No wonder I have saved it all these years.
Sue gave me an anchor outside the orbit of Columbia—a vantage point beyond parties and professors and the whole rich banquet that had been placed in front of me. My growing interest in politics was another extra-orbital perch, a way to understand not just America as a whole but also how I might fit into the ongoing story.
I knew from my family’s table talk how important President Franklin Roosevelt had been during the war and how important the overall American effort had been for the Jewish people in Europe. Even as a boy, I sensed President Truman’s steady hand as the turbulent shift to peacetime began (although it was not all smooth sailing for him). “Give ’Em Hell” Harry cared about the working guy—and Buffalo was full of working guys. Then in 1953 General Eisenhower took the helm of a country poised for ever-greater prosperity. The Eisenhower era has subsequently been disparaged as “the silent generation,” as if it were a spiritless wasteland of sorts. Not for me it wasn’t. Ike stood for stability and resolute leadership.
That secure world took a nosedive on October 4, 1957, when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the world’s first man-made satellite. It’s difficult for an American not of age then to comprehend the impact of that event upon the people and the leadership of the United States. The Cold War nuclear arms race was unsettling enough, but now our most bitter enemy seemed to have the capacity to wage war on us from outer space. I spent more than one sleepless night thinking about all the challenges our nation faced. Finally, I decided to get involved.
During my sophomore year, as a member of the national executive committee of the United States National Student Association (NSA), I would meet with other members representing colleges across the country. Month after month, we ardently debated policy matters deep into the night, as though our ideas about the complex and daunting issues facing the nation would be taken seriously by the decision-makers in Washington. A fellow member was Harvard sophomore Tim Zagat, a tall, athletic young man with brown hair, his voice deep and resonant. Tim was forthright and passionate about ideas, the country, and its political process, not to mention food. Despite some heated arguments on controversial issues, we forged a friendship. The NSA was later found to be working closely with the CIA, but we were innocent of such encumbrances, and under the NSA’s auspices, Tim and I traveled together to other campuses around the country, working with those who shared our passion in an effort to affect the direction of our country.
I was on my way—of that I was certain.
6
Shots Across the Bow
College-level literature and history were filled with vivid warnings of the sharp turns and reverses that can happen in life. Like most of my classmates, I regarded those warnings, when I gave close attention to them at all, as merely “interesting.” The fate of characters in great literature had nothing to do with me personally. Like most people, especially young ones full of themselves, I gave little thought to contingencies. Empirical reality—that was the thing. Facts and logic. Or so I thought.
The summer after my sophomore year, I was back home in Buffalo, pitching in the seventh inning of a baseball game, when my vision became cloudy. As I was winding up, the forms around me—people, trees, blades of grass, backstop, red thread on the baseball, hair on the back of my hands—became unhinged and began to vibrate. Vapor seemed to appear in front of me. It was like being in the middle of an intense, steamy shower. I didn’t know what to do. After one of my pitches almost hit the batter, I stumbled to the sidelines and dropped to the ground.
I lay there, my eyes closed in an effort to control the sensation. I felt Sue elevating my head and placing it on her lap. She asked me what was wrong. I said I didn’t know. Something with my eyes. They were blurry, I said. And steamy.
Within a few hours, my eyesight returned to normal. The following day, however, my eyes began to itch, so I went to see a local ophthalmologist. He told me I had allergic conjunctivitis and gave me some drops to apply—Neo-hydeltrasol. But the itching went on, and so a few days later I went to see another ophthalmologist—Dr. Mortson, I will call him—who had been recommended by a friend of the family. He prescribed Neodecadron, a corticosteroid. I was to put two drops in each eye daily. Dr. Mortson saw me regularly during the summer.
Sometime later I began having a particularly disquieting dream. I had seen a 1952 biopic about major-league pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander (played by Ronald Reagan). In the movie, Alexander’s vision blurs while he is on the mound pitching a game. My dreams replayed the emotion of shock and empathy I must have retained from seeing the film.
When I returned to Columbia in September 1960 to begin my junior year, Arthur quickly noticed that I was having difficulty seeing, and especially reading, but to me it was more nuisance than threat. Too much was going on for me to be bothered with a minor inconvenience. For one thing, the presidential campaign was in full throttle. While Richard Nixon insisted on appearing in all fifty states, John Kennedy was selective. One of my professors, Richard Neustadt, had suggested that I volunteer to campaign for Kennedy on various college campuses. So I did.
Senator George
