, the Mob, and the Crime that Was is another Tammany-backed New York mayor, William O'Dwyer, who was first elected in 1945. The author probes the nature of O'Dwyer's relationship with organized crime boss Frank Costello, relying in part on transcripts from the Kefauver Crime Investigation Committee hearings held by the U.S. Senate, for which both men testified. The book recounts how the two, each ambitious immigrants who started at the bottom, fought their way to high position: Costello by means of the gangland wars of the 1920's and 1930's, and O'Dwyer as a young district attorney who prosecuted Murder Incorporated. The seemingly natural antagonists cemented an alliance brokered by Tammany Hall when O'Dwyer decided to run for mayor. The political machine controlled key votes and the crime syndicate backed Tammany, supplying goons to marshal illegal votes and threaten opponents. Walsh quotes O'Dwyer's explanation that "there are things you have to do politically, if you want cooperation." When the crime connection scandal broke, O'Dwyer resigned his second term as mayor to become ambassador to Mexico.

In the New York Times Book Review, Jeff Greenfield judged Public Enemies to be "a lively account of the immense political influence wielded by gangsters in the biggest city in America." Similarly Los Angeles Times critic Robert Kirsch wrote that "Walsh has written a cool and crisp case study of the way a genial, sociable mayor sought to exploit—and was used by—organized crime. There are elements of Damon Runyon and Lincoln Steffens in the account."

Walsh turns his attention to the American Civil War in Damage Them All You Can: Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Under the broader scope of the Civil War, Walsh narrows his focus to a variety of everyday citizens—laborers, craftsmen, farmers, teachers, and other professionals—who made up the officers and enlisted soldiers of the Army of Northern Virginia. With an eye toward the human side of Lee's army, Walsh covers numerous critical battles that involved the Army of Northern Virginia, including Manassas, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg. He describes in detail the toll on soldiers taken by the elements, the lack of supplies, constant disease, and the stress of battle. At Second Manassas, the troops were so short of supplies that they were reduced to throwing rocks at their enemies. Walsh explores how Lee's tendency to issue vague orders led to confusion; how field-grade officers practiced the art of blame-fixing and scapegoating; and how the personalities of the major officers affected the outcome of the battles. Though their experiences were harsh, the Army of Northern Virginia's "bravery and tenacity … held right through the closing hours of the war," noted a Kirkus Reviews critic. Library Journal contributor John Carver Edwards called it a "persuasively detailed work," and Booklist reviewer Roland Green commented favorably on Walsh's "real virtues of intelligibility, balance, and narrative skill."

In "Whip the Rebellion": Ulysses S. Grant's Rise to Command Walsh looks at Lee's northern counterpart, Ulysses S. Grant, and offers "a good, but not great, overview of Grant's military prowess," commented Gayla Koerting in the Library Journal. He provides an analysis of Grant's evolution as a military leader and commander. With additional material on William Tecumseh Sherman and Philip Sheridan, Walsh examines how the three generals created strategy and issued important decisions that helped shape the outcome of the Civil War. In his work Walsh "attains a very high level of popular historiography," commented Green in another Booklist review.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, November 15, 2002, Roland Green, review of Damage Them All You Can: Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, p. 567; March 1, 2005, Roland Green, review of "Whip the Rebellion": Ulysses S. Grant's Rise to Command, p. 1135.

Civil War Times Illustrated, February, 2003, Kevin M. Levin, review of Damage Them All You Can, p. 61.

Kirkus Reviews, October 1, 2002, review of Damage Them All You Can, p. 1454.

Library Journal, November 15, 2002, John Carver Edwards, review of Damage Them All You Can, p. 86; March 1, 2005, Gayla Koerting, review of "Whip the Rebellion", p. 99.

Los Angeles Times, March 7, 1980, Robert Kirsch, review of Public Enemies: The Mayor, the Mob, and the Crime that Was.

Military Images, July-August, 2003, Thomas Boaz, review of Damage Them All You Can, p. 4.

New York Times, December 18, 1974, Herbert Mitgang, review of Gentleman Jimmy Walker.

New York Times Book Review, February 16, 1975, Richard F. Shepherd, review of Gentleman Jimmy Walker; February 10, 1980, Jeff Greenfield, review of Public Enemies, p. 16.