Jim Newton was one of the brightest people I knew at Dartmouth. I would say he was among the ten brightest fellow students with whom I had any significant interaction. In statistical terms I think it could be said he was three standard deviations smart compared to the student body as a whole.

So I am looking forward to reading his much-praised biography of the former U.S. president and war hero Dwight David Eisenhower. This one:

I also recall that he was fond of whiffle ball, and that he wore a little button on his lapel with Karl Marx on it but said that if  a jock (a standard deviation or two in the opposite side of the bell-shaped curve) asked him about it he would reply that it depicted Santa Claus.

According to the Amazon entry I link to, Jim Newton’s book is praised by Robert Woodward, Diane Feinstein, George Schultz and John Kerry.