Daniel Patrick Moynihan: a portrait in letters of an American visionary

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"I think we are going to make history" -- "Nine pages of dynamite" -- "We were going to change this country" -- "Welfare is a bankrupt and destructive system" -- "The erosion of authority will continue" -- " ... a president they trust and admire" -- "Something perhaps to be forgiven" -- "The Indians have the bomb" -- "Dear Yorker dear New Yorker" -- "Therefore they will decline" -- "We have a prospect of peace on earth" -- "I propose that Kuwait be liberated ..." -- "What is to be done?" -- "Thus ends the progressive era" -- "I write to say farewell and thanks" -- My father the writer / Maura Moynihan.;When Daniel Patrick Moynihan died in 2003 the Economist described him as "a philosopher-politician-diplomat who two centuries earlier would not have been out of place among the Founding Fathers." Though Moynihan never wrote an autobiography, he was a gifted author and voluminous correspondent, and in this selection from his letters Steven Weisman has compiled a vivid portrait of Moynihan's life, in the senator's own words. Before his four terms as Senator from New York, Moynihan served in key positions under Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford. His letters offer an extraordinary window. "I think we are going to make history" -- "Nine pages of dynamite" -- "We were going to change this country" -- "Welfare is a bankrupt and destructive system" -- "The erosion of authority will continue" -- " ... a president they trust and admire" -- "Something perhaps to be forgiven" -- "The Indians have the bomb" -- "Dear Yorker dear New Yorker" -- "Therefore they will decline" -- "We have a prospect of peace on earth" -- "I propose that Kuwait be liberated ..." -- "What is to be done?" -- "Thus ends the progressive era" -- "I write to say farewell and thanks" -- My father the writer / Maura Moynihan.