It Was Given on a Crown of Thorns

Few San Franciscans will forget the ashen face of Dianne Feinstein, 47, on the day she became acting mayor in November 1978. Just nine days earlier, the Guyana massacre had jolted the city, which had been the nurturing ground of Jim Jones' Peoples Temple. Now it was Feinstein's terrible duty to announce that Mayor George Moscone and Harvey Milk, a homosexual member of the board of supervisors, had been assassinated by a disgruntled former board member. As president of the board, Feinstein became acting mayor. "I found myself into the politics of assassination," she recalls. It was a "very repulsive" way...