CoNSIDER FOR A MOMENT the possibility of nom inating a candidate for the American presidency who would be paralyzed from the waist down. Have him win the general election in the midst of a terrible economic depression and embark upon a program of landmark legislation to ease the devastation. Allow him to break with the two-term presidential tradition and win four national elections. Finally, let him remain in the Oval Office while disease gradually constricts his heart and arteries until just before the end of World War II, when a cerebral hemorrhage ends his life and turns him into an instant martyr.Add to this scenario the crippled president selecting an elderly yet well-respected politician, a man without any experience in foreign af fairs, as secretary of state. Have him contract tuberculosis at a time when it was still stigmatized by the label the White Plague. Grant him the longest tenure of any American secretary of state. Make this man so insecure that he writes "READ AND DESTROY" at the end of sensitive correspondence, but retains carbon copies for his own files. Under these extraordinary circumstances, have him agree to take a secondary role to the president in shaping foreign policy.
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