THE RED PRESIDENT by Martin Gross

Refinished Sa 11/3/17  This was one of my ancient paperbacks that I originally finished "Sunday evening, 3/22/98". The tone of the novel is pretty much one long hysterical shriek...."The Russians are coming!...The Russians are coming"! It's a literal distillation of Reagan Republican feeling about 'The Evil Empire'. I wasn't all that surprised to learn that Martin Gross....now know as 'Martin L. Gross' became a noted figure within the Tea Party Movement. At one point, he was also the editor of Book Digest. This is his first novel and later he concentrated on non-fiction, and many felt that he played a bit wild and loose with the truth to score his political points.

He claimed about his audience- "“I am their hero. I always know what people need and why, because I’m Mr. Joe Sixpack with a good brain.”

From The New York Times-

"Martin L. Gross, a writer whose books criticizing government spending and taxation became best sellers in the 1990s and were embraced more recently by supporters of the Tea Party, died on Aug. 21, 2013 in Ocala, Fla. He was 88."


The plotline was copied from Kirkus Review-


THE RED PRESIDENT is about a... "secret Marxist-Leninist who ascends to the Oval Office. Oval Red is the code word for the Soviet masterplan to subvert a Democratic presidential candidate and maneuver him into the White House. Targeted by the Kremlin is charismatic young US Senator Jed Hankins, whose public ultraliberal, idealistic policies are hammered into private pro-Sovietism by his aide, Bill Fenton, a KGB plant. Riding on a strong wave, Hankins wins the Democrats' nod for Vice President, then succeeds to the President-elect spot when on election night the original nominee dies of a heart attack just before being swept into office. Meanwhile, a wily ex-CIA operative, John Davidson, and an active agent, Sam Withers, catch on to the Soviets' plot. After inauguration, Hankins begins a blanket appeasement policy, including significant dismantling of the US armed forces, a move that shocks most of Congress and the US public. Realizing that Hankins' days in power are limited, and tiring of his growing reluctance to do their bidding, the Kremlin speeds things along by confronting Hankins with nuclear blackmail: capitulation, or annihilation. Hankins refuses and is shot dead by Fenton. With minutes to spare before Soviet missiles fly, agents Withers and Davidson, aided by a defecting KGB agent, persuade top officials of Hankins' treason; a new President is quickly sworn in who eyeballs the Soviets to a stalemate".

This was a long book, but the plot was weirdly captivating. In this era of Trumpism I think that the president and his team clearly see the Russians as heroes. Communism is certainly dead, but what took it's place in the Soviet Union is flat-out, hands-off, unregulated Capitalism. What sensible people would recognize as,'Gangsterism', yet this has a definite appeal to the Trump folks.