FALL IN AND CHEER

by ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 5, 1978

Hypocrisy is the glue that holds society together,"" notes John Coyne, a former speechwriter for Agnew, Nixon, and Ford, in this insider look at the White House (1972-75). As if to demonstrate the point, he writes of staff laughter at a poor Agnew joke: ""You always laugh when the Vice-President of the United States makes a joke."" White House altruism, according to Coyne, was supplied by the young conservatives, he among them, for whom Agnew and then Nixon personified (""his enemies were our enemies"") the opposition to Sixties radicalism. Given this climate of thought, the reader can better understand the paranoia of multi-departmental screening and clearing of speeches and the idiocy of a national transportation policy devised over a weekend by two speechwriters and a pair of Domestic Council staffers. The political analysis that interlards the stories is largely unoriginal, except for the comments on Jerry Brown. Coyne believes that Brown, alone among national politicians, speaks for and to the new constituency of Sixties activists grown up; he avoids issues, like the Panama Canal, which they view as ""superficial controversies manufactured by power-hungry politicians. . . and adopted by the press. . . to make their job of pigeonholing--easier."" Coyne is something of a pigeonholer himself, but at least in the Nixon-Agnew staff he has some interesting specimens.

Pub Date: Jan. 5, 1978

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1978

Categories: NONFICTION