Stranger Among Friends

In the sixties, David Mixner became an activist in the civil rights and anti-war movements, then emerged in the seventies as an influential Washington insider. Unknown to his comrades, he was also a closet homosexual, so scared of exposure he let hardly anyone know his secret. With good reason: when he came out in 1977 he lost a lot of his political clout. Undeterred he marched on a new crusade--gay liberation. He returned to national prominence as a political activist when he led a hugely successful drive in the gay community to elect his long-time friend Bill Clinton. That relationship, which has been bittersweet through Clinton's presidency, is one of the fascinating sidelights in this memoir of a radical life.