THE ROAD TAKEN

The longtime Vermont senator recounts a half-century of political service.

In 1974, as an attorney with little political experience, Leahy (b. 1940), Catholic and liberal, became the first Democrat from his state to win a Senate seat, “much to the shock of the political establishment in Vermont.” Methodical and scholarly, he arrived on Capitol Hill to take his place in a body that no longer exists, for better or worse. As he notes, for example, “former segregationists still held powerful gavels as chairmen—in my own caucus.” Still, it was also the Senate that saw Barry Goldwater and other conservatives inform Richard Nixon that he needed to resign or face impeachment, the Senate in which hardcore Republican Trent Lott could cross the aisle to work out deals with his Democratic colleagues out of respect for the institution. No such luck today. As Leahy writes, “[Ted] Cruz, the Texas Republican, had an uncanny ability to snatch any right-leaning, hyperpartisan political opportunity from the jaws of reality,” while he pegs Mitch McConnell as an opportunist who traded away his respect for the institution, like so many other Republicans, out of fear of his Trumpian constituents. Solidly liberal, the author recounts some of the thornier moments of his tenure, as when he helped negotiate the custody case of Elián Gonzalez, whose father wanted to return him to his native Cuba. Leahy, who’d forged a more or less friendly relationship with Fidel Castro, secured a promise from the Cuban leader to tamp down any nationalistic celebrations to save the Clinton administration embarrassment. “Castro kept his word,” writes the author. “There was no parade for Elián along the embarcadero in Old Havana.” When Castro can be trusted but Josh Hawley not, then it becomes understandable why Leahy has chosen not to run for a new term—and why he’s quite evidently glad to leave Washington behind.

A skillfully spun memoir that shows how politics is—or at least should be—conducted.