(Planning the Post-War World. Potsdam Leaders, July, 1945) The dining room of Tracy O’Grady’s Willow restaurant is a contrast to the bar area where I normally hang out. It is much lighter and airier than the dark wood area, though it shares a certain intimacy. It is all white table-cloths and spare elegant furnishings with […]

Mac was a little late getting to Willow- but there was a reason. He was getting suited up for a portrait. He drove over from The Madison and parked his champagne Jag in the garage under the restaurant, and arrived just about the same time as I did, shortly after five. John-with-an-H and Old Jim […]

(Chief Petty Officer Graham Jackson playing “Going Home” as FDR’s body leaves the Warm Springs Institute for the train station.) The Willow bar was bustling. There were some very attractive ladies at the bar, and some very self-important young men attempting to chat them up. Sara the lovely Lebanese waitress was smiling her perfect smile […]

Mac took a sip of his Virgin Mary and scowled. “I think there are only two olives in this one.” He peered into the dense red of the contents of the pint glass before him, rheumy blue eyes squinting behind his silver-framed glasses. The long bar was filling up nicely. Old Jim was in his […]

Editor’s Note: I had a rare opportunity to see something completely new in Washington. Retired CAPT Ted Bronson took me on a tour of the Cold War Museum at the Navy Yard. He has been instrumental securing the funding and obtaining the necessary permissions to modify the history structure that houses the collection of artifacts. […]

Editor’s Note: I am stunned this morning. Not that the condition is either unexpected or unusual, but this morning features the weirdest ‘news’ and a special hour last night curled up with the most surreal farewell address I have ever witnessed. I don’t know which of the two was more disturbing. It is a comfort […]

10 January 2017 Editor’s Note: The President is jetting off to Chicago to give what many are hoping is a glorious speech of farewell, accounting for his eight years in the Oval Office. I have come around to the idea that the Brits might have this better than we do. It was in the middle […]

Editor’s Note: Confirmation hearings for the new Administration’s cabinet are supposed to start this week in the Senate. This should be interesting, and the name calling and Twitter Wars have already laid out some of the battle lines. I was clearing out the old year’s stack of magazines, and riffling through the cover art of […]

(Legendary skipper of USS Wahoo, LCDR “Mush” Morton) I don’t think Lizzie or Meghan knew the details about the spy swap- the one in which a Russian sleeper cell of agents had been rounded up by the FBI, and ultimately exchanged with the Kremlin, just like the bad old days on that Bridge in Berlin. […]

Editor’s Note: I did not write this and will not try to take any credit for it. It came in the snail mail as a six-page printed document. As I read it, my eyes widened. I wasn’t quite sure what Ms Miller wanted me to do with the plain unadorned black-and-white pages, so I just […]