Reading Night of Camp David by Fletcher Knebel, you pick up on various situations which, if the book had been published in 1980 instead of 1965 you would say, "Well that's clearly based on Nixon. This part is like Tom Eagleton -- OK, that one sounds like Spiro Agnew"
...except the book was published before any of those situations happened -- Nixon's spiralling paranoia blended with active, free-floating anger creating a negative narrative in his head; Eagleton being dropped from the McGovern ticket in '72 because of mental health issues; and Agnew resigning as Nixon's Veep in 1973 due to contractor kickbacks coming to light:
for heaven's sake, that one's like he read Night of Camp David, saw what the fictional vice president, O'Malley, got in trouble for, and said, "Oh hey! Let's do that!"
Situations in the novel weirdly prescient of actual events that were still to come, in the future.
One chapter in Knebel's book reminded me of a part in All The King's Men, the 1946 novel by Southern writer Robert Penn Warren.
In Night of Camp David, the senator from Iowa sends his assistant out on a fact-finding mission to learn about the early years of President Hollenbach.
In All The King's Men Governor Willie Stark asks his assistant Jack Burden, a former newspaperman, to check into the past of a local judge. Burden travels and interviews people about events and bargains from years ago.
There's a lot in common, I thought, with the young man going "on the road" visiting various locations, interviewing people, writing up reports, staying in motels....
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