For the Good of the Country (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780615652733)

I have always been fascinated with politics. From my father's shoulders I saw Harry Truman "Give them Hell" at a whistle stop in Grand Island 25 miles north of Hastings College. My mom was the College Nurse and my dad chaired the Economics Depart. My memories of that time include not only broken arms and Christmas bikes but also my mom campaigning to add vitamin D to our milk as my father led a boycott of town barbers who refused to cut kinky hair. Following their example I led a grocery boy's strike that swelled our wages from 50 to 85 cents an hour. I received formal training in political science at Carroll College (Wisc.), Vanderbilt University, and American University in D.C. I have taught political science at the college level for 12 years and served in the administrations of four presidents. At American University I became a committed activist. My first march was to Lafayette Square after the Bombing in Birmingham. There in a sea of black men and women, I listened to speeches from a podium I couldn't see. Co-mingled with those speeches were the shouts of George Lincoln Rockwell's American Nazis protesting "Nigger Crimes against White Americans." The crowd, packed upright nearly as tight as a slave ship, responded by singing "We Shall Overcome." When they sang "Black and White Together" two huge black women took my hands, lifted me to my tiptoes, and waved me like an emblem for the movement. Later that fall, I was an eyewitness to history as President Johnson in the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination addressed a joint session of Congress. President Johnson had no Vice- President. He did have a long history of heart disease. Speaker McCormack and Senate Pro Tem Carl Hayden sat behind him. They were next in the line of succession. Both were relics of a by-gone era. McCormack, the younger of the two, had served in the House since 1928. Hayden born in 1877 represented Arizona in Congress since its statehood in 1912. The scene gave birth to the Twenty-Fifth Amendment. The country needed to be able to fill Vice- Presidential vacancies and replace disabled Presidents. The Twenty-Fifth Amendment tried to do both. While the succession provisions proved effective, Section Four, the disability provision, has never been used. Inevitably it will be. Tragically it is a prescription for a coup d'騁at. Fortunately it is also makes for a fascinating novel and great read!