The people's voice., 1959-08-28

paper COVeFdSe ildS DSSH uCCdShON,
serious and full of the detail that one
expects in TIMES story. Now he
has written a novel ("Advise and
Consent, Doubleday, GIG pp., $5.75)
and from it we discover that Allen
Drury is not just a reporter but also
a man of strong, deep feelings with
a capacity for vivid expression that
those who have read his daily copy
might never have suspected.
This is one of the most powerful
novels about politics have ever read,
certainly the best to come out of
Washington in decades. You will hear
a lot about it. 1t is a Book-of-the-
Month club selection. 1t will be di-
gested in READERS DIGEST, made
into a movie and probably also into
a play.
Yet the reviews | have read up to
now seem to me to miss-or purpose
ly do not tell Drury's central theme,
which is that the New Deal was a
natural breeding ground for an Alger
Hiss, as we'll as fuzzy if not actually
soft. in it's attitude towards Soviet
Russia.
This books emotional impact is
bound to be felt most keenly about
those who admired and supported
Franklin d. Roosevelt during his 12
years in the White House.
The story centers about the efforts
of the incumbent President CLEARLY
Roosevelt) to name Robert Letting
well as Secretary of State. A group
of strong-minded Senators led by
one Saab Cooley of South Carolina
(probably Jimmy Byrnes) oppose the
designation on the grounds that Lef-
fingwell is not firm enough in his
attitude towards the Soviet Union.
There are hearings by the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee and one
of it's subcommittee, headed by
promising young Senator named Brig
ham Anderson.
Slowly it develops that Leffingwell
is not only man with strong toler-
ance for Soviet behavior, but that in
his younger, days he was a member
of Communist cell at mid-western
university. The Administrator tries
to keep the story from coming out
fierce, underhanded tactics to stop
Sen. Anderson.
A nosy Supreme Court justice
named Tommy Davis discovers that
Anderson had once engaged in an
immoral act after the war. He passes
the information on to the President,
who sends it along to a well-known
Washington columnist and to a dema-
gogic Wisconsin senator named Fred
erick Van Ackerman. They use it
against Anderson, who commits sui
eide.
But the assault on Anderson boom
erangs. The small willful group of
senators opposed to Leffingwell grows
to a majority, who reject him for Sec
retary of State. This, in turn, helps
to kill the President, who is succeeded
by nice, bewildered, former senator
named Harley Hudson CLEARLY Harry
S. Truman) who does not play footsie
with the Russians.
The Big Names-To those familiar |
Will JliC llio OQIo vi w
life it becomes evident after reading |
a hundred pages or so about whom
Drury is writing. While he deliverate-
ly mixes up his characters and their
characteristics, it seems fairly clear
that the people he does not like in
clude: Felix Frankfurter, Drew Pear
son, Wayne Morse, and even Herb
lock. the eminent cartoonist. None
have exactly done what he has his
mythical characters do, yet the pic
ture he draws and the impressions he
leaves are that these men are basically
unkind, heartless and ruthless.
"The Senior Senator from South
Carolina author of the severest and
perhaps the only truly honest express
sion of opinion the press had received
on that hectic midnight-'He was an
evil man, and the Lord has rendered
judgment upon him. sat silent, bland
and unblinking as they rode along. . :"
Later he adds:
q. In their car following, the
Majority Leader of the Senate caught
from time to time the eye of the Mi
lority Leader of the Senate, and be-
5ween them there passed on several
occasions a look of mingled regret.