To The White House

To the Editors:

I very much enjoyed the book review of The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House by Edward Klein written by Kwame Anthony Appiah [NYR, November 8], in which Appiah questions the truth of Klein’s assertion that Obama “never called the people who had brought him to the dance.” I was personally called by Klein during his research on this book and was asked to corroborate this claim. I told Klein that it was surely not true because I knew friends and neighbors who had supported Obama and were subsequently invited to the White House on a number of occasions. Not surprisingly, Klein seems not to have used his discussion with me in his writing. Kwame Anthony Appiah is quite correct in his doubt about this claim.

Arnold Goldberg, MD
Chicago, Illinois