DOME OF MANY COLORED GLASS

To view this as a debunking of the prestige of the American diplomatic service limits its interest to those who will thoroughly enjoy the picture of a rewarding life. Yet both factors are present in this Joint autobiography of a remarkable two. From youth to twilight years, Post Wheeler and his wife have got from life much of its outward rewards:- travels about the globe from Alaska to Paraguay to Japan; careers as novelist, Journalist, diplomat; social and official hobnobbing with the great and near great of their world,- Stephen Crane, Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, countless others from emperors to flunkeys. The story is by turns folksy, mystical and vindictive; it is constantly alive. The vindictiveness centers around Wheeler's lifelong service with the State Department, which ended after he was sent as Minister to Albania. The book reveals the intrigues and favoritism, the cliqueism, with which American diplomacy has been ridden and poisoned. This comes to a head in Post Wheeler's case, when his forced return from Rome on charges of misusing customs privileges was followed by his struggle to regain stature through every channel from Detective Burns to the White House Inner Sanctum and legal pressure. The chicanery and frauds of high officials came to light and his eventual reinstatement was marred by an appointment where his health was jeopardized and a slice taken from his final pension. But the story is virtually free of regret, and abounds Joyously in the parties, seances, anecdotes, poker games, war events, espionage -- and the contradictions and tendernesses of a rewarding life. The market- those with nostalgic recall for the days of the American dream.