MATTERS OF STATE: A Political Excursion.

• Author: Larson, Christina
• Position: Review

MATTERS OF STATE: A Political Excursion by Philip Hamburger Counterpoint Press $25.00

BACK IN 1939, WHEN PHILIP Hamburger was 25, he accepted a reporting job at The New Yorker--and for the past 61 years, he has made a distinguished living as a correspondent covering presidential inaugurations and banquets, national party conventions, and other ceremonies of state. The end product is Matters of State: A Political Excursion, 26 Selections profiling such political giants as Dean Acheson, Fiorello LaGuardia, Joseph McCarthy, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton.

But don't let the title of this book fool you: Hamburger never sets forth to espouse political ideals or pass editorial judgements on the event he describes. In foreword, he recounts the advice of Harold Ross, The New Yorker's first editor, "Never go cosmic on me Hamburger"--advice which Hamburger evidently still holds onto six decades later, for better or for worse.

At times, Hamburger's book can so uncosmic that it's a little like travel a political landscape, with long catalogues of details about the weather of Washington and the pageantry of presidential inaugurations. But assuming you aren't reading for new insight into the mechanisms of the electoral process, you will appreciate what Hamburger's writing can give-that rare glimpse into the personal and idiosyncratic nature of the great leaders (and losers) of modern American politics.

He describe Dewey on the morning after the disappointing election results have come in, and McCarthy weeping over a bit of sentimental poetry at dinner. He captures FDR's proud determination on the day of his first inaguration and LaGuardia's enthusiasm preparing for his weekly radio. broadcast. Hamburger writes with a sense of humor, describing the first Eisenhower inaugural ball as having "more hoop skirts than `Gone With the Wind.'"

But, unfortunately, Hamburger rarely tackles contemporary (or controversial) political issues. Though he lends rhetoric in support of such grand ideological concepts as civic responsibility and free speech, these essays studiously avoid trumpeting specific policy changes or political alignments. The chapter on Nixon's second inaugural is the one piece in which hamburger does take a clear editorial position. Incidentally, the 1973 manuscript was passed over at The New...