Books in Brief: Of Diamonds and Diplomats

Of Diamonds and Diplomats, by Letitia Baldrige (Houghton, $6.95). It’s subtitled “An Autobiography of a Happy Life.” A Happy Life, indeed. No one, but no one, who is normal is expected to live a happy life today, but then no one is expected to be normal because normality has become well, not-normal. Well, Tish Baldrige is normal. And she’s happy. She was, is and will always be happy because she has, is and will continue to lead a productive, fruitful and gratifying life. She’s the successful career girl. Vassar, then a series of glamor jobs as social secretary to Evangeline Bruce in Paris, to Clare Boothe Luce in Rome, to Jacqueline Kennedy (a Vassar classmate) in the White House. A stint in CIA, first woman executive at Tiffany’s, and now her own public relations firm. Tish has a good eye, a good memory, a way of capturing a scene, a situation, a personality with a marvelous economy of words. She laughs at herself and is unfailingly kind about the very important people she has associated with in the past twenty years. Want to know the real story about Mrs. Luce and the arsenic? How Jack Kennedy acted towards a handful of spastic children? What happened when Tish misplaced a $12,000 Tiffany brooch? How you go about organizing a Mount Vernon dinner-dance for Ayub Khan? What Joe Kennedy said to Tish when he thought she was allowing people to gatecrash one of his parties? Why liquor is now served at formal White House occasions? What happens when the First Lady arrives in India with gifts made from verboten cowhide? What to do when merchant princes (and any Italian) get out of hand? Tish Baldrige will tell you. This is what Valley of the Dolls was not about, the story of a bigger than life (Tish is over six feet tall) woman who made it without ever making a single soul she met on the way up feel smaller for having known her. The privilege is all ours.

PL

About the Author

Priscilla L. Buckley

Featured Tags

Of Diamonds and Diplomats, by Letitia Baldrige (Houghton, $6.95). It’s subtitled “An Autobiography of a Happy Life.” A Happy Life, indeed. No one, but no one, who is normal is expected to live a happy life today, but then no one is expected to be normal because normality has become well, not-normal. Well, Tish Baldrige is normal. And she’s happy. She was, is and will always be happy because she has, is and will continue to lead a productive, fruitful and gratifying life. She’s the successful career girl. Vassar, then a series of glamor jobs as social secretary to Evangeline Bruce in Paris, to Clare Boothe Luce in Rome, to Jacqueline Kennedy (a Vassar classmate) in the White House. A stint in CIA, first woman executive at Tiffany’s, and now her own public relations firm. Tish has a good eye, a good memory, a way of capturing a scene, a situation, a personality with a marvelous economy of words. She laughs at herself and is unfailingly kind about the very important people she has associated with in the past twenty years. Want to know the real story about Mrs. Luce and the arsenic? How Jack Kennedy acted towards a handful of spastic children? What happened when Tish misplaced a $12,000 Tiffany brooch? How you go about organizing a Mount Vernon dinner-dance for Ayub Khan? What Joe Kennedy said to Tish when he thought she was allowing people to gatecrash one of his parties? Why liquor is now served at formal White House occasions? What happens when the First Lady arrives in India with gifts made from verboten cowhide? What to do when merchant princes (and any Italian) get out of hand? Tish Baldrige will tell you. This is what Valley of the Dolls was not about, the story of a bigger than life (Tish is over six feet tall) woman who made it without ever making a single soul she met on the way up feel smaller for having known her. The privilege is all ours.