Author: Nicholas deB. Katzenbach

Published: 2008

Publisher: W W Norton

Format: Hardback

Pages: 320

Suitable: Adult and General

This lively, intimate memoir vividly recalls the idealism of the Kennedy administration. As deputy attorney general under Robert Kennedy and then attorney general and under secretary of state for Lyndan Johnson, Nicholas deB. Katzenbach offers a unique perspective on the American issues of the day. "Some of It Was Fun" is by turns intensely dramatic and charmingly matter-of-fact. Engagingly, Katzenbach treats the reader to a ringside seat for his confrontation with segregationist governor George C. Wallace over the integration of the University of Alabama, his efforts to steer the Civil Rights Act of 1964 through Congress and then his transition to the State Department, where he served at the centre of the storm over Vietnam. In the political climate of this American election season, "Some of It Was Fun" provides a refreshing reminder of the hopes and struggles of an earlier era.