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How he manages to deliver a barb without offending is a matter of chemistry that he himself cannot define precisely. "I think it conies from experience," he says. "I know most of these people personally and I know when something will hurt them. I can get away with nuances and insinuations that will sting them a little." He is, says a friend, "lethally neutral." Every target —tycoon or President, Republican or Democrat, general or sergeant, victor or vanquished—gets equal time.
Dollars & Old Shoes. Last week, during his NBC Christmas TV special, Hope played a Santa Claus who gets arrested by Patrolman Phil Silvers for parking on a Los Angeles freeway—hardly a format for getting off cracks about public figures. He did it anyway, by exhibiting gifts from his bag: a special award from the Optimists Club for Harold Stassen; a book of one-syllable words for William F. Buckley Jr.; an electric blanket for Frank Sinatra; a surfboard for General de Gaulle, to be used as a tongue depressor.
He got off a few other good ones during his monologue. De Gaulle, said Hope, is very upset about the British devaluation of the pound. "He wired Presient Johnson, telling him, 'Lower your dollar,' and Lyndon wired back, 'Up your francs.' De Gaulle also attacked Israel. He's furious because they're occupying his birthplace—Bethlehem."
Closer to home, Hope noted recently at retirement ceremonies for Admiral David L. McDonald that "the admiral wants to introduce a new military concept—victory." Ronald Reagan, says Bob, "has a secret plan to win the war. He will release it just as soon as John Wayne finishes his picture." And how about that White House wedding? "Lynda Bird looked just marvelous, and I'm sure she and General Robb will be happy when they come back from their honeymoon." When the young couple left the White House, "L.B.J. threw a pair of old shoes at them. Unfortunately Hubert was still in them."
Fold & the General. The body of Hope's work is nothing less than an index to history, told in one-and two-liners. Back in the '40s, he reported that in their strategy talks, F.D.R. and Churchill wondered: "When and where will we attack the enemy and how will we keep Eleanor out of the crossfire?" F.D.R.'s Fala was "the only dog to be housebroken on the Chicago Tribune." In 1954, Hope had it "on good authority that Senator Joe McCarthy is going to disclose the names of 2,000,000 Communists. He just got his hands on a Moscow telephone book."
In those years, too, he noted that "the workers love Khrushchev very much. He hasn't got an enemy in the entire country. Quite a few under it." And Dwight Eisenhower was always "the pro from the White House. I knew him when he was a general—he had authority then." In the '60s, Hope declared that he had "played the South Pacific while Lieut. John Kennedy was there, and he was a very gay, carefree young man. Of course, all he had to worry about then was the enemy."
As a social commentator, Hope dares more than anyone else in show business to throw a pie in the industry's face. As emcee at the Oscar award ceremonies one year, he observed that "this is the night when war and politics are forgotten,