DOBBS, Michael 1950-

PERSONAL:

Born July 27, 1950, in Belfast, Northern Ireland; son of Joseph Alfred and Marie Joan (Catton) Dobbs; married Lisa Anne Kaplan, 1982; children: Alexandra, Olivia, Joseph. Education: University of York, B.A.; also attended the University of Cardiff, Wales, Princeton University, and Harvard University.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Bethesda, MD. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Knopf Publishing Group, Random House, Inc., 1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019.

CAREER:

Journalist and author. Washington Post, Washington, DC, correspondent, including Moscow bureau chief, 1988-93.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Bob Considine Award for the best newspaper or wire service interpretation of international affairs, Overseas Press Club, 1990, for "Collapse of the Soviet Empire"; runner-up for PEN award for nonfiction, 1997, for Down with Big Brother.

WRITINGS:

(With K. S. Karol and Dessa Trevisan) Poland, Solidarity, Walesa, McGraw-Hill (New York, NY), 1981.

Down with Big Brother: The Fall of the Soviet Empire, Knopf (New York, NY), 1997.

Madeleine Albright: A Twentieth-Century Odyssey, Henry Holt (New York, NY), 1999, reprinted with a new afterword on the Balkan War, Owl Books (New York, NY), 2000.

The Saboteurs: The Nazi Raid on America, Knopf (New York, NY), 2004.

SIDELIGHTS:

A longtime journalist with the Washington Post, Michael Dobbs served as the paper's Moscow bureau chief from 1988 to 1993. He was also the paper's correspondent in Warsaw and Yugoslavia during the last decade of the Soviet Union's empire. Dobbs used his ringside seat, bolstered by countless interviews and declassified archival documents, to write Down with Big Brother: The Fall of the Soviet Empire. In his look at the ultimate unraveling of the Bolshevik Revolution, Dobbs writes about numerous events and personalities that ultimately played a role in the demise of Soviet communism.

From the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, to first lady Nancy Reagan's astrologer, Dobbs's "account is thorough and overwhelming in its sheer mass, as he slowly assembles the giant jigsaw puzzle," noted Robert H. Johnston in Library Journal. Calling the book an "unabashedly old-fashioned, top-down political history," New Leader contributor Robert V. Daniels felt that Dobbs's episodic approach resulted in some important omissions and also noted that "Dobbs does not convey a deeper historical sense of the events he narrates." Nevertheless, Daniels noted, "The virtue of Dobbs's approach is that it makes us stop and think." Gilbert Taylor, writing in Booklist, called Down with Big Brother "compulsively readable" and a "standout general-interest treatment." A Publishers Weekly contributor said that the book is "a remarkable tour de force, a pulsating human drama."

Dobbs turned to biography for his next book, Madeleine Albright: A Twentieth-Century Odyssey. In his look at the first female American secretary of state, Dobbs builds upon a story he broke as a reporter about Albright's Jewish origins as a Czech immigrant whose parents converted to Catholicism prior to World War II. Before focusing solely on Albright, he traces her history back five generations, noting those who died in the Holocaust and other family members who fled to various parts of the world. A Publishers Weekly contributor called the book a "great story animated by the very American themes of outstanding achievement and the reinvention of the self." As for Albright herself, Dobbs recounts her personal history, including her progression from focusing primarily on her duties as a wife and mother to overcoming self doubts and developing a career after her husband, Joe Albright, left her for another woman in 1982. As expected, Dobbs also discusses Albright's role as secretary of state under President Bill Clinton, including her role in the Balkan conflict and the fight for Kosovo, which some have seen as one of her biggest mistakes while others applauded her actions for helping to rid the country of paramilitary thugs.

Writing in the Washington Monthly, Michael Hirsh noted that he felt the biography had both good and bad aspects. "It has all the virtues of the classic reporter's book: accurate, detailed reporting, including one phenomenal section in which Dobbs manages to recreate the transports that took Albright's relatives to the camps," wrote Hirsh. "But the book also has most of the usual defects of the genre—mainly a lack of historical context woven into the biography." Booklist contributor Mary Carroll noted, "If one needed proof of the challenges the first woman to serve in this senior Cabinet position faced, Dobbs has provided it." Marcia L. Sprules, writing in Library Journal, found Dobbs's coverage of Albright's role as secretary of state "sketchy" but noted, "This popular treatment nevertheless does a good job of presenting Albright's many accomplishments."

For The Saboteurs: The Nazi Raid on America, Dobbs researched forty boxes of FBI records to recount in detail a largely forgotten episode that occurred during World War II. After the United States entered the war, German leader Adolf Hitler and his subordinates developed the idea for an extensive sabotage campaign using eight Germans to infiltrate the United States with the ultimate goal of disrupting production of military equipment and blowing up targets such as bridges and railroads. As Dobbs recounts the episode, he describes the saboteurs' training, their three-week voyage on Nazi submarines, and their eventual infiltration into day-to-day American life. He also profiles the saboteurs, including George Dasch, a former waiter who had visions of personal grandeur. Dasch and one of his colleagues, Ernst Burger, eventually decided to turn traitor to their cause and worked with the FBI to track down the other saboteurs. In the book's climax, Dobbs describes the military tribunal that tried the saboteurs, a historic Supreme Court session, and the mass execution of the infiltrators, except for Dasch and Burger.

Dobbs explains the legal implications of the case simply and clearly. The saboteurs were tried "by a military tribunal, rather than a civil court, [which] is a precedent for the impending trial of accused terrorists held at the prison in Guantanamo, Cuba," wrote a Publishers Weekly contributor, referring to prisoners of the United States' invasion of Iraq in 2003. Writing in Kirkus Reviews, a critic called the book "a suspenseful, well-rendered tale from [one of] the forgotten moments of WWII." Booklist contributor Roland Green commented, "Altogether, this is a fine piece of work." In a review in Library Journal, Robert C. Jones recommended the book as a "real-life wartime thriller."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Enterprise, November, 1999, Paul Gottfried, review of Madeleine Albright: A Twentieth-Century Odyssey, p. 81.

Booklist, January 1, 1997, Gilbert Taylor, review of Down with Big Brother: The Fall of the Soviet Empire, p. 812; April 15, 1999, Mary Carroll, review of Madeleine Albright, p. 1490; February 1, 2004, Roland Green, review of The Saboteurs: The Nazi Raid on America, p. 945.

Europe, March, 1997, Robert J. Guttman, review of Down with Big Brother, p. 46.

Foreign Affairs, May-June, 1997, Robert Legvold, review of Down with Big Brother, p. 139.

Kirkus Reviews, December 15, 2003, review of The Saboteurs, p. 1434.

Library Journal, January, 1997, Robert H. Johnston, review of Down with Big Brother, p. 123; April 15, 1999, Marcia L. Sprules, review of Madeleine Albright, p. 106; February 15, 2004, Robert C. Jones, review of The Saboteurs, p. 138.

National Interest, spring, 1997, Anders Aslund, review of Down with Big Brother, p. 107.

New Leader, February 10, 1997, Robert V. Daniels, review of Down with Big Brother, p. 19.

New Republic, July 12, 1999, Roger Cohen, review of Madeleine Albright, p. 29.

Publishers Weekly, November 18, 1996, review of Down with Big Brother, p. 54; March 15, 1999, review of Madeleine Albright, p. 41; January 19, 2004, review of The Saboteurs, p. 67.

Time, March 31, 1997, Bruce W. Nelan, review of Down with Big Brother, p. 82.

Washington Monthly, June, 1999, Michael Hirsh, review of Madeleine Albright, p. 44.*