Pun in Depth

volume. I was reminded of Taft’s military aide, Archie Butt, who really started the modern White House peep-show, but With Kennedy takes more of the tone and style of the recollections of retired White House ushers and housekeepers. Mr. Salinger suffers from shall-and-will trouble. He customarily and with elephantine coyness refers to a toilet as a “john.” * He often affects the weighty truism—“No institutions in the country have a more important relationship than the government of the United States and the press. Each is powerful and each has almost inexhaustible resources,” etc. What the former White House press secretary has to say about the press—and he says it at length—may be of interest to newspapermen, but hardly to others, and is not, I think, of any durable interest.

The highlights of his book are of course the international crises from the Bay of Pigs fiasco to the “eyeball to eyeball” confrontation of October 1962. Yet, beyond the folksy details, Salinger has not much to add that is new. In the exchange of confidential letters between Khrushchev and Kennedy he was a constant courier, and here at least his glimpses of Khrushchev are unique. He met Khrushchev a number of times, entertained his son-in-law Adzhubei in the United States, and finally spent several days as Kennedy’s informal emissary visiting Khrushchev in his dacha outside Moscow.

WS

About the Author

William S. Schlamm

Featured Tags

volume. I was reminded of Taft’s military aide, Archie Butt, who really started the modern White House peep-show, but With Kennedy takes more of the tone and style of the recollections of retired White House ushers and housekeepers. Mr. Salinger suffers from shall-and-will trouble. He customarily and with elephantine coyness refers to a toilet as a “john.” * He often affects the weighty truism—“No institutions in the country have a more important relationship than the government of the United States and the press. Each is powerful and each has almost inexhaustible resources,” etc. What the former White House press secretary has to say about the press—and he says it at length—may be of interest to newspapermen, but hardly to others, and is not, I think, of any durable interest.

The highlights of his book are of course the international crises from the Bay of Pigs fiasco to the “eyeball to eyeball” confrontation of October 1962. Yet, beyond the folksy details, Salinger has not much to add that is new. In the exchange of confidential letters between Khrushchev and Kennedy he was a constant courier, and here at least his glimpses of Khrushchev are unique. He met Khrushchev a number of times, entertained his son-in-law Adzhubei in the United States, and finally spent several days as Kennedy’s informal emissary visiting Khrushchev in his dacha outside Moscow.