WASHINGTON NOW

by Austin H. & Knight A. Kiplinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 23, 1975

This extended tour of Washington, D.C. by two associates of the Kiplinger Letter begins at the top with the President--Ford is not as stupid as he looks, the authors say. Then comes a rich series of biographies which inform us that Vice-President Rockefeller craves Oreo cookies and General George Brown's remarks about the Elders of Zion ""were widely construed as anti-Semitic."" The authors survey Washington Society--the old-blood ""cavedwellers,"" the professional hostesses whose nouveau riche-ness no one minds, and the black bourgeoisie. There is also a directory of law firms representing U.S. businesses and foreign interests, and a map of the embassies' pecking order--the British still have top prestige. The book lays out the Congressional committee system and the tangle of lobbyists, acknowledging ""scandals"" here and there but undertaking no deep-ranging criticism. The reader also learns about the magnitude of the press corps and the customary trial balloons, cover stories, and Monday-morning plants. The Kiplingers include every branch of government, even the regulatory agencies and the pyramids of fries on citizens available to almost everyone except the subjects. Washington think tanks, however, are covered in only a couple of paragraphs. The Kiplingers' glosses on the state of the economy, the future of public education, and so forth, are comfortably shallow; more useful are the suggestions for visitors, including hotel-motel choices and lesser-known places like the Folger Shakespeare Library and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. Pedestrian but serviceable for teachers and tourists in particular.

Pub Date: July 23, 1975

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Harper & Row

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1975

Categories: NONFICTION