The Three-Martini Lunch

When Gerald Ford died the day after last Christmas, the eulogies failed to preserve the most memorable utterance of our longest-lived President: “The three-martini lunch is the epitome of American efficiency. Where else can you get an earful, a bellyful and a snootful at the same time?"

This bit of Presidential wisdom is recalled today by a New York Times account of four professional epicureans consuming 80 martinis in deconstructing the virtues of various brands of gin.

After Ford came le deluge, or more accurately, the drought. His successor Jimmy Carter denounced “the three-martini lunch” as a tax dodge for wealthy executives. Carter, perhaps our most priggish President, was not keen on nooners either, although he admitted to Playboy that he “sometimes lusted in my heart.”

Since then, martini lunches have given way to takeout salads and workouts at the gym, a plus for national health, but for hard-drinking journalists of the past, there are memories with a twist.

One noon at the Overseas Press Club, my soft-hearted managing editor and I, given the sad task of firing a colleague, decided to ease the pain over martinis. To delay the denouement, we kept inviting friends over to join us for a drink.

Five rounds later, we were on the street waving for taxis, arms around our unfired friend, a pathetic spectacle but somehow a warm memory of times when it was not easy to put aside human feelings for office efficiency.