The Political Sweepstakes

Columnist William White's testament to Lyndon Johnson is only one of a bumper new crop of books with political themes. Most of them are the works either of newsmen or ex-newsmen, all anxious to appeal to a public appetite whetted by prospects of next summer's national political conventions and the Big Day in November. A sampling: >The Big Man, Columnist Henry J. Taylor's novel about a Midwest lawyer who seeks his party's nomination for President. Taylor's man, Frank Killory, was obviously inspired by the late Wendell Willkie.

>Convention, a fictionalized account of a Republican national convention, by Fletcher Knebel and Charles Bailey II, a pair of Washington newsmen (the Cowles papers) who hit the jackpot with their previous joint effort, Seven Days in May, now a movie.

>Power at the Pentagon, a study of Washington's huge military establishment and the influence it wields, by Jack Raymond, Pentagon reporter for the New York Times.

>Mark the Glove Boy Or The Last Days of Richard Nixon, an unsentimental journey over the last episode of Nixon's political life, in which he ran unsuccessfully for Governor of California. Written by Mark (The Southpaw) Harris.

>Republicans All, a form chart of sorts on the multitude of contenders, declared and undeclared, bold and shy, for the Republican presidential nomination; by Robert Novak of the New York Herald Tribune.

>The Invisible Government, by Thomas Ross of the Chicago Sun-Times and David Wise of the New York Herald Tribune, previous collaborators on The U-2 Affair. The book will attempt a behind-scenes look at how the U.S. conducts the cold war.

These titles will join the ever-lengthening list of books and other memorabilia--busts, medallions, picture albums, records--about the life and death of President Kennedy (TIME, Dec. 20).

Now available: a recording of the Solemn Requiem Mass in Kennedy's honor, another entitled His Finest Hour . . .

Kennedy in Germany, narrated by ABC Announcer Howard K. Smith. Kennedy's own Profiles in Courage, reissued by Harper & Row with a special foreword by Kennedy's brother Bobby (TIME, Feb. 21), is back on most bestseller lists. Harper is also betting on the success of the Kennedy memoir to be written by Theodore C. Sorensen, the late President's speechwriter and adviser.

One way or another, every journalist who can manage it is entering a book in the political sweepstakes. But Columnist Joseph Alsop seems determined to buck the trend. His offering: From the Silent Earth, a report on the Bronze Age of ancient Greece.

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