Ultimate Washington insider Elliot Richardson (a stalwart of the liberal wing of the Republican party) offers a cool and steady examination of the growth of political cynicism and the accumulation of hostility toward our government by its citizens. Published to conicide with the Democratic and Republican national conventions, this is a bracing account of what it means to be a responsible American today. Elliot Richardson, who resigned as Attorney General rather than heed President Richard Nixon 's order to fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox , has issued a sobering message to Republicans in this collection of political opinions. "Since when has it been conservative for Americans to turn their backs on the poor?" he asks. Richardson terms his advocacy of moderation "radical" because there seems to be so little of it in the current political discourse and then sets about addressing moderation in a variety of issues. The book is less reflections of his experience than it is his observations from and for the present. They are observations worth noting. Best known as the man who refused to fire Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox during the Nixon administration, Richardson has held a number of elected and appointed positions in federal and state government. Relying on his vast political experience, Richardson critiques the U.S. government today and suggests how it can work better. Unlike his Republican colleagues, Richardson does not call for the arbitrary dismantling of government programs; instead, he urges readers to put their faith in the bureaucracy. Richardson identifies the sources he considers responsible for the currently popular distrust of the federal government and outlines the ever-widening issues facing the government. He also offers a clear vision of the "new world order" in which the United States must take a more active part in resolving both inter- and intrastate conflicts. Richardson's historical analysis is right on the mark, and his recommendations for improving government service across the board are worthy of public debate. His book will wonderfully complement upper-level and graduate courses in political science, particularly public administration, and should appeal to faculty in this area.?Patricia Hatch, Emmanuel Coll. Lib., Boston Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. A humane, optimistic view of national politics from a longtime Washington insider. Richardson (The Creative Balance, 1976), attorney general in Nixon's last days and a former key official in the departments of state and defense, asks us to remember all that is right in American politics: ``Every transfer of power from one administration to the next has proceeded without incident. No American politician has ever gone to the chopping block . . . There has never been even a hint of conspiracy to take over the White House and oust the President. And only one president has been forced out of office.'' American government works, he suggests, because Americans demand accountability and openness and shun ideology in favor of practical idealism; yet, for all that, there is a growing sentiment across the land, fueled by the media, that things have gone badly wrong inside the Beltway. Richardson, a moderate Republican, allows that ``politics as usual'' may require some fine-tuning: For one thing, he believes that Vice President Gore's National Performance Review Report hasn't gone quite far enough in setting standards for the way federal departments carry out their mandates. But he remarks, borrowing a metaphor from his surgeon father, that ``democracy in America is at a complaining stage. We don't have a prescribed course of treatment because we don't have clear diagnoses.'' And that. he adds, is due to the fact that no one wants to look at the root causes of our troubles, which are milder than we imagine them to be. The disenchantment with which voters view a system that, in Richardson's vision, is right in most respects ``invites political quackery.'' And no quack takes more hits than Ross Perot, for whom the mild-mannered and cordial Richardson seems to have a genuine disdain. ``The cynics are always wrong,'' Richardson comments. His hopeful book is a welcome relief from the gloom-and-doom polemics that now overfill the current-events stacks. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. His approach fosters rationality amid the bellicose rhetoric in the political order. If a new generation of voters accepted the approach he proffers, they could transform the Republican Party and the nation. -- The New York Times Book Review, Robert F. Drinan hington insider Elliot Richardson (a stalwart of the liberal wing of the Republican party) offers a cool and steady examination of the growth of political cynicism and the accumulation of hostility toward our government by its citizens. Published to conicide with the Democratic and Republican national conventions, this is a bracing account of what it