Satiric ‘Lucky’ Believable

Sun., Aug. 2, 1998

Bobbie Hess San Francisco Examiner

“Lucky Bastard” By Charles McCarry (Random House, $24.95, 385 pages)

Charles McCarry’s “Lucky Bastard” is going to be compared to Richard Condon’s “The Manchurian Candidate.”

After all, both books deal with a sleeper agent whose ultimate goal is the takeover of the U.S. government. Both books are political satires - “Manchurian” wickedly sophisticated, “Lucky” devilishly politically incorrect.

The similarities end there.

“Lucky Bastard” begins with Soviet agent Dimitri, the book’s narrator, trying to recruit students in New York during the Vietnam War. A professor suggests Dimitri take a look at young John Fitzgerald Adams - a political science major from Ohio who believes he is the illegitimate son of John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

And young Jack is the perfect candidate - he’s amoral, a coward, a draft dodger, a womanizer (he always carries a jar of Vaseline in his pocket), a charmer, and everyone who meets him likes him. Dimitri tells his control, Peter, about Jack, and the two rogue KGB agents set in motion a plan to make Jack the president of the United States.

First they get Jack a fellowship at the University of Heidelberg in Germany, then get him into law school at Harvard, where he meets the strong-willed Morgan, another sleeper agent who will become his wife. Jack returns to Ohio and sets up a law practice with his best friend from childhood, Danny, a crippled Vietnam veteran. And of course, Jack runs for office, beginning with district attorney.

This thriller is funny, well-crafted and, unfortunately, very believable. You can’t read it and not think of Clinton and the Kennedys. McCarry goes a bit overboard with the sex scenes, but it works.

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