As always when a new administration settles in, there is specula- tion in Washington over the Supreme Court-its future direction, possible vacancies, presidential appointees. The nine Justices often surprise Presidents. As the makeup and outlook of the Court change, the Justices do not always decide constitutional cases along predictable ideological lines. The Court's decisions have shaped America's history; in no other nation is the highest court so powerful. Here, political scientist Alpheus...
By the late 1960s, many educated Americans (novelist Updike has observed) had come to focus not on books but on "the art mu-seum, the symphony orchestra, the cinema, the educational TV band, the charming conversation-these were where the essences of culture condensed and could be supped." Today, to an extent not possible before World War 11, "a person who takes pride in being civilized may feel, at heart, that the written word, in its less casual forms, has nothing crucial to offer." M...
"I have always been regarded by the United States establishment as an oddball, and I am a strange mixture of a reactionary and a liberal," George Kennan said in a lengthy Encounter interview last September. "It is perfectly true that in my attitude toward what is going on in the United States and Western civilization . . . I am worried and profoundly pessimistic."
Long a student of Russia, Mr. Kennan w...
Stephen Hess
Twice I have served on White House staffs-at the end of one administration (1959-61) and at the beginning of another (1969). All presidencies, of course, are different. But one could hardly fail to observe differences that were exclusively a product of time. Beginnings and endings are different. There are differences of pace, attitude, objectives, and response, not only between adminis- trations but also within each one.
What follows is a composite portrait of a President over the...