Books: Before the Hurricane

THE MEMOIRS OF HERBERT HOOVER, The Cabinet and the Presidency (405 pp.) —Herbert Hoover—Macmillan ($5).

Calvin Coolidge's Secretary of Commerce was one of the many who wondered what the President really meant by the phrase, "I do not choose to run." Since Herbert Hoover's friends were urging him to run himself, he tried to get Silent Cal to talk. Ohio Congressmen, Secretary Hoover explained, were planning to enter Hoover's name in the Ohio primary. Replied Coolidge: "Why not?"

To this day. Hoover is not sure what Calvin Coolidge's 1928 intentions really were. But the...