“Jane Alexander probably could have been less of a diplomat with legislators, and more of an advocate for the avant-garde and the high arts. With hindsight, she had nothing to lose by a more forthright stand since, for all of her charm, graciousness, and tact, she failed to save the agency from become a limping animal, disabled by the Congressional axe. But Command Performance is possibly more interesting as a personal bildungsroman than as a history of a crippled government agency – a tale of what befalls a liberal American idealist at the close of the twentieth century.” – The New Republic