In the early to mid sixties, there seemed to be a subgenre of popular novels with what I'd now call a 'political paranoia' theme. This book,along with Seven Days in May and Fail-Safe, were probably the most read and remembered today. Reading them at the time as an adolescent, though, they just seemed to be a reflection of anxieties that I heard my parents talk about - 'fingers on the button,' the 'red phone,' and all that.
They were pop culture products of their times. Who'd a thunk that fifty-plus years later, Night At Camp David would have become our reality?
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Now I know what to give all my relatives for Christmas. This should be required reading for the entire Congress as well.
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Trump has serious character flaws. But anyone who thinks he is mad is more detached from reality than they think Trump is.
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Let's not forget Walt Kelly's 1966 book entitled "The Pogo Poop Book". Pogo visits Prince Pompadoodle and his PR staff at his castle "Happy Haven" and the results are very prophetic. Also in the book are the bad fairy "Frump", The Jack Acid Society, and the Kluck Klams.
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We know the answer, all you have to do is watch and listen to the idiot president trump.
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It can’t happen here.
(Who cares what Tim Snyder says? Who cares what he said in May, 2017?)
It can’t happen here.
(Who cares what Christopher Browning says? He’s just some old historian who knows a lot about the Holocaust but so what? Who cares if he says McConnell is the gravedigger of democracy? Crackpot!)
It can’t happen here.
(Who cares what Paul Krugman says? He may have a Nobel Prize but that doesn’t mean he actually?knows anything!)
Smart people don’t know anything. Only Mitch McConnell knows.
Oh, wait…
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Looks like it is being released Nov 20th. I just pre-ordered my paper back copy for $15.95.
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"Being there" also comes to mind, but the Don is mean.
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@MIKEinNYC,
In what world do you currently reside in?
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There are no limits with Trump, because nobody matters to him. Each frustration releases more bile and lessens his self-control. You could see this at the last presser, when he was barely able to contain himself. Tick, tick, tick . . . .
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Fletcher Knebal was a Washington DC based political columnist for Cowles Communications. At the time, Cowles Communications owned The Des Moines (Iowa) Register and Tribune and The Minneapolis (Minnesota) Star and Tribune newspapers. All of these newspapers regularly won Pulitzers. The Des Moines Register newspaper is now owned by Gannett. Cowles still owns the Minneapolis Tribune.
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This atmosphere is what Trump thrives on. He still has his legions followers who want to give him a second term. The truth is stranger than fiction.
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He also wrote Seven Days in May - which was also made into a great movie.
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Have not read this book, but probably a lot too plausible, now.
The Greg Stillson character in Stephen Kings "The Dead Zone" is a chilling forerunner of the current president.
Published in 1979
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" The missiles are flying, hallelujah, hallelujah ".
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When reading this novel, and others of its vintage, note how one-dimensional the women and non-white characters are. Of course, we can't expect miracles--it's a thriller, not a work by Margaret Atwood==but you'll be shocked at how the non-white, non-men are treated.
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@Annie Thanks for the heads up. I'm adding this one to my reading list.
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@Annie Women and non-white men are treated as they have been by most parts of our society for most of our history. So what else is new?
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“What Would Happen if the President of the U.S.A. Went Stark Raving Mad?”
Well, I'm just guessing, but probably someone would write a book about it. Or find someone had written a book about it that most people had forgotten.
But, seriously, it can't happen here.
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Can’t be as good as Dr. Strangelove! Why are we now counting on our generals to protect us from the President? Do their recent records inspire confidence? Anyway these days it’s important to keep a sense of humor!
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I haven't read this one, but I did read his "Dark Horse," and enjoyed it very much. It's not a great work of literature, or even a particularly fast-paced thriller, but it says something that I still remember it 40 years later.
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This book was removed from my library collection years and years ago but it was one that found its way back (as some do if they still have the library stamp on them) last year. Several of my coworkers and I laughed about the irony of the book. I'll have to see if I still have it and possibly add it back into the collection....
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Fletcher Knebel was the co-author (with Charles W. Bailey II) of "Seven Days in May", a better book than "Night of Camp David" that I hope gets re-released too.
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An even more prescient novel is Philip Roth's "The Plot Against American," from 2004.
An enormously popular businessman with no political experience runs for President of the United States. A Republican, he campaigns on a program of “America First,” and pledges to overturn all the gains made in the previous eight years by his Democratic predecessor. He blames immigrants for most of the country’s problems, and maintains a cozy relationship with a brutal European dictator. His supporters are mostly bitter unemployed workers in the Heartland, but his campaign is financed by millionaires. After he wins, he attacks the media and blames them for his failures.
“The Plot Against America” is purely speculative fiction. What Roth wrote could NEVER happen here.
Could it?
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Good point--they should reissue these two novels as a set.
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I had looked for this book when Rachel Maddow mentioned it, but couldn't find a copy at a price I was willing to pay. Good to know it is being re-released.
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@fastcat5
Try a public library!
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I read "Night at Camp David" in 1976 when I was a high school sophomore. While it didn't stick with me as well as "Seven Days in May", which was also written by Mr. Knebel, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. Reading it just two years after Nixon's resignation gave the novel extra oomph. Glad to see that it's being re-released. Now please do the same for Seven Days in May.
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It needn’t only be a fictional account paralleling the dangerous insanity of our current political scene. Well before this president took office, numerous respected and cogent mental health professionals (myself included) outlined his obvious illnesses—narcissistic and anti-social personality disorders, and attempted to warn of the inherent dangers thereof.
The warnings went largely unheeded by the electorate, political figures, newspaper columnists, the press in general, and ultimately the electoral college.
Our current non-fiction political scene has the power to disrupt civilization as we have known it. Sad and scary indeed.
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@Blusyohsmoosyoh
I contend you are not a mental health "professional" as you claim. If you were truly professional, you would never publicly diagnose anyone that you had not personally examined.
Fiction novels premised around Trump are bound to pan. We aren't reading popular fiction in order to relive everyday experiences in book form. Would you want to read 400 pages dedicated to life in a cubicle? We've seen satire successful deployed in office comedies. However, most office workers aren't going to spend their lunch break reading Dilbert or watching Office Space. It's a joke on yourself.
So too with Trump. People don't want to hear about an omnipresent tragedy in their everyday lives. The market for fiction is looking for an out from Trump's psychosis, not a detailed explanation. Night of Camp David sounds interesting only because the perspective is historical. I wasn't remotely alive when Congress was discussing the 25th Amendment. I'm curious why an author at the time pegged events today so accurately.
For everything else though, give it a rest. Popular fiction should be easy to carry, fun to read, and completely removed from the reader's everyday experience.
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@Andy
Popular fiction should be easy to carry, fun to read, and completely removed from the reader's everyday experience.
That's why I'm delving into Stephen King in a big way and for the first time. Hat tip to local libraries for filling my need.
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Read "The 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against The United States", a speculative novel by Jeffrey Lewis. Entirely plausible and with the actual protagonists.
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I’d consider reading this book, but even the scariest fiction can’t compare to the horror of actually living through the onset of fascism in this country.
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Quick, I need a spoiler. Does this novel end with the death, impeachment, or imprisonment of the rogue president?
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Another one to read is Philip Roth's The Plot Against America.
It was published in 2004 which now seems eons ago.
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More media 'gossip' churning.
Fiction becomes fact? Can't stop laughing!
Knebel had a syndicated column called "Potomac Fever" and wrote several political best sellers. Most famous was probably "Seven Days in May". He was a good writer and his books are well worth reading, even if some are dated.
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YOU can pre-order this book on Kindle or in paperback on Amazon, now, for delivery on Nov. 20th....I just did so!
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How about a “story” where not only the president goes crazy but where his entire political party enable, support and encourage his insanity, to stay in power?
Unfortunately that book can be found in the non-fiction section of your once great book store now put out of business courtesy
of Amazon.
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Hey, this is nothing. I’m reading a detailed tome on the ascent of Hitler through 1937 and how he and his cohorts maneuvered their way into power. With almost every page turn, I get chills at the parallels between those times and modern-day America, especially how substantial populations in each country were so quick to normalize and accept the bizarre behavior and lawlessness of their erratic leaders.
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If you've never seen "The Dead Zone" with Chris Walken as the protagonist and Martin Sheen as a truly scary/believable presidential candidate named Greg Stillson, you should give it a watch.
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This is not funny, anymore. Seriously.
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Then there's also Philip Roth's book "The Plot Against America", published in 2004 and "performed" in NYC recently. Its a what-if that has Charles Lindbergh elected president in 1940 and aligning with Nazi Germany.
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For a nut he sure runs circles around the Democrats
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@Respond that because he has beaucoup enablers with no respect for the Constitution, precedent, rule if law or civility.
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Take a look at Willian Sheridan Allen's 1964 book, "The Nazi Seizure of Power" which showed how a small three-person Nazi Party was able to gain complete control of a small German town between 1925-1935. When Trump began running for president, I told several people that Trump must have read the book because he was using the same tactics as the Nazis. He's still using those tactics.
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Two timely greatest hits from an earlier, dark(ish) time:
"Fahrenheit 415" by Ray Bradbury - His wife addicted to interactive, life sized screen dramas, a "fireman" tasked with destroying books begins hoarding them.
"Animal Farm" by George Orwell - Reveals the gradual betrayal of a trusting populace, told as a farm parable.
Both are quick, anti-fascist reads you'll never forget!
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@Allen That's "Fahrenheit 451."
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Two comments:
1. It's a shame the article doesn't tell us anything about the author of this novel.
2. The covers for novels back then were so much better than today's.
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Are you *sure* this was written in 1965? Mr. Knebel seems to be a seer of some power, to have spied out today's headlines form 53 years ago.
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Trump was also predicted in the 1958 tv western "Trackdown" in which a con man named Trump comes to town and tells the local rubes that he's the only person who can save them and he'll do it by building a WALL.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs6UcgiDwg0
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Fletcher Knebel died in 1993. Maybe he was a time traveler who wanted to warn us.
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There's a 1970s novel in which - as an ironic political stunt - a congressman starts a movement to repeal the Bill of Rights.
And against his intentions, the movement succeeds.
Wish I could remember the title, as the plot seems more plausible all the time.
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@Chris I think the novel you're referring to is The R Document, which was written by Irving Wallace. In that novel the United States is undergoing a massive violent crime wave, and the FBI director, along with the President, are pushing for ratification of the 35th Amendment. The 35th would allow the President to suspend the Bill of Rights in the event of a national emergency, which he could declare if the crime wave grew to be a danger to the security of the government. In that novel the attorney general is hero who exposes the plot and stops the ratification process.
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@Chris,
Could the title be "The R Document" by Irving Wallace? It came out in 1976 and was a best seller. The plot is similar to what you describe, but it is the director of the FBI who wants to push through a 35th amendment which would destroy the Bill of Rights.
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@Chris - It could well have been "The R Document"! Thanks to Chris and to LiesIM below for the suggestion.
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I don't think that our President is unhinged. He has a reasonable vision and he is doing what it takes to realize that vision. If you don't like it, in 2020 vote for the other candidate.
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@MIKEinNYC
Words fail me.
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@MIKEinNYC So he's actually thought through and is strategizing to increase the level of hate crimes and violence in the country? I guess that's possible. Maybe it's just nicer to think that he's unhinged rather than evil, but you may well be right.
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@MIKEinNYC , sure, if you agree that constant outright threats, belligerent statements, inciting violence is a reasonable vision I guess he's not unhinged. In case you missed it, Trump won the Electoral College, not the popular vote. Even W understood the difference when he was "appointed" in 2000. He didn't open up his presidency with actions designed to enrage and alienate the citizens of the country.
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There is no “what if” with the chaos President. He demonstrates his mental instability daily!
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@Marianne P Cohen
Even a crazy fox is still a fox, history shows. Don't ever underestimate how far he might go...
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I hope I'm still alive to read the true account of how Donald Trump was removed from office.
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He won’t be removed .... He will be re-elected in 2020 .... Trust me I don’t want it to happen but I’m a Pisces and more Psychic then I care to be ...
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Everyone should read IT CAN’T HAPPEN HERE, Sinclair Lewis’ great 1930s novel of a fascist takeover of America via democratic election. It may be prophetic.
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Unfortunately, It Can't Happen Here is very poorly plotted and written. Sinclair Lewis had pretty well pickled his brain with nonstop alcohol consumption.
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Has anyone considered maybe this book is the script for the White House Reality Show?
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"Advise and Consent" by Alan Drury is a book people should read. The NY Times reviewed it in 2009 when it was 50 years old. I read this in 1980s. It was most enlightening. It is very a propos for today. There are more books in the series. If memory serves one of the outcomes involves America coming close to turning into a dictatorship when there is an assassination of one of two possible presidents. If you're bored, reading this might liven up your day.
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/books/review/Mallon2-t.html
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@hen3ry: The movie "Advise and Consent" is pretty good, too.
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@hen3ry
I found Advise and Consent on my shelves a couple of months ago and re-read it - so good! I will read the Knebel novel too! Can't wait!
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Allen Drury was the author. I was spellbound.
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