Biskind traces Fonda's evolution, from proletariat to New Deal liberal to corporate liberal (quintessential consensus builder) "forged in the crucible of the 1930s, tested under fire during WWII, purged of its Communistic tendencies in the late 1940s. … Defeated in his bid to become secretary of state in Advise and Consent, Fonda appeared in that position in The Best Man; rejected in that movie as a presidential nominee, he returned, in time for the 1964 election, as Fail Safe's agonized Doomsday leader. Fail Safe represented the culminating Kennedy scenario. Afterward, Fonda became a post-apocalyptic liberal. Thanks to his crazed, mixed-up kids, Jane and Peter, he wound up as personification of the yet-unnamed Generation gap."