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He\ufffds just feeling guilty. It\ufffds a classic case of dumping the nice guy \ufffd Adlai is \ufffdprofoundly civilized\ufffd \ufffd to run off with the bad boy. Kennedy has not been \ufffdconsecrated by inner conviction,\ufffd he writes, adding, \ufffdI also believe him to be a devious, and if necessary, ruthless man.\ufffd But he suspects that his friend Lauren Bacall is right that Stevenson has \ufffda political death wish.\ufffd

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Schlesinger\ufffds April 5, 1968, entry is brief, beginning \ufffdMartin Luther King murdered: what in hell is happening to this country?\ufffd He reflects more when Bobby is shot: \ufffdJ.F.K., one sensed, was always a skeptic and an ironist; he had understood the complexity of things from birth. R.F.K. began as a true believer; he acquired his sense of the complexity of things from hard experience. ... He had long since ... got down as far as one can in politics to the human meaning of things. ... J.F.K. was urbane, imperturbable, always in control. ... R.F.K. was far more vulnerable. ... He would do much better at Resurrection City than at the Metropolitan Club.\ufffd The historian ventures that Bobby would \ufffdvery likely\ufffd have been a greater president than his brother, more radical and more sympathetic to \ufffdexcluded groups.\ufffd

He tries to see things from Teddy\ufffds perspective. After the \ufffddistressing\ufffd news of Chappaquiddick, he writes: \ufffdOn Thursday I sat after lunch with Scotty Reston and Tom Wicker at the Century. They were both sympathetic; Scotty had been at the Vineyard that weekend and had personally driven over the bridge the next day; it was, he said, perilous even in broad daylight.\ufffd

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In 1989, when the Berlin Wall he saw go up comes down, he proclaims, \ufffdHow right I have been to argue the inscrutability of history!\ufffd

Sometimes he is off \ufffd he never grasps Reagan\ufffds appeal \ufffd but many of his judgments are shrewd. Gary Hart is Gatsby. Walter Mondale is \ufffda repressed and somewhat irascible Scandinavian.\ufffd Mario Cuomo is \ufffdprovincial\ufffd and \ufffdinsecure,\ufffd throwing inner obstacles in his own path. Bill Bradley is \ufffddull,\ufffd with \ufffdthe deep thoughts of a bright sophomore.\ufffd

He tends to divide pols into admirable and \ufffdweirdos,\ufffd and, as he dryly notes, there really is no procedure in the Constitution \ufffdfor dealing with nuts.\ufffd During a drink, Bill Moyers tells Schlesinger that Lyndon Johnson is \ufffda sick man,\ufffd so much so that he and his fellow Johnson aide Dick Goodwin have begun reading up on mental illness \ufffd Bill on manic-depression and Dick on paranoia.

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Of Jimmy Carter, Schlesinger says he \ufffdcould not bring myself to vote for a man who believes that Adam and Eve once existed and that Eve was literally made out of Adam\ufffds rib ... and believes he has seen flying saucers.\ufffd Jackie calls Carter \ufffda stiff, prissy little man\ufffd and recoils when he tries to kiss her at the dedication of the Kennedy library. \ufffdHe acts as if the presidency carries with it the droit du seigneur,\ufffd she says.

Schlesinger considers Reagan nutty and passes on an anecdote told to him by Jim McCartney of Knight-Ridder, who sat next to the president at the \ufffd87 Gridiron dinner. Reagan told McCartney that Chernobyl had been predicted in \ufffdthe eighth chapter of Revelations with the account of the opening of the seventh seal ... a great star falling from heaven causing men to die from the bitter waters. The star, Reagan said, was called Wedgewood, and the Ukrainian word for Wedgewood is Chernobyl. McCartney looked up the passage on his return and discovered that the star was called Wormwood.\ufffd

When Al Gore calls Schlesinger for help with his \ufffd92 acceptance speech, the historian responds \ufffdlike an old firehorse ... to the bell.\ufffd Gore speaks with \ufffda holistic, even mystical, fervor\ufffd about everything from gnosticism to Maimonides and Thomas Aquinas to fiber-optic cables to \ufffdhubristic\ufffd assumptions that we are sufficient unto ourselves to \ufffda redefinition of our relationship to reality.\ufffd Schlesinger confesses he doesn\ufffdt know what Gore is talking about.

In 2000, when Gore picks Joe Lieberman, Schlesinger is repelled because he finds Holy Joe \ufffdsanctimonious.\ufffd He gets a late- night call from Gore from Rachel Carson\ufffds study. The nominee tells him that when he was in the room making the final decision, his staff was in a nearby room guessing the outcome. They spun a bottle \ufffd and four times the bottle named Lieberman. They flipped a coin \ufffd and four times the coin named Lieberman. Schlesinger fears \ufffdit is one more of Al\ufffds exaggerations.\ufffd

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