Volume 22, Number 8 · May 15, 1975
Backstairs at Court
By Garry Wills
Conversations with Kennedy
by Benjamin C. Bradlee
Norton, 251 pp., $7.95
Before the Fall: An Inside View of the Pre-Watergate White House
by William Safire
Doubleday, 704 pp., $12.50
Safire and Bradlee—two courtiers, serving unfortunate princes; and each learned his lesson early on. Mr. Safire displeased by congratulating his prince on being more open with the press—which implied that he had not been open before. 'That was a boo boo,' Haldeman told Safire immediately afterward—and the prince meted out the worst of all punishments for a courtier: denial of the Presence. 'For three solid months I did not receive a speech assignment from the President, or a phone call, or a memo, or a nod in the hall as he was passing by.' Mrs. Safire felt the sting when she was kept from Princess Tricia's wedding. It is the dark night for little souls.
Review, 2128 words
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