It would be a mistake to dismiss [Seven Days in May], as some already have, because it reads like a thriller. The authors [Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II] obviously believe that it is not necessary to be dull if a subject is serious. It will be a runaway best-seller because it is well written, because it is virtually impossible to put it down once you have picked it up. The same thing was true of Advise and Consent. The main difference between the two books, apart from the weight, is that the characters in Seven Days in May are plausible. (p. 23)

This is an important book. Somehow in this country, we have not produced any first-rate modern novels about the uses which men make of power. We have had limited exercises in certain localized areas like California in Eugene Burdick's The Ninth Wave and in Louisiana...