Letter from America, 1946-2004 Book

	Introduction
	Editor's note
	The 1940s
	The immigrant strain	3
	Damon Runyon's America	8
	Roughing it	13
	Joe Louis	18
	Washington, DC	23
	The fall of New England	32
	Letter to an intending immigrant	40
	The 1950s
	The summer bachelor	47
	It's a democracy, isn't it?	52
	The European's America	57
	Getting away from it all	62
	The court and the Negro	67
	The colonel of the plains	73
	HLM : RIP	78
	The road to Churchill Downs	85
	Politics and the human animal	92
	General Marshall	96
	The 1960s
	Beizbol	105
	Robert Frost	109
	The father	115
	The assassination	121
	LBJ	126
	Has the world gone to pot?	131
	John McLaren's folly	136
	The well-dressed American, man!	142
	A lonely man	147
	Vietnam	151
	A bad night in Los Angeles	159
	Making a home of a house	165
	Telling one country about another	170
	Pegler	178
	'Eternal vigilance' - by whom?	184
	The 1970s
	The letter from Long Island	191
	Give thanks, for what?	196
	The Duke	201
	The end of the affair	206
	I'm all right, Jack	210
	No cabinet officers need apply	215
	Christmas in Vermont	219
	Mr. Olmsted's park	223
	The retiring kind	228
	Two for the road	234
	The spy that came down in the cold	239
	A letter from Long Island	244
	The presidential ear	248
	The 1980s
	Bringing up baby	255
	Attempted assassination of President Reagan	259
	The Fourth of July	263
	Old man Reagan	268
	Inaugurals - on and off	272
	Memories of 11 November	277
	Miss much - no regret	281
	Expert witness	286
	The drugs blight	290
	Time to retire	295
	Martin Luther King - the black Washington	299
	Fred Astaire	304
	Origins of American slang	308
	Mayor Koch at work	312
	Hurricanes	316
	Chaplin - the last word	321
	San Francisco earthquake	325
	The 1990s
	Presidential ghosts	333
	The end of the eighties - great or greedy?	337
	Fighting in what?	341
	Riots in Los Angeles	347
	White House style	351
	The Irish in New York City	354
	'Give me your tired, your poor ...'	358
	Thirtieth anniversary of Kennedy assassination	362
	Boston	366
	Trick or treat	371
	Fiftieth anniversary of VE day	375
	O.J. - the verdict	379
	The old rocking chair	383
	Silver Watergate	388
	The end of civilization	392
	The Kennedy missile tapes	396
	The evolution of the grand jury	401
	The president will address the nation	405
	New words for objects new and old	410
	Loneliness, male companionship and the hunt	415
	Park Avenue's colourful Christmas	420
	2000 - 2004
	The death of the old media	427
	Running mates and carpetbaggers	430
	The day of judgement	435
	The origin of the continental blow-out	439
	America's day of terror	442
	America on standby	446
	The stars and stripes	450
	Messiah at Christmas	454
	Ringing the changes	458
	Arise, Sir Rudolph	462
	The day the money stopped	466
	Memory of a true great	470
	The last of the old-time gangsters	474
	Farewell to San Francisco	478
	Remembering a dear friend	483
	Meeting the stars	487
	The pledge of allegiance	491
	Towering glass and steel	494
	Charlie Addams	498
	The Democrats' growing confidence	501