'What is Missing in Society is What was Missing in Me'

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Lee Atwater's age when he died from a brain tumor in 1991. Atwater, a Republican political consultant, was the mastermind behind George H.W. Bush's 1988 presidential campaign ads -- or more properly, the Willie Horton and Tank ads attacking Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis.

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Years after the 1988 campaign ended, Atwater apologized in a "Life" magazine article for what he had done to Dukakis and other Democratic "enemies." Much of Atwater's article is quoted by Dorothy Wickenden in the New Yorker's Talk of the Town this week.

"Long before I was struck with cancer, I felt something stirring in American society. ... It was a sense among the people of the country -- Republicans and Democrats alike -- that something was missing from their lives, something crucial. I was trying to position the Republican Party to take advantage of it. But I wasn't exactly sure what 'it' was. My illness helped me to see what is missing in society is what was missing in me: a little heart, a lot of grandiosity. ... I don't know who will lead us through the '90s, but they must be made to speak to this spiritual vacuum at the heart of American society, this tumor of the soul."