Advise and Consent is a 1959 political fiction novel by Allen Drury that explores the United States Senate confirmation of controversial Secretary of State nominee Robert Leffingwell, whose promotion is endangered due to growing evidence that the nominee had been a member of the Communist Party. The chief characters' responses to the evidence, and their efforts to spread or suppress it, form the basis of the novel. The novel spent 102 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1960 and was adapted into a successful 1962 film starring Henry Fonda. It was followed by Drury's A Shade of Difference in 1962, and four additional sequels. Background The novel's title comes from the United States Constitution's Article II, Sec. 2, cl. 2, which provides that the President of the United States "shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States . . . ." Drury believed most Americans were naive about the dangers of the Soviet-led communist threat to undermine the government of the United States: Advise and Consent is a fictional account of the nomination of a prominent liberal, Robert Leffingwell, to the cabinet position of Secretary of State during the height of the Cold War. It is said that the story is based on Drury's first-hand insight into the personalities and political practices of the late-1950s including the 1954 episode wherein Senators Styles Bridges and Herman Welker threatened to publicize a homosexual in Senator Lester Hunt's family if Hunt did not resign from the Senate. In fact, the website of the U.S. Senate states: Several sources agree that character Robert Leffingwell, the novel's nominee for Secretary of State, represents Alger Hiss. Addressing the suggestion that the book was a roman à clef, Drury wrote a very sharply worded preface which was only published in the new edition: Plot summary The U.S. President decides to replace his Secretary of State to promote rapprochement with the Soviet Union. Nominee Robert Leffingwell, a darling of liberals, is viewed by many conservative senators as an appeaser. Others, including the pivotal character of Senator Seabright (Seab) Cooley of South Carolina, have serious doubts about Leffingwell's character. The book tells the story of an up-and-down nomination process that most people fully