True to his promise, Mandela stepped down in 1999 after one term as President. Still due to its comprehensive research, the author's reputation, Life magazine appearance and Literary Guild selection, it will undeniably be a shoo-in at the reader's polls. On his 80th birthday in 1998 he married Graa Machel, his third wife. 415) this one never questions the legitimacy of the choice offered the public, though many voters did.
Unlike another recent campaign report (An American Melodrama, p. The narrative is also sodden with unimpressive philosophizing on our current dilemmas, on which White discourses with a mixture of pro-Establishment bias (racial rioters are ""barbarians"" university rebels ""brutal"") and wistful cliche (we are suffering from ""too-rapid change"" and we need a ""common dream""). Floral tributes bombard McCarthy, Romney, Kennedy, and especially, Nixon, whose Rocky road to political and financial recovery is chronicled with banal sentimentality. Save for Wallace and LBJ (who gets a rather spiteful raking-over for egotism and crudity), White likes everybody in the race. (Particularly noteworthy: fresh glimpses of backstage maneuverings behind the bombing-halt decision an electromediagram on the blowup of Romney's ""brainwashing"" statement a note on the attempts by Nixon backers to torpedo public faith in the Paris peace talks.) In between these achievements, however, there is a good deal of slushy writing.
Against a background of agitating issues (Vietnam, race, student unrest) the account hops from camp to camp, charting the primary and electoral contests with thoroughness and with particular attention to personalities and ""insider's"" stories-which the author, always close to the sources, obtained in plenty.
The agony, ecstasy, and boredom of the late election campaign are here recreated by the author who recorded, with immense success, the Making of the President in 19.
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