Slim introduced us as follows: "Kerry, this is Gary. Gary, this is Kerry." Then looking back and forth rapidly at both of us he said, "He doesn't like Kennedy either," laughing at his own joke.

"Yes," said Brother-in-law, "I think John F. Kennedy is a menace to the country and I think he ought to be assassinated."

We shook hands heartily.

"Oh goody! I was a catalyst!" Slim interjected.

We laughed, and I said, "At last, somebody in the French Quarter who isn't a Liberal!"

"Not only that," Brother-in-law retorted, "but I'm a Nazi and, actually, we won the war, Kerry. Did you know that?"

"Yeah, Slim told me you said the Marshall Plan proves it. That was beautiful."

"Yes, but that was only a joke. Kerry, have you ever heard of a company called I.G. Farben?"

Something in his voice scared me a little. That it may have been genuine bitterness beneath a National Socialist cover did not occur to me. But ever since arriving in New Orleans I had been putting up with nothing but Kennedy Catholics and Kennedy Democrats and Kennedy Liberals. It was refreshing to discover someone who hated J.F.K. as much as I did.

"It's a German company that Hitler put together during the Third Reich, Kerry."

As was to become my habit with Brother-in-law, I probably tried to change the subject at this point.

But Gary persisted. "In the political realm only did the Germans lose the war, Kerry. In the economic arena, they won."