The Room Where It Happened

 

The Room Where it Happened – by John Bolton

Donald Trump: Why are we sanctioning the economy of a country that’s seven thousand miles away?
John Bolton: Because they are building nuclear weapons and missiles that can kill Americans.

“The Room Where it Happened” is essentially a diary by former National Security Advisor John Bolton during the Donald Trump presidency. This book is packed with facts and global events, but this is also its main drawback. This book is simply too pedantic. It was quite a sludge to wade through. Bolton also comes across as incredibly arrogant and hawkish. He pulls no punches about his loathing for Barack Obama’s tenure prior to the Trump presidency, and this book is filled with shots and defamations. In fact, Bolton has written an entire book about Obama’s leadership as president and how he feels it endangered the free world. It might be worth a read for the genuinely curious because, in this book, even though he’s critical of many of Obama’s decisions, he never really expands as to his reasoning.

In fact, this is also a drawback of the author’s style. He is incredibly condescending and seems to think no one in the world is capable to do his type of job except those who think exactly the same way that he does. He does tend to keep a level head though, and one gets the impression that no matter how heated things would get, at least John Bolton wouldn’t hurl a bottle of ketchup against a wall.

This book focuses on National Security issues and National Security issues only. It should be noted that the subtitle of this book DOES indicate that it’s a diary, so we must give the author some leeway. Diaries aren’t necessary intended to be captivating works of literature designed to hold a reader’s interest.  He plows right into every situation with every country: Syria, North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, China, Ukraine, Russia, and more North Korea. No detail is left out for the reader and every incident is packed with meticulous detail.  So a very thorough, educational account, but not necessary an interesting one.  This is one of those books that will never be made into a movie.

Like all books written by Washington “insiders” during the Trump administration, it’s very obvious from reading this that Donald Trump was a clueless buffoon who had no clue as to how to do his job. Bolton never paints him with brushes of anger – he’s too calm and collected for that. But it’s obvious that he was highly incredulous with all of Trump’s musings, suggestions, and pontifications.  It becomes obvious that Trump figures he can just stand up in front of the press alongside the country’s adversaries and smile and wave and think that this will somehow improve relations with hostile nations. This happens again and again and again. Of course, this posturing makes zero progress but Trump is smart enough to know that his base is quite ignorant. They figure that if he stands next to ruthless dictators such as Kim Jong Un and he calls him his “buddy who he admires”, then that must mean the two countries are making progress and are now friendly towards each other.  In essence, Bolton claims that Trump tries to run the country the way he would run a reality show.

Bolton came under fire when the impeachment over Ukraine occurred, and he didn’t testify. When this book was released, critics screamed that he should have testified instead of relaying the incidents in a book released a few years later. There was also a big hoopla about whether or not this book contained “classified” information. Trump, of course, claimed it did.  Bolton spends a decent amount of the last chapter of this book explaining his reasoning and defending his actions around Ukraine, and the epilogue details the government’s attempt to withhold the book.  To be frank, the legalistic mumbo jumbo that Bolton discusses is a tad over my head, so I guess I have to take him at his word despite what his critics may say.

I’ve read many books by former presidential advisors, cabinet members, and other insiders and many of them do have the gift of telling an interesting story. Others, though, may have the skills to do the particular job they had while serving the President, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they can tell a captivating account of their tenure. Sadly, Bolton falls into the latter category.   Everything is here based on his recollections, it’s just not a particularly interesting account.