“... that the Democrats were just as committed to the follies of the arms race as the Republicans. Kennedy promised for a time to break the mould, and even appointed Kennan ambassador to Yugoslavia. But he too proved unwilling to relent from Cold War orthodoxy and to embrace Kennan’s modest agenda for thawing relations with Belgrade. Kennan left government ...”

“... Iraq, he quickly became a critic, joining a group of officials from previous administrations – Richard Holbrooke, Anthony Lake, Zbigniew Brzezinski – in blaming Bush for undermining the post-World War Two system of international alliances and treaties which had institutionalised American dominance. But the neocon ascendancy in Washington meant that calls ...”

“... work than his scholarship: he led the Council of Economic Advisers from 1961 to 1964, under Kennedy then Johnson, and had been economic adviser to Hubert Humphrey’s presidential campaign until, just a week before the debate in New York, it ended with the election of Richard Nixon. Friedman had been closely involved ...”

“... a vote censuring the Chamberlain government for its failure to supply British troops in Norway. As Richard Davenport-Hines records, the minister of health spat on Profumo’s shoe after he passed through the lobbies. The Tory chief whip told him that he was ‘an utterly contemptible little shit’. Even for a headstrong young man it was a remarkably ...”

“... of Poetry, accepted five poems; in April 1915 two of her poems appeared in the Egoist, the paper Richard Aldington edited (‘I am so delighted to have them take me I shouldn’t mind if they charged me’); in August, HD invited her to come to London (she didn’t take up the invitation); and in October Alfred Kreymborg, the editor of Others, took five ...”

“... Select Committee inquiry – the longest in history, longer than similar inquiries into 9/11, the Kennedy assassination and Pearl Harbor – had managed to come up with nothing. Nevertheless, they all quoted the same line from Clinton’s testimony to the committee, ‘What difference at this point does it make?’ as indicative of her heartless obliviousness ...”

“... the war on terror; Israelis who descend from survivors of one holocaust are now creating another.Richard Beck’s Homeland supplies abundant matter for contemplation. He deftly reconstructs the coup d’état that unfolded in the corridors of power after 9/11, but also explores the darker reaches of the American psyche: the vicarious sadism; the Manichean ...”

“... such marginal representatives of the Civilised Life as Harry S. Truman, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy (whose presence was, BB felt, ‘life-enhancing’), and, most improbable of all, Ernest Hemingway. Meryle Secrest discloses that Hemingway was desperate in his suit for Berenson’s favours, and would have prostrated himself for a petal from the Great ...”

“... Air Act Amendments of 1990, which introduced sulphur dioxide trading. Economists such as MIT’s Richard Schmalensee and Robert Stavins of Harvard’s Kennedy School also became involved. They didn’t simply advocate a cap and trade scheme, but helped it gain political acceptance. The 1990 legislation differed from what ...”

“... in London that summer, almost all the New York Pop artists were there, but not Warhol. In 1965, Richard Avedon guest-edited an issue of Harper’s Bazaar that included work by Rauschenberg, Johns, Lichtenstein and Oldenburg, but again not Warhol.None of this spoiled the party at his first museum survey show, at the Institute of Contemporary Art in ...”

“... would count as work). Nearly always he was accompanied by Clyde Tolson. A previous biographer, Richard Gid Powers, described the Tolson-Hoover partnership as ‘spousal’: this seems to be Gage’s sense of it, too. Were they lovers? Gage acknowledges the possibility, but doesn’t commit herself. She’s similarly non-committal about whether Hoover ...”

“... acidulous sister-in-law, Madame Nhu, as ‘barbecued monk’. In one of his last decisions John Kennedy assented to a coup to overthrow Diem, although there is no evidence that he foresaw the murder of Diem and his relatives. Diem was killed on 2 November 1963. On 22 November Kennedy himself was assassinated. He had ...”

“... mirror on the opposite wall. There is a tendency to discuss these pictures as documentary. Thomas Kennedy writes in the Tate catalogue that Sickert is offering ‘realistic representations of people who visited music halls … His works show how people unconsciously engage with the social performative act of being part of an audience.’ But though the ...”

“... These men and women had been noticed before: they were the ‘silent majority’ invoked by Richard Nixon. The speechwriter who coined that phrase, Pat Buchanan, would become the insurgent Republican of the 1992 primaries, and at the 1992 party convention he gave a speech that seems the prototype for Trump’s inaugural. In fact, Trump delivered no ...”

“... after Trump had claimed that Cruz’s father was directly involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy and repeatedly commented that Cruz’s wife was much uglier than Melania, even posting comparative photos of the two. Now Cruz, in an unexpectedly tight race, has implored Trump to come to Texas to campaign for him.)*The White House leaks to reporters ...”