Part of this was Bowles’s own fault; he was marvelous at long-range thinking, at seeing the dangers inherent in policies, but he was a weak infighter. He lacked an ability to dissemble, he had no instinct for the jugular, he did not maneuver well at close hand. Thus, while Averell Harriman might stand for the same policy as Bowles, Harriman was not a good target; he was a vicious, almost joyous, brutal infighter, and anyone who tangled with him would do so in the full knowledge that Harriman would remember and strike back, and for a hard-line columnist like Joe Alsop, who had more than a
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