I first got interested in politics through paranoia. (As the years have gone by, I’ve found that this was the best kind of introduction I could have had.) I devoured political thrillers about dark doings in Washington, D.C. Seven Days in May was my gateway drug. There was Night at Camp David, about a president who went crazy, and Vanished, about a secret peace conference, and the self-explanatory The President’s Plane Is Missing, about another secret peace conference. There was Fail-Safe, the classic about an accidental nuclear exchange. If you dig deep enough, you find that my politics were formed as much by Fletcher Knebel as by anyone else. However, this early reading has become increasingly relevant in recent weeks as we steadily discover that we actually had a half-mad president* who plotted to overthrow the government. Air Force One, I presume, is still where it’s supposed to be.
