Dr. America: The Lives of Thomas A. Dooley, 1927-1961 (Culture, Politics, and the Cold War)

Thomas A. Dooley's 1956 bestseller, Deliver Us from Evil, "quite literally located Vietnam on the map," as this provocative critical biography puts it. Dooley's passionately anticommunist description of evacuating Catholic refugees from North Vietnam made him a Cold War celebrity and a particular hero to his fellow American Catholics, who had no idea he campaigned relentlessly for his glowing press and spent his spare time pursuing not-very- closeted homosexual affairs. The brief life (1927-61) of this fascinatingly complex character here gets the thoughtful assessment and rich historical context it deserves.