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sentenced for conspiracy to obstruct justice and defraud the United States. It was public knowledge that Coffin had himself been a member of the CIA before going to Yale, so I blurted out, "And you will no doubt be pleased to learn that my superior in the CIA was Howard Hunt." We cackled—but he indiscreetly (on the other hand, does it really matter, at this remove?) used the information at a public meeting, and my (and the government's) twenty-year-old secret was out. Poor Bob Lounsbury, who had become moderately prominent in Democratic-intellectual affairs in New York, committed suicide about ten years ago. I don't know why, but happily assume his tragedy was unrelated to any contrition felt for what he had done, or almost done, to Levi Jackson, and to the Director of Yale Athletics.
    In the drawers of this desk is an accumulation, twenty-five years of assorted matter, but I know where the paper clips are and, indeed, the loaded pistol. (I loaded it after my friend the Columbia University philosophy professor Charles Frankel and his wife were shot at night, in their country home, a few years back.) The office has two armchairs, one of them folding out into a cot of sorts, good for a catnap. The walls are packed with books, research materials, and photographs. Most of the surface of the table is piled high with papers and the usual paraphernalia— dictating machines, reference books, a large Royal standard typewriter, purchased at Yale when I was a freshman and in perfect operating condition. I am content here, and productive.
    The car, coming down the drive, has passed my window: Jerry has come for me. I look at my watch. No problem; I will be in New York easily by three. My column has been phoned in, and I have written that morning the promised piece for TV Guide on "memorable guests of 'Firing Line.' " ("The most effective guests on 'Firing Line' are those who talk, listen, and who plead seductively, masters of their argument, serene in their convictions. The most effective guests are not, however, always the most memorable.") I wrote of guests who had appeared ten years earlier, in 1971. Of Huey Newton (as in "Free Huey") who had flummoxed me by an absolutely perfected double-talk, absolutely inscrutable as to meaning. Of Bernadette Devlin, the young Ulster militant whom I had flummoxed by instinctively lighting her cigarette halfway through the show, causing her inadvertently to say "Oh, thanks very much"—thus shattering her carefully cultivated bellicose front. (Afterward she told me heatedly that lighting her cigarette was a typical act of male chauvinism.) Of Harold Macmillan who, having reached the sixteenth century in the course of making a historical tour d'horizon , suddenly said, "Oh, isn't this program over yet?" And of Jimmy Hoffa, who told me how necessary it was to be tough in this world if one wanted to survive; soon after, disappearing below some cement somewhere.
    Jerry was back at the garage within ten minutes, with Rebeca and Olga, respectively a solicitous and fussy Guatemalan and an otherworldly and gay-spirited Ecuadorian, who have been with us for a number of years. Neither speaks English, both are infinitely good-natured. And of course my beautiful old pooch Rowley, who had already made one round trip in his beloved car, Jerry having driven Pat to the city earlier, while I stayed behind to write and attend to correspondence. Jerry Garvey is a huge man who, while a firefighter, ran a driver service when off duty, his reserves of energy being inexhaustible, even as his competence is complete in all but mechanical matters: He shares my difficulty in distinguishing between pliers and tweezers.
    When Jerry was on duty in the Fire Department Tom, also a fireman, would substitute for him, it having been contrived that Tom and Jerry would never simultaneously be on duty at that fire station. Jerry elected to retire from the service after twenty years, and now drives full time for me. In fifteen years I