Whistle Stops

Wilson Wyatt was Jack Kennedy's presidential emissary to Sukarno in a crisis that might have cost the West the oil of the East Indies and lost Indonesia to the Communist orbit. He headed a mission to North Africa during World War II, managed Adlai Stevenson's presidential campaign, and played varied roles on stage and behind the scenes at seven Democratic conventions. He helped guide Kentucky's quiet governmental revolution in the Combs-Wyatt administration, served as wartime mayor of Louisville, launched the nation's postwar housing program under Harry Truman, and today is a leader in Louisville's renaissance.

Wyatt's candid and informal memoir offers many revealing vignettes of the public figures of the past fifty years—Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, Alben Barkley, Sukarno of Indonesia, Trygve Lie of the United Nations, and a variety of others on the state and national scene. Three chapters are devoted to Adlai E. Stevenson—the man, the public figure, his presidential campaigns, and his place in the political life of America.