From the Publisher

In this definitive portrait of the political and social life of Georgetown, bestselling biographer C. David Heymann chronicles the dinner parties, correspondence, overlappings, and underpinnings of some of the most influential women in Washington's history.

"The Georgetown Ladies' Social Club" — a term coined by Ronald Reagan — comprises a list of formidable and fascinating women, among them Katharine Graham, Lorraine Cooper, Evangeline Bruce, Pamela Harriman, and Sally Quinn. Their husbands, government officials and newsmakers among them, relied on the ladies for their sharp wit and sensitivity, refined bearings, and congeniality. In a city characteristically and traditionally controlled by men, the Georgetown wives were, in turn, afforded an abundance of behind-the-scenes political clout.

Filled with intriguing and often startling insights into Washington life, from the latter days of the Kennedy and Truman administrations to the Clinton era and the advent of President George W. Bush, The Georgetown Ladies' Social Club is a compelling testament to the sex, lies, and red tape of American politics.

Washington Post

Think Entertainment Tonight does Georgetown.

Toronto Sun

An informative and entertaining book—like the women it profiles.

Liz Smith - New York Post

One juicy story after another. Mr. Heymann doesn't hold back. I couldn't put this book down....Don't miss it!

Publishers Weekly

Heymann, bestselling biographer of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Barbara Hutton, offers a captivating chronicle of the female power behind American politics in the latter half of the 20th century. In a time when men wrote the rules of the political game, he writes, five formidable women greatly influenced who won and who lost: Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham; Lorraine Cooper, wife of Kentucky's Sen. John Sherman Cooper; Evangeline Bruce, wife of U.S. ambassador David Bruce; Democratic Party fund-raiser (and later ambassador) Pamela Harriman, married to the powerful and wealthy Averell Harriman; and Sally Quinn, Washington Post writer and wife of the Post's former executive editor Ben Bradlee. While they had husbands in high places, these women wielded a vital political influence in Georgetown by organizing the parties where momentous meetings took place and decisions were made. These women were so compelling not only for their professional and political accomplishments and legendary dinner parties but for their dynamic, and often clashing, personalities and ambitions. Heymann deftly explores these personalities through interviews with family, friends, enemies, admirers and detractors. The resulting anecdotal social history of Georgetown is a winning combination of sex, scandal and political escapade. It also provides a complex portrait of its subjects. "What the Georgetown Five ultimately share is their ability to maintain a public pose, to protect the image they sought to create, no matter what the cost, no matter what the burden," writes Heymann, whose earlier books have become award-winning TV miniseries. 16 pages of b&w photos not seen by PW. Agent, Owen Laster. (Oct. 28) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Heymann, a writer of popular "candid" and "intimate" biographies (e.g., A Woman Named Jackie), asserts (repeatedly) that in the second half of the 20th century, Georgetown dinner parties, run by women, mattered to the nation. This several-hundred-page gossip column fails to demonstrate his claim: a consequential exchange occurs at most every hundred pages. The rest of the tome recounts the lifestyles of the rich and politically well connected, including their adulterous escapades and the names of their fashion designers, as well as other excruciating trivia. (From what store in Chevy Chase did Ambassador Ardeshir Zahedi buy a wardrobe for Elizabeth Taylor in preparation for her meeting with the Shah?) Purportedly focusing on "Kay" Graham, "Vangie" Bruce, Lorraine Cooper, Pamela Harriman, and Sally Quinn, Heymann throws in chunks about Liz Taylor and Jackie Kennedy, subjects of his previous works. This book will hold precious little interest for Washington insiders, and none for those outside the city who have never heard of Lorraine Cooper. Nevertheless, the publisher will be conducting a major publicity blitz, so public libraries should be prepared to tell at least a few disappointed patrons that they'll have to buy this book themselves.-Cynthia Harrison, George Washington Univ., Washington, DC Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Dogged diva biographer Heymann (Liz, 1995, etc.) purports to show that governments rose and fell by the promptings of those in DC's glittery ghetto. From his report, however, the signal events were simply what Susan May told Missy and what Oatsie said about Rip and Adlai. Five Georgetown duchesses-Katherine Graham, Lorraine Cooper, Evangeline Bruce, Pamela Harriman, and Sally Quinn-headline, supported by a large cast of featured players, including Liz Taylor, Warren Buffett, Ben Bradlee, and JFK. There's Capote and his wretched Black and White caper for Kay Graham. Were these the best and brightest? Is this how Dolley Madison did it? Amid the clatter of teacups and tumblers of scotch, we hear the piercing clank of dropping names. It's a toast to the sort who "liked pleasure and . . . had great fun with it." Heymann informs us of loves, feuds, and peccadilloes. The tittle-tattle covers the fortunes, talents, connections, alliances, dalliances, table manners, looks, wardrobes, sleeping habits, and mental aberrations of yesteryear's Georgetowners. CIA spooks, a mysterious murder, Joe Alsop's sexual orientation, and Phil Graham's madness all come up for discussion. Some of it is patently questionable. Did a hostess really revive Alan Greenspan with an oxygen tank she "happened to have on hand"? Did "everyone come dressed as a ground hog" to a Groundhog's Day fête? It's all cold dish, largely enclosed in quotation marks, an inflated and fetid hodgepodge suited to a tabloid's party report. Admittedly, contrary to all decency, this sort of thing can become addictive and may even find a solid audience-but what's the point? Shallow and nasty enough to make readers queasy. (16 pp. b&w photos, notseen) Agent: Owen Laster/William Morris

Product Details

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Table of Contents

Read an Excerpt

The Georgetown Ladies' Social Club

Atria

Chapter One

The White House, Capitol Hill, the Pentagon, and the Supreme Court immediately come to mind when considering the major spheres of influence in the nation's capital, but the true seat of power in Washington, D.C., may well be Georgetown, a tiny, picturesque, eighteenth-century village cozily nestled in the oldest section of the city. Lyndon Baines Johnson, while serving in the Oval Office, noted that "every student of Washington's political process ought to know that the business of government is often transacted during evening hours, sometimes over a drink and sometimes over a meal - but almost always in Georgetown."

What President Johnson did not say is that these evening transactions are largely conceived, created, produced, and directed by women. On the pages that follow I attempt to trace and chronicle the evolution, over the last fifty years, of female power in Georgetown through the public as well as the personal lives of five women - Katharine Graham, Evangeline Bruce, Lorraine Cooper, Pamela Harriman, and Sally Quinn - and through the lifestyles of a sizeable constituency of supporting players - both male and female.

This is the story then of a group of highly motivated and independent women who all happened to reside in the same place at roughly the same time. They pursued common goals and common interests. Their paths frequently intersected and overlapped. They socialized with many of the same people. They were married to well-educated, successful, power-driven men whose careers in almost every instance took precedence over the careers of their wives. Marriage and children aside, these women were bound together not only by their hard-won successes and victories but also by their losses and defeats. At the center of each of their lives can be found secrets so deep and dark that they threaten to destroy everything these women worked so long and diligently to achieve. What these Georgetown ladies ultimately share is their ability to maintain a public pose, to protect the image they sought to create, no matter what the cost, no matter what the burden.

"The Georgetown Ladies' Social Club" was actually a term coined by none other than Ronald Reagan to identify an elite corps of prominent and powerful Washington women whose connections, courage, wealth, vision, intelligence, and ambition afforded them an abundance of social and political clout in a town traditionally and historically run by men. Richard Nixon, brought down by one of them, referred to all as "a shadow conspiracy of women." The description is biased but apt. The ladies in question emerged from the shadows into the light. Their parties, their personalities, and their presence forged change and lent shape to the human drama of the twentieth century and are still being felt in the twenty-first century.

(Continues...)

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