The Man

The time is 1964. The place is the Cabinet Room of the Where House. An unexpected accident and the law of succession have just made Douglass Dilman the first black President of the United States. This is the theme of what was surely one of the most provocative novels of the 1960s. It takes the reader into the storm center of the presidency, where Dilman, until now an almost unknown senator, must bear the weight of three burdens: his office, his race, and his private life. From beginning to end, The Man is a novel of swift and tremendous drama, as President Dilman attempts to uphold his oath in the face of international crises, domestic dissension, violence, scandal, and ferocious hostility. Push comes to shove in a breathtaking climax, played out in the full glare of publicity, when the Senate of the United States meets for the first time in one hundred years to impeach the President. 'I. Douglass Dilman, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the constitution of the United States.' It is unthinkable, unimaginable - the fourth President after John F. Kennedy is a full-blooded Negro. This fearful honour falls on him not by the will of the people, but through accidental death and a law of succession never before invoked. Dilman must prove to be a man with a worth of his own... The tremendous drama of a man on trial for his life sweeps through the lives of those connected with him: the suave ambitious Secretary of State, next in line to the Presidency; Dilman's beautiful social secretary, who accuses him of attempted rape; his son, secretly a member of a subversive organization: his daughter, passing for white: and the woman the widowed President loves yet dares not marry. The time is 1964. The place is the Cabinet Room of the White House. An unexpected accident and the law of succession have just made Douglass Dilman the first black President of the United States. This is the theme of what was surely one of the most provocative novels of the 1960s. It takes the reader into the storm center of the presidency, where Dilman, until now an almost unknown senator, must bear the weight of three burdens: his office, his race, and his private life. From beginning to end, The Man is a novel of swift and tremendous drama, as President Dilman attempts to uphold his oath in the face of international crises, domestic dissension, violence, scandal, and ferocious hostility. Push comes to shove in a breathtaking climax, played out in the full glare of publicity, when the Senate of the United States meets for the first time in one hundred years to impeach the President. The First Black American President Encounters Resistance From A Group Of Congressmen Who Wish To Have Him Removed From The Nation's Highest Office.