Reading John Dos Passos’s Tour of Duty, a fine work that has fallen off the map, I came across this description of Nazi mastermind Goering on trial at Nuremberg. Echoes of the theatrical madmen of today:

“Goering is very much the master of ceremonies. He looks around with appreciative interest a every detail of the courtroom. Sometimes his face wears the naughty-boy expression of a repentant drunkard. He is determined to be himself. He bows to an American lady he knows in the press seats. It’s a spoiled, genial, outgoing, shrewdly selfsatisfied kind of a face, an actor’s face.” Photo credit: Raymond D’Addario/Galerie Bilderwelt/Getty Images