In the early days of the Cold War, the nation’s capital was smaller and more insular, and a mostly liberal elite living in Georgetown saw themselves as arbiters of America’s new role in the world. The “Georgetown dinner party” is by now a faded cliché, but a half century ago, what was said at Georgetown dinner parties really did matter. It did not help that Nixon’s host forgot his name and introduced him as “Russell Nixon.” At dinner, Ambassador Averell Harriman, a crusty old school diplomat who was slightly deaf, loudly announced, “I will not break bread with that man!” Nixon and his wife, Pat, who had little experience in high society, were visibly uncomfortable as they arrived, recalled Tish Alsop, the wife of Joe’s brother and fellow columnist, Stewart Alsop. Alsop’s friends had gone to Harvard or Yale and carried themselves with assurance. Alsop and his pals wanted to take the measure of young Nixon, who was seen as a rising star in the Republican Party.Īlsop’s weekly dinner, known in his circle as “the Sunday Night Supper,” was intimidating to Nixon.
Every Sunday night, columnist Joe Alsop assembled some of his friends, usually high ranking officials at the CIA and State Department, with a few journalists and politicians thrown in, to dine and drink (copiously) at his house at 2720 Dumbarton Ave. Senate from California, he received an invitation to a Georgetown dinner party. Richard Nixon, not yet 40 years old, was elected to the U.S. Evan Thomas is a former editor at Newsweek and the author of Being Nixon, out June 16, from which this article is adapted.
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