Sublime

Why were so many Americans treated by their government as though their lives were as disposable as paper facial tissues? Because that was the way authors customarily treated bit-part players in their made-up tales.

In 1979, struggling to write a script for a weeklong series on “Going to School,” he wrote in a note to himself: “Am I kidding myself that I’m able to write a script again? Am I really just whistling Dixie? I wonder. Why don’t I trust myself? Really that’s what it’s all about . . . that and not wanting to go through the agony of creation. AFTER ALL

Roy reached out, grabbed Joe Mills by the good arm, and said, “I’m so proud of you, Captain.” Joe Mills looked at him in disgust and said, “Fucking hell, Lance.”

And this was Clem’s cardinal sin. Not that he dared to raise a hand against his betters, but that he brought people together to do it.

Milton Eisenhower, now president of Johns Hopkins, told his brother that he must not take the rap for the U-2. Ike disagreed. He said he would not blame subordinates for his decisions. It would be a “glaring and permanent injustice.”

The guy was smiling at Roy the way everyone smiled at Roy. Like he was a child or mildly retarded.

A moment later, wearing a corn-colored jacket over green velour pants and an orange-and-green-plaid tie, Jack Ashkenazy came in, followed by George Deasey, who, as ever, appeared to be in a testy mood. He was, as Anapol had mentioned, a graduate of Columbia, class of 1912. Over the course of his career, George Debevoise Deasey had published symboli

Ike was always his own harshest critic. In May 1960, his essential decency and personal sense of responsibility had carried the day. “He had this thing about honesty,” said Undersecretary of State Douglas Dillon. “That was the military tradition.”60 d Cynics would argue that such sentiment is out of place in the Oval Office. But it was not out of p

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