“Frece, a former journalist for the Baltimore Sun, tells the tale of a 1960s U.S. senator from Maryland who had it all—and then lost it.

This robust biography suggests that the flameout of Daniel B. Brewster’s political career, which included a brief run in the U.S. House of Representatives and a single U.S. Senate term, defies easy analysis. Brewster grew up fast after his alcoholic father’s sudden death in 1934, at the age of 37. The young man joined the Marines during World War II and earned a Bronze Star and Purple Heart at Okinawa, but the experience, Brewster wrote in his diary, “fried my mind in a way nothing else ever could have.” This diary entry foreshadowed later self-destructive behavior—notably, a slide toward alcoholism—but after the war, he became one of the Democratic Party’s rising stars. As a senator, he cultivated fruitful
alliances with President John F. Kennedy and his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson. When Johnson sat out the presidential primary season in 1964 and recruited various “favorite son” candidates to stand in for him, Brewster enthusiastically accepted his assignment to help halt Alabama Gov. George Wallace’s upstart campaign. Brewster won the primary, but a stunning 42% of voters cast ballots for Wallace; the senator later noted that he “seriously considered dropping out of politics” as a result. The growing futility of the Vietnam War, coupled with Johnson’s decision to forgo his own 1968 reelection bid, left no safe haven for a politician whose unwavering support of both endeavors had cost him liberal supporters; meanwhile, his support of civil rights enraged his conservative constituents.

This era forms the heart of Frece’s narrative as he paints a portrait of a man who was undone by his own hubris, by his love of drink (“I was never sure he would show up,” his press secretary recalled), and by his pursuit of Anne Bullitt, the daughter of a beloved U.S. ambassador who’d jilted him in 1943 but eventually became his second wife. The biography advances various explanations for Brewster’s downfall, including post-traumatic stress disorder, a family history of alcoholism, and a growing inability to reconcile himself to a shifting political landscape. Yet no single factor stands out to explain how such a promising politician could fall from grace so fast. The author is somewhat less sure-footed in dealing with Brewster’s December 1969 federal indictment, after he was voted out of office, for allegedly accepting $24,500 in bribes to influence his position on third-class mailing rights. Frece offers an exhaustingly detailed account of this event, which killed any chances of a comeback for its target; Brewster pled no contest to a single misdemeanor count and followed with a lifelong march toward sobriety and rehabilitation. How well this minor public figure managed this goal is left up to the reader, although the reportage on his initial trial may offer a fitting final word: “There but for the grace of God go I,” wrote the Baltimore Sun’s Fred Hill, imagining the thoughts of nervous rivals watching the trial’s outcome.

An intimate and vastly detailed portrait of a forgotten senator’s downfall and post-Beltway redemption.”