The Ultimate Vanishing Act - a book by Eric LaMont Gregory

“… detailed, revealing, charming, funny, witty, compassionate, sensitive, adventurous and seductive.” — EJ
By: theoxfordscientist.com
 
NEW YORK - Feb. 18, 2014 - PRLog -- The Ultimate Vanishing Act is based on the author’s experiences in a decades-long career that spanned the globe.

Crisis in Vienna is about the daughter of the American partner of a Greek shipping magnate, Sandy.  Sandy’s father and mother, a French-speaking woman from Liechtenstein, divorced when she was 12 years old.

Sandy’s father, realizing that he had his hands full trying to raise her, in time-honored tradition, sends her off to a residential finishing school in Switzerland for the daughters of the very rich.  These schools, prepare young women to become the wives of wealthy and powerful men, and are known in the vernacular as China dolls.  For Sandy, this was a fate worse than death, and in the magical thinking of an adolescent, she grew to regard her father in less than admirable terms.

When Sandy thought her life was irredeemably and utterly bleak, Sarah arrived at the school.   The two drawn together by kindred spirits became the best of friends.  In Vienna, Sandy now a young woman and Sarah trigger one of the largest diplomatic crises in modern history and simply as a means for Sandy to teach her father a lesson.  However, in the process, they create a situation where Soviet and American agents are in battles on the narrow pathways of Vienna.  Vienna, a grand Old-World international city, known in the grey world as a nest of spies.

In a world apart, an Israeli head of state grapples with the imponderables that the three main cultures present, and runs a program to allow any Arab, Christian or Jew to settle in a third country when cultural difficulties make it impossible for them to live in the Middle East in peace.  For example, when Jews and Arabs fall in love with one another, the young will be vigorous.  Or, the horrible responsibility an eldest son has in a traditional Islamic family, if one of his sisters becomes pregnant before marriage.  A brother and sister in these circumstances could seek the assistance of the Prime Minister of Israel, and emigrate to a third country.

The program was highly secretive, and demonstrates the lengths that one head of state went through to try to make it possible for the three communities to live together.  Nevertheless, all her good intentions were about to unravel, because an Israeli boy was interested in an Israeli girl that was interested in an Arab boy.

The chapterThe Ultimate Vanishing Act is about the nature of superpower relations and concerns, what came to be known as the Helsinki Accords.  It covers a period of American history when there was for all practical purposes a caretaker government in Washington, the Ford Administration.

A number of crises were not attended to properly and the United States has been embroiled in conflicts that began during that period ever since.

An American ally, now rich beyond imagination, decided to use its new found wealth to agitate for the revitalization of Islam in the Southern Republics of the Soviet Union, stretching from Belarus to the Chinese border.  They used the nations of Afghanistan and Pakistan (a collection of tribes actually) to launch incursions into the former Islamic Soviet Republics.  They bombed buildings and assassinated Soviet officials.  The Saudis sparked the problems in Central Asia that drew the US into a surrogate war with the USSR, which continues to engulf that region of the world to this day.

A subtle nuance in the communist worldview also occurred during this period, one that altered the doctrine—from each according to his ability, to each according to his need to a construction that more closely approximates a free-market concept—from each according to his ability, to each according to his work.

An End to War tellls the story of the end to 35 years of war in Angola.  An effort that only involved heads of state.

First, there is the hunt for that one person in the entire executive branch of a government that can place you in a hallway that the chief executive is going to walk through for 30 to 60 seconds, while he or she is going from one meeting room to the next.  And, because they see you standing next to that person, they come over to you.

The head of state asks; what do you want me to do, and please be very specific.

You respond; call the ambassador from Angola into your office, present the disturbing information that has come to your attention and ask them to respond. The chief executive asks you if the information is verified.  The person who arranged the hallway meeting standing next to you, raises his hand, palms exposed, and nods his head, yes, and at that point you are one step closer to ending a war.

The chapter China Doll concerns international terrorism in the near future..

http://www.theoxfordscientist.com


Selections from The Ultimate Vanishing Act

         by Eric LaMont Gregory

An ounce of mutual respect is worth a pound of friendship.

The tax on memories is by far the highest toll that any of us will ever be called upon to pay.

It is easier to fight one’s enemies than it is to protect one’s friends.

Anyone who approaches danger without a healthy sense of fear is actually neither prepared to ward off the threats of war nor to respond favorably to opportunities for peace.

Nuclear energy may well extend electrical power to those who otherwise would only know the candle, but those who see nuclear energy as a source of power to threaten and coerce will only know the grave.  And, from the grave no man ever lit the home of another.

The Saudis have no geographic interests per se, but their ideological bent is just as dangerous, since any attempt to spread an ideology in today’s world has inevitable geographic consequences, as would any attempt at territorial expansion at the point of a gun.

The core essential ingredient that makes life on this planet worth living is human dignity—wherever it exists in abundance, adversity can never triumph.

The solution to an act of terrorism is infinitely easier than its prevention.

Everyone wants to be Christ, but no one wants to be crucified—if you want to be the Savior, it is inevitable that you will have to bear the cross.

For the first time in human history, the ability to control fire is within our reach.

This new and emerging science is a reminder that every new advance in science brings with it the ability to build, to improve and possibly to cure, and at the same time brings with it the means to destroy, to coerce and to kill.

Oxford University thrives, because people with rather hefty responsibilities come not looking for answers in the way that word is normally used, but approaches to their problems.  It is often useful when one is confronted with a problem to consult someone, who has a long-range interest in that particular subject.

I have never found it wise to present either side in a conflict a passport that has their adversary’s stamp in it.

http://www.theoxfordscientist.com

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