A highly successful, popular novel written in the late 1950s and brought to the screen in the early 1960s shortly before the death of John F. Kennedy, The Manchurian Candidate outlines the assassination of the United States president. Its limited release in the wake of Kennedy's death and its somewhat prophetic storyline has helped the work gain cult status. Yet this status is not just a mark of good timing. As a novel and film it was one of the earliest direct attacks on the nature of McCarthyism, as well as one of the first successful indigenous spy novels in America. Its characterization of the lone insane gunman would take on iconic meaning, but its cynical representation of the American political machine and its increasing connection with the media was also something to which the public could relate.

The Manchurian Candidate, written by Richard...