Holding the Line: Inside Trump’s Pentagon with Secretary Mattis

Commander Guy M. Snodgrass, U.S. Navy (Retired). New York: Sentinel, 2019. 352
pp. Notes. $27.
Reviewed by Lieutenant Commander Graham C. Scarbro, U.S. Navy

How do you continue with the mission when

seemingly every day brings some new twist, a change
of plans, a different approach? In such an
environment, how do you even identify the mission?
This conundrum takes center stage in retired Navy
Commander Guy “Bus” Snodgrass’s memoir, Holding
the Line, chronicling his time as chief speechwriter for
former Secretary of Defense James Mattis.
Mattis frequently remarked on the necessity of
“holding the line” during times of turmoil. The military’s
role, he believed, was as a stabilizing influence in
politics and U.S. society. This required a consistent
tone, a steady approach, and a sense of mission.
Snodgrass presents this mission as a constant battle,
likening it to his experience dealing with multiple
emergency malfunctions in a fighter jet—no matter
what arrives, the pilot must successfully guide the
plane to a safe landing. In Holding the Line, Snodgrass trades a cockpit for an office in
the Pentagon’s D Ring. Like a stricken aircraft, Mattis’s Defense Department lurches from
one difficulty to another, all the while trying to “hold the line.”
In the wake of its publication, press reports and interviews have focused on the book’s
big personalities: former officials such as Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson,
National Security Advisor John Bolton, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, and, of
course, President Donald Trump. But those looking for a tell-all about how “deep state”
bureaucrats tried to thwart the President’s every move or about how the “adults in the
room” tried to keep an unconventional executive on task will find Snodgrass’s approach
more nuanced.
The personalities in Washington, even those outside the Oval Office, create many
challenges, of course, making hay in the press, but professional readers will also find
much ado about processes and policy in the world’s largest bureaucracy.
What Holding the Line lacks in salacious tabloid drama, it gains in studying
interdepartmental relations, politics at the highest level of U.S. government, and lessons
for leaders at all echelons. Politics aside, there is no arguing that President Trump is an
unorthodox figure, and Mattis himself is a legend in military circles.
Snodgrass paints the President as an unpredictable leader who defies convention, while
also crediting the ways in which Trump’s style yielded results. Mattis descends from
Olympus as a mere mortal, beset by challenges both internal and external. When
President Trump’s distributive deal-making style and business mogul background clash
with the career Marine, Mattis’s efforts to be both a good follower to the President and a
good leader to the U.S. military encounter a tension that doesn’t abate until the book’s
final pages.
Mattis endeavors to present a consistent message, despite an ever-fluctuating White
House tone. Pentagon officials struggle to adjust to a revolving door of personnel
changes. Snodgrass himself undergoes a difficult transition, from military fighter pilot to
civilian political appointee. These episodes will inform and resonate with anyone who ever
had an unpredictable commanding officer, dealt with the turmoil of personnel transfers,
or strove to be as good a follower as they were a leader and vice versa.
Political junkies will find plenty to chew on: Pentagon briefings, policy-by-tweet,
resignations, firings, and interagency squabbles. Highlighting the book’s relevance are
recent discussions on the role of retired military personnel in politics, Mattis’s own relative
silence on his time as Secretary of Defense, and the continued breakneck pace of politics
that seem to invade more and more of American life. As much as any publication can be
seen to take a balanced view these days, Snodgrass’s Holding the Line treads the line
admirably and provides a valuable study in process, politics, and power at the United
States’ highest levels.
■ Lieutenant Commander Scarbro is a 2013 graduate of TOPGUN and is assigned to
Strike Fighter Wing Atlantic.