![]() ![]() ![]() Advise and Consent is an incisive description of how politics operates at that highest level, when personality as well as facts and ideology come into play. The Senate is a microcosm of 100 people (99 men and one woman at that time), each with roles to play both officially and privately. There are a number of well delineated characters - the Majority Leader, the ancient Senator from South Carolina, the Mormon with a past, the demagogue, the guy who wanted to be President, the President himself. High drama ensues, with a memorable series of denouements of which the least spoilerish that I can reveal is a Soviet moon landing the week before the Americans would have got there. ![]() But the young Senator from Utah who is most responsible for holding up the process is himself concealing a wartime gay love affair. The plot concerns the nomination of a new Secretary of State by an ailing President whose party controls both Senate and House the nomination runs into difficulties because of the nominee's alleged Communist past. NwhyteAnother little reading project of mine: as well as reading the best-selling novels of 100 year ago, as I have done this year and last year, I decided to try the best-selling novel of 50 years ago, a political tale by a long-serving Washington journalist, which soon after (1962) became a film starring Henry Fonda and Charles Laughton (the latter's last role before he died). ![]()
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