ORANGE POWER, BLACK JUICE

Gentile Tom Perkins (Princeton), Buckleylike debater, newspaperman, yachtsman and horseman with aspirations to become ""the American Disraeli of his time"" sets out to screw Junior O'Hara (Dartmouth) out of the senate nomination of the Virginia Conservation Party. Meanwhile Junior is doing some screwing on his own, beginning with Caroline Williams, wife of Tom's old-boy schoolchum and chief factotum Chubby and practically a member of the Perkins clan. The conspiracy to elect O'Hara tricks Tom and Chub into a good will visit to a warring African state (""one wealthy white man is worth a million or so Negroes"") where similar frauds and stratagems reach international proportions. Dirty politics is as thick as Kennedy blood in this totally improbable, arch and whimsical entertainment in which only Dragon Lady Caroline is equipped to handle the whole unregenerate crew. Power is the name of the game and the moral is that there are none.