Lapham: "America in 1957, I sought enlistment in the CIA and sat for an interview with a credentials committee...prepared for nothing less, I had spent the days

Lapham: "America in 1957, I sought enlistment in the CIA and sat for an interview with a credentials committee...prepared for nothing less, I had spent the days prior to the interview reading about Lenin’s train...the width of the Fulda Gap, the depth of the Black Sea. None of the study was called for. Instead of being asked about the treaties of Brest-Litovsk or the October Revolution, I was asked...questions bearing on my social qualifications for admission into what the young men at the far end of the table clearly regarded as the best fraternity on the campus of the free world: 'When standing on the thirteenth tee at the National Golf Links in Southampton, which club does one take from the bag? On final approach under sail into Hay Harbor on Fishers Island, what is the direction (at dusk in late August) of the prevailing wind?'"