This lively, affectionate anthology is rich with wise commentary (Washington is “urbanely dull,” observes columnist Russell Baker) and quirky inside scenes. In “Memoirs of a Congressman’s Daughter,” Connie Casey asked her father, a congressman turned lawyer/lobbyist, why she couldn’t go to Burning Tree Golf Club. “Because the men there were naked. Naked all the time,” her father explained. He described Clark Clifford, a suave, elegant adviser to presidents, standing “in front of a mirror in the buff, slowly molding the crimps back into his damp hair.”
Mrs. Graham loved Washington and was vexed by politicians who ran against it. But she understood the resentment of those who felt snubbed or patronized by Washington’s permanent establishment, which was headquartered at Mrs. Graham’s dining table in Georgetown. During the 1968 Washington riots, a presidential aide brought Lyndon Johnson a report that black militant leader Stokely Carmichael was organizing a group to march on Georgetown and burn it down. The president read the report, looked up and smiled. “Goddamn,” he said, “I’ve waited 35 years for this day.”
