Now almost 3/4’th’s the way thru this book and just now getting to the part about his (re-)entering the wine business.
Amazon:SichelBook
It covers his life a a Jewish kid growing up in Germany as Hitler ascended to power, excaping Germany, his life as a refugee in SFrance, escaping to the USofA, his 16 yrs in the CIA, and then returning to the wine biz in the US.
Fortunately, his family was reasonably wealthy and he did not suffer the deprivations that many Jewish refugees did in France as the Nazis took power there. But the telling of the squalor of those camps during that period certainly parallels what we see in Europe these days and it’s pretty heart-rending.
I found it interesting that his reason for leaving spy/intelligence work, mostly w/ the OSS/CIA were, during the ColdWar in the '50’s was the CIA’s focus on “regime change”, particularly in SEAsia, and a deprecation of their intelligence gathering activities, and the futility of that “regime change” effort. He lays at the CIA’s feet the installiation of the Shah in Iran as the reason that we now face a Muslim theocracy, rather than a socialist democracy, in that Nation. Hmmm…seems like the US Government has not learned a whole lot in the intervening 60 yrs.
Anyway…as a wine book, this doesn’t have a whole lot to offer unless the last 4’th really picks up the pace. He goes into a lot of very tedious detail in the first 3/4’ths of the book and it becomes a bit of a tedious read and rather plodding at times. More like reading thru a LosAlamos technical report in as much has he’s not a riveting storyteller.
So…I would give this book only a limited recommendation…if you’ve got a lot of time on your hands to wade thru it and you don’t have SweetAlice’s new book bedside to read…as do I.
Tom
Sorry for the snide political commentary.