Mr. President: You Are What You Read

A man who identifies himself as “E. K., Buffalo, N.Y.,” wonders why political reporters don’t ask the presidential candidates one simple question: “Read any good books lately?”

He thinks that knowing what a candidate reads might give some valuable insight into what kind of a man he is, what his concerns are and what the range of his intellect might be.

In the heat and turmoil of the campaign, with its exhausting demands on the candidates’ time and energy, it is not likely that they read any books at all. Like the President’s, their reading is probably confined to a daily summary of events prepared by their staffs, with everything censored out that might upset them.

In a recent column presenting the virtues of Michael Dukakis, Michael Kinsley, editor of the New Republic, observed that: “After Ronald Reagan, people may be tired of charisma. They may think there are worse character failings than taking ‘Swedish Land-Use Planning’ to read on the beach.”

I have no idea whether Ronald Reagan reads books or not, though I doubt that he has read very much since he put aside the Rover Boys. When a man enters big-time politics in America he doesn’t have time to curl up with “The Remembrance of Things Past.” It takes all his time, I imagine, just to read his briefings.

The thought of Dukakis reading “Swedish Land-Use Planning” on the beach is rather intimidating, but it suggests a man with a good inquiring mind who is interested in the mechanics of democracy.

John F. Kennedy may have been the last President to read books. He once stated casually that he enjoyed relaxing with the spy adventure books of Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond. (That plug sent Fleming to the top of the best-seller lists.)

In retrospect, it is chilling to think that the President who guided us through the Cuban missile crisis enjoyed the heroics of a womanizing super spy who swashbuckled about the world in stylish confrontation with the forces of evil.

We must not expect our Presidents to be intellectuals. I suppose Jefferson was an intellectual, and Madison; Lincoln surely was, despite his lack of formal education; Wilson, former president of Princeton University, was an intellectual by profession, but the term hardly fits the succession after Wilson: no one has ever accused Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, Truman, Eisenhower, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter or Reagan of being an intellectual; nor even the second Roosevelt.

Recently a columnist sneered at a high-school girl’s answer when asked to name five American intellectuals. Her first nominee was Kennedy. But if Kennedy wasn’t an intellectual, who is? Intellectuals aren’t famous. You don’t see stories about them in People magazine. The life of the intellect does not photograph well. Maybe John Kenneth Galbraith qualifies; the Harvard biologist Stephen Jay Gould; the biologist and essayist Lewis Thomas, and numerous physicists and mathematicians no one ever heard of.

I have heard an intellectual defined as anyone who makes a living with his mind: that could include successful bookies and con men as well as scientists and philosophers.

The point is that a President does not have to be an intellectual. He doesn’t have to read books. One of these days we will have a President who was educated entirely by audio-visual technology. He may never have cracked a book at all.

Meanwhile, though, I would have more confidence in a President who not only had an education based on reading, but continued to read books in the White House, if only James Bond.

Just in case any of the candidates are interested, I have prepared a list of 10 books that I think would help any candidate to govern the country with compassion, humor, understanding and style. Here it is:

“The Boy Scout Handbook” (absolutely essential); “Men: An Owner’s Manual,” by Stephanie Brush (all you need to know about men); “Is Sex Necessary?,” by James Thurber and E. B. White (all you need to know about sex); “The Lives of a Cell,” by Lewis Thomas; “Comfort Me With Apples,” or anything else by Peter De Vries; “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” by George Orwell; “Innocents Abroad,” by Mark Twain; “The Trivializing of America,” by Norman Corwin; “Strictly Speaking,” by Edwin Newman,” and “Swedish Land-Use Planning.”

If Dukakis wins, of course, he will have a head start, having already read “Swedish Land-Use Planning.”