| Preserve and Protect | |
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1st edition cover |
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| Author(s) | Allen Drury |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Political novel |
| Publisher | Doubleday |
| Publication date | 1968 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover & Paperback) |
| Preceded by | Capable of Honor |
| Followed by | Come Nineveh, Come Tyre The Promise of Joy |
Preserve and Protect is a 1968 political novel written by Allen Drury. It is the third sequel to Advise and Consent, for which Drury was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1960,[1] and is followed by two alternate sequels of its own, Come Nineveh, Come Tyre (1973) and The Promise of Joy (1975).
Contents |
After winning his party's nomination in Capable of Honor, newly-elected U.S. President Harley Hudson dies in a suspicious plane crash. William Abbott, the Speaker of the House, is reluctantly elevated to the Presidency. The Majority Party immediately convenes its National Committee, torn between the supporters of California Governor Ted Jason and those of Secretary of State and former Illinois Senator Orrin Knox.
Eventually Knox defeats Jason, but names Jason as his vice presidential nominee. At the conclusion of the novel, a gunman appears and opens fire on the two candidates and their wives.
The cliffhanger ending of Preserve and Protect allowed Drury to offer two concurrent and conflicting sequels: one in which Knox dies and Jason goes on to become president, and the other with the opposite result.
1973's Come Nineveh, Come Tyre finds Presidential candidate Orrin Knox and Vice Presidential nominee Ted Jason's wife Ceil as the victims, and Jason is elected to the presidency. The Russians and Chinese immediately take advantage of the weak Jason, and are able to achieve dominance over the United States by the end.
In 1975's The Promise of Joy, Vice Presidential nominee Ted Jason and Beth Knox are the two killed, and Orrin Knox is elected as President. Deterred by Knox's inflexible will, the Russians and Chinese begin a war with each other. Knox advises the nation that the United States will intervene in the Sino-Soviet conflict, but does not specify how or on which side, and the situation does not resolve itself before the end of the novel.
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