August 1980
In This Issue
Explore the August 1980 print edition below. Or to discover more writing from the pages of The Atlantic, browse the full archive.
Articles
Picking the President
Is there a way—without returning to the era of the smoke-filled room—to make political conventions into true deliberative bodies?
‘I Thought My Last Hour Had Come...’
An eyewitness account of the atom bomb explosion at Hiroshima
Nicaragua: After the Revolution
The proud and victorious Sandinistas govern a ravaged country, and they look nervously over their shoulders for signs of counter-revolution.
The Wary Traveler: Moving Through America
Learning the Language, From a to M
“The average working vocabulary consists of 15,000 words,” says John Ciardi, and most of them have a story to tell. Mr. Ciardi’s A Browser’s Dictionary will be published this month.
Regards at Home
The Open Convention: A Kennedy Scenario
As primary season came to a close one last question remained: could 300 Carter delegates somehow come unstuck?
Lunch With Anthony Blunt
Another turn in the fantastic adventures of a charlatan who calls himself Count Bibesco, this one involving his days at Cambridge when his tutor, destined for subsequent notoriety, taught him how to come in from the cold.
To Dorothy on Her Exclusion From the Guinness Book of World Records
The List
Barn Swallow
Good-Bye to the Ink-Stained Wretch
As a profession, accounting is still a parvenu. But new recruits are being lured by power, increasing prestige, and whopping salaries.
Night Swim: (For Rachel)
Ward's Words of Wisdom for Husbands and Wives
Art Notes
Peking: Waiting to Be Westernized
In the capital city, a traveler can sense the yearning of the Chinese for the urbanized, technological life that inevitably awaits them.
The Dimming of Stanley Kubrick
The Zero-Sum Society
Aberration of Starlight
Livable Cities: A Grassroots Guide to Rebuilding Urban America
Puffball
Powers of the Weak
Soldiers of the Night
The Killing of Katie Steelstock
Richard Wright: Ordeal of a Native Son
Time of Desecration
The Cheese and the Worms
Great Harry
Pissarro: His Life and Work
Asylum Piece
Man in the Holocene
The Art of Vogue Covers: 1909-1940 by William Packer With an Introduction
The Atlantic Puzzler
