In this book a former Assistant Secretary of State and Washington insider recalls the lighter moments of a lifetime in politics, diplomacy, intelligence and the foundation world. Based on personal notes jotted down during his official assignments in the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations, and subsequently in the non-governmental universe in Washington, this lively book recounts conversations and episodes of high humor involving American presidents and other leading national figures from the 1950s to the 1980s. Major events, no matter how serious were often laced with humor, even farce. Some of these stories offer rare glimpses into American presidential and political history. Many are hilarious accounts of diplomatic and bureaucratic foibles at home and abroad. Others are tales of rare encounters simply too amusing to lose. Over several decades, the author's choice assignments in Washington gave him unusual opportunities to experience the lighter side of famous Presidents and their advisers. The grander settings range from the White House to the State Department, and from Capitol Hill to Embassy Row. Insightful glimpses of Lyndon Johnson, John F. Kennedy, Adlai Stevenson and Hubert Humphrey begin with the author's service in the United States Senate in the 1950s. A sub-cabinet role in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations provided opportunities to know and work with Dean Rusk, Chester Bowles, Robert McNamara, Robert F. Kennedy, Clark Clifford, Averell Harriman, McGeorge Bundy, Richard Helms and John McCone, not to speak of Allen Dulles and J. Edgar Hoover. Later an assignment as deputy ambassador in the American Embassy in London, provided a rich round of amusing anecdotes on Anglo-American relations. as well as colorful insights on Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, and Ronald Reagan Over the years, official and unofficial assignments took the author all around the world. Encounters abound with such diverse celebrities as Josip Broz Tito, Indira Gandhi, Douglas MacArthur, Munoz Marin, David Bruce, Queen Elizabeth, Fidel Castro, Helmut Schmidt, Lady Astor, Deng Xiaoping, Clare Booth Luce, Richard Holbrooke, and the former German royal family. There are abundant accounts of diplomatic, congressional, and bureaucratic horseplay. This is a book not to be missed for and about Washington insiders.

Once, early in the Kennedy Administration, Secretary of State Dean Rusk complained that "Harvard gets al the credit, but Oxford does all the work." He was referring to the two dozen or more former Rhodes Scholars who, like himself, were then serving the new government in Washington. Among them, at the Assistant Secretary level, was Thomas L. Hughes whom President Kennedy appointed Director of Intelligence and Research in the State Department in April, 1963.

An accomplished public speaker, Hughes soon found that his duties included speeches on a variety of serious subjects to a variety of audiences inside and outside of the government. Also included were light-hearted appearances before Anglo-American audiences in after-dinner formats. They recurred at regular intervals over subsequent decades whether hughes was serving at State, as Minister in the US Embassy in London or at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Seven of them are republished here for the possible entertainment of a new generation.