Advise and Consent is a 1959 political fiction novel by Allen Drury that explores the United States Senate confirmation of controversial Secretary of State nominee Robert Leffingwell, whose promotion is endangered due to growing evidence that the nominee had been a member of the Communist Party.
The novel spent 102 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1960 and was adapted into a successful 1962 film starring Henry Fonda.
A Drury thesis was that American liberalism contributed to communism's incremental success in its war against American democratic capitalism.Advise and Consent is a fictional account of the nomination of a prominent liberal, Robert Leffingwell, to the cabinet position of Secretary of State during the height of the Cold War.
[10]Several sources agree that character Robert Leffingwell, the novel's nominee for Secretary of State, represents Alger Hiss.
The book tells the story of an up-and-down nomination process that most people fully expect to result in a quick approval of the controversial nominee.
After outright lies under oath by the nominee and vigorous cross examination by Leffingwell, Gelman is thoroughly discredited and deemed an unfit witness by the subcommittee and its charismatic chairman Utah Senator Brig Anderson.
At this crucial moment in the story, the tenacious Senator Cooley dissects Gelman's testimony and discovers a way to identify James Morton.
Cooley maneuvers Morton into confessing the truth of Gelman's assertions to Senator Anderson who subsequently re-opens the subcommittee's hearings, thus enraging the President.
Conversely, Pamela Hansford Johnson of the New Statesman called Advise and Consent "politically repellent and artistically null with a steady hysterical undertone.
[2][4][15][16] In 2009, Scott Simon wrote in The Wall Street Journal, "Fifty years after its publication and astounding success ... Allen Drury's novel remains the definitive Washington tale.
"[12]Writing for The Wall Street Journal in 2014, Jonathan Karl called Advise and Consent "the last great novel set in Washington".
[4][18] Drury's novel was adapted by Loring Mandel into the 1960 Broadway play Advise and Consent, directed by Franklin Schaffner and starring Richard Kiley, Ed Begley, Henry Jones and Chester Morris.
The novel was also adapted into the 1962 film Advise & Consent, directed by Otto Preminger and starring Walter Pidgeon and Henry Fonda.
[4][6] Preminger was nominated for a Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and Burgess Meredith won the National Board of Review award for Best Supporting Actor for his role.