Michael Malone - Weebly

eprehensible in all other ways, undeniably had been
schooled to dress, play for Harvard, sail, and get
himself injured for his country—as a gentleman. But that
brief infidelity with JFK, like an affair with a
dangerously seductive foreigner in wartime, clearly
could mean little in the pattern of one's life, and Ransom
had never committed adultery again.
In 1968, therefore, he had contributed time and
money to Republicans. And in return he had been
invited to meet Republicans of time and money, those
who made decisions, or who had heard decisions in the
making, knowledge that proved useful to have in the
banking business when mixed casually with a drink and
handed to Ernest Ransom at gentlemen's luncheons.
And so, approached by his government about the
leasing of mostly marshy land that no one had ever
thought of using anyhow, he was happy to oblige. Profit
was not at all his motive, though profit was, naturally, all
to the good. He understood the representative to say
something about possible ornithological research into
migratory cycles. Possibly in the future there might be
something on the order of a national wildlife refuge.