Ed Tracy never served in the military, but he knows about military preparedness. Two weeks before the opening of the Pritzker Military Library he commanded a construction crew and a staff of two as they readied the 5,000-square-foot Streeterville space for inspection. While workers vacuumed plaster dust and the receptionist–a former marine corporal–fielded a call from the mayor’s office, Tracy firmed up the opening weekend’s guest list and armed himself against incidental queries into the Pritzker family fortunes with a preprinted four-page Q and A with the library’s namesake. Army national guard colonel James N. Pritzker (ret.) will throw open the doors to his 9,000-volume book collection this weekend in the building that once housed the legendary Chez Paree supper club.
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Tracy, the library’s executive director, wanted everything to be shipshape a few weeks prior to the opening, but the atrium’s chandelier wasn’t due to arrive for a few days, and the collection’s catalog hadn’t yet gone online. “We’re still whammin’ and jammin’ it,” he said, but he was confident everything would be ready before the October 23 ribbon-cutting ceremony, scheduled to be attended by a full detail of eminent historians, biographers, and novelists.
The following year the symposium was renamed in Colby’s honor, and these days “the Colby circle” includes novelists Tom Clancy and Stephen Coonts, journalists Mark Bowden (Black Hawk Down) and Pulitzer winner Rick Atkinson (An Army at Dawn), scholars Bryan Mark Rigg (Hitler’s Jewish Soldiers), and retired spooks James Woolsey and Stansfield Turner.
