ALL TOO HUMAN.

• Author: Fallows, James
• Position: Review

Stephanopoulos' important but untimely memoir

ALL TOO HUMAN By George Stephanopoulos Little, Brown, $27.95

This is an interesting book that should not have been written.

At this point, readers with long memories will be saying, "Wait a minute, how can he complain?" I was involved in a situation somewhat like Stephanopoulos' 20 years ago, and some people have even blamed me for starting the tradition that gives us instant-confessional books like this one. There are better and worse reasons why people entrusted with a political confidence might decide to break it. I think that Stephanopoulos' reasons were not good enough.

First, my story. In the summer of 1976, as Jimmy Carter was wrapping up the Democratic nomination for the presidency, I signed on as a speechwriter in his campaign. I was then in my mid-20s, was living with my wife in Texas, and was writing freelance articles for various magazines. When I signed up with Carter, I had already voted for him in the primary and thought he was the Democrats' best hope. I had barely started in journalism, and I was working on the principle that writers can do a better job if once in their career they have had hands-on experience in politics or public life. While I hoped to continue writing when the Carter episode was over, I did not join the administration as a mole. I wanted to help him win, and after that to help him do a good job in office--and when it was over, to use the experience as a source of general intuition about politics and government, not a stockpile of secrets to reveal.

Things turned out in a way that no one involved foresaw. During the campaign, the chief speechwriter had been Patrick Anderson. After Carter won, Anderson left, and I got that job in the White House. I stayed for two years. Then I resigned and joined the staff of the Atlantic Monthly, for which I'd previously done freelance articles. Early in 1979 the Atlantic published, as a cover story, my article "The Passionless Presidency," with a shorter follow-up the next month. The articles contended that the Carter administration had defects that were potentially fatal but at least in principle correctable. Unless he changed course in several basic ways, I argued, he'd lose his influence and perhaps even lose his office.

The articles caused a flap at the time and left hard feelings that endure to this day among some former members of the Carter administration. The complaint was not about the articles' accuracy but about my disloyalty. In the guise of wanting to "help" Carter or save his administration, I had (it was said) only hurt the man who had taken me into his trust.

No normal person likes to...