FROM THE COMFORTS of growing up on New York's Upper West Side, to the terrors of bombing missions over Europe in World War II, to the cerebral duels of private law practice in Washington, D.C., "Incidents in a Life" recounts an extraordinary passage. This life has been unique in its range of experience, its heights of achievement and its very longevity. In these essays and anecdotes, Mark Pascal Schlefer remembers pinnacle events, some private and others of international impact. His defiance of the US Maritime Commission led to the Freedom of Information Act, a law that would be copied in every state and bring public scrutiny to governments in ninety-three foreign nations. Told vividly, with brevity and clarity, these recollections reveal many seminal moments and landmark movements of 20th-century America.