Potomac Fever

Book excerpt: After a highly successful career in investment banking with his own firm and a seat on the New York Stock Exchange, J. William Middendorf became restive and looked for new challenges. Having ?learned how to make money," he writes in this memoir, he ?wanted to learn how to make a difference." Thus he became actively involved in politics, first at the local level in Connecticut and then with the presidential campaign of Senator Barry Goldwater in 1964 and as treasurer of the Republican National Committee. There followed a series of challenging public service appointments: ambassador to the.