Volume 25, Number 12 · July 20, 1978
A Guy Like I
By Garry Wills
Wheeling and Dealing: Confessions of a Capitol Hill Operator
by Bobby Baker, by Larry L. King
Norton, 256 pp., $10.95
The Senate Nobody Knows
by Bernard Asbell
Doubleday, 466 pp., $10.00
Pimp to the Senate is not a title turned very readily into a boast. But somehow Larry King gives Bobby Baker just the right Lorelei Lee tone of voice. The book should be called A Guy Like I. Senators just kept shoving money into his hand. His stance is half swagger, half sulk—a blending of goniff with gofer. The affronted air of one who stood by his deals is perfectly sincere: he is shocked when people won't stay bought. I met Mr. Baker while I was reading his book, and remarked that he is surprisingly candid about his own actions—which included special delivery of a call girl to the home of a senator in need. 'You have to give value for money,' he said. It was his creed on the Hill, and it explains his success even in jail, where he was a principal ornament of Allenwood's chapter of the Jaycees.
Review, 1960 words
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