The First Presidential Paper

These short pieces were chosen because their subject matter is fit concern for a President. One is of course not throwing any disqualified devil’s wishes into the ring for oneself, no, no, these are the Presidential papers of a court wit, an amateur advisor. They are papers written to the President, for him, they are his private sources of information. The President suffers from one intellectual malady—intellectual malnutrition. That particular anemia visits leaders surrounded by advisors who do not tell the truth. Advisors are dishonest because they are professional. By the developed habits of his craft, a professional automatically suppresses as much information as he divulges; nor is this to speak of the various kinds of infor...