Carl Vinson: Patriarch of the Armed Forces.

Carl Vinson: Patriarch of the Armed Forces. By James F. Cook. (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 2004. Pp. xxxiv, 390. $35.00, ISBN 0-86554-754-8.)

Carl Vinson occupies a prominent place in the history of the United States Congress during the twentieth century. A native of Milledgeville, he represented Georgia's Tenth District in the House of Representatives for fifty years, from 1914 through 1964. James F. Cook has written what he calls "the first full biography" of Carl Vinson (p. xi).

During his many years on Capitol Hill, Vinson remained a quintessential public servant. He spent nine hours a day on the Hill and invested many of his evening hours in reading through official papers. Quiet and unassuming in his private life, he avoided Washington social engagements, abstained from alcohol, and remained a faithful husband to his wife throughout their twenty-nine-year marriage.

Given his unassuming demeanor, it is surprising that from his assumption of the chairmanship of the House Naval Affairs Committee in 1931 until his retirement from public life Carl Vinson was a powerful politician. Cook notes that Vinson, who possessed a "keen analytical mind and extraordinary political skills," in time became a brilliant legislative tactician, capable of maneuvering vital pieces of legislation around the rocks and shoals of congressional opposition or neglect and stewarding them into law (p. 62). As far as American naval officers in the interwar period were concerned, Vinson was "the Father of the Two-ocean Navy" (p. ix)--the man who almost single-handedly crafted the laws that allowed the navy to acquire the modern, highly capable warships that carried the burden of fighting the Imperial Japanese Navy in World War II and that ultimately enabled the United States to prevail.

There is much to like in this biography. Cook's knowledge of the ins and outs of Georgia politics helps him in describing Vinson's fights to retain his seat in Congress in the face of Democratic challengers. Similarly, his interviews with Vinson's family and friends, especially his grandson, Tillman Snead III, and Louis and Oneta Stockstill, provide the reader with wonderful recollections of "Uncle Carl" in his latter years (p. xi).

The book does have unsatisfying aspects, however. Because Cook lacks expertise in naval issues, he recapitulates secondary accounts when discussing Carl Vinson's intricate maneuvering over the 1934 Vinson-Trammell Act and the Second Vinson Act of 1938. In addition, in failing to cast his research net as widely as he should have, he neglects Stephen Svonavec's important unpublished studies, "Carl Vinson and Pre-War Naval Legislation, 1933-1940" (M.A. thesis, Texas A&M University, 1994) and "Congress and the Navy: The Development of Naval Policy 1913-1947" (Ph.D. dissertation, Texas A&M University, 2000), and his book, Revolt of the Admirals: The Fight for Naval Aviation, 1945-1950 (Washington, D.C., 1994), which detail Vinson's vital role in that clash. Despite such lapses, though, James Cook's biography of Carl Vinson is worth reading for its insights into the character of a major political figure of our recent past.

Naval Historical Center 

JEFFREY G. BARLOW