As for Flynn, he began as a Clinton ally — during the 1992 presidential campaign, he gave the candidate political advice and briefed him on Northern Ireland. Clinton rewarded Flynn’s service by appointing him ambassador to the Vatican. But a rift between the two quickly emerged, as Flynn’s upcoming memoir recounts.

As ambassador, Flynn faced the task of mollifying the Vatican, which was already irked by Clinton’s signing of executive orders that facilitated American funding of abortions abroad. As the World Population Conference in Cairo approached in 1994, Pope John Paul II sent out word that he wanted to speak to the president about a draft statement being prepared for the meeting. (Diplomatic protocol mandated that this request be conveyed to Clinton through Flynn.)

After the White House rebuffed Flynn’s attempts to talk to Clinton for two days, Flynn flew to Washington to try to speak to the president in person. White House officials escorted Flynn to secretary Betty Currie’s area outside the Oval Office to wait for the president. There Flynn sat, nibbling on M&Ms from a bowl in the office, for two days — leaving only late at night to return to his hotel room. During his sit-in, Flynn spotted Polish leader Lech Walesa, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman John Shalikashvili, and Hillary Clinton, who greeted him warmly. The first lady checked in with Flynn several times during his wait and finally marched into the Oval Office to force the president to see him. Ultimately, Flynn persuaded Clinton to call the pope. But the damage was done.

“There was a certain arrogance there on the part of the White House staff,” Flynn says. “My relationship with the staff deteriorated.” The one exception was the first lady. “I was more impressed with Hillary Clinton than I was with the president or anyone else in the administration,” he says. “Of course, I’ m strongly pro-life and she is not, but I thought in terms of the issues of poor working families, she was very compelling.”

Flynn’s admiration for Hillary Clinton makes sense. Of all the figures in today’s Democratic Party, she is the one who most prominently advocates on behalf of the needy — an issue of the deepest importance to Flynn. But on issues such as abortion, free trade, and health care, Flynn believes that the Democratic Party has abandoned him — and those he once represented. “I was always the strongest advocate for providing affordable housing to working families and for poor people,” he says. “The Democratic Party has done nothing in that regard.” Pressed on the issue, Flynn says he is still a Democrat. But later he says, “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party left me. I’m a Democrat. I grew up in the period of time when [if] somebody was in trouble or somebody needed help, they picked up the phone and called their state representative.”

Just like Moore, who subscribes to a Cold War mentality that has faded from the Baby Boomer White House, Flynn sees himself as a man from a vanished world: the ethnic machine politics that have diminished as families have assimilated and moved to the suburbs. Flynn grew up smelling the grilling kielbasa in the Polish section of South Boston. He and Moore, who with his white hair and blue eyes can be mistaken for Irish when he dons a kelly-green sweater, see a semblance of this world when they go to book signings at pubs such as the Corrib in West Roxbury and the Eire in Dorchester. But this is only a shadow. Meanwhile, the old fuddy-duddies populating the nascent Bush administration — Donald Rumsfeld, for example — are part of the Ford-era defeatism that people like Moore associate with America’s humiliation at the fall of Saigon.

Today, an aging Moore stays in his Concord home, gathering the memoirs of old Special Forces soldiers who mail him their manuscripts and tinkering with new projects, such as the film script for The Accidental Pope. And Flynn is finding more new friends. Just last week at a meeting in Washington, Bush adviser Karl Rove singled Flynn out for praise as a man of “extraordinary integrity.” Flynn acknowledges that his stands on the issues — particularly abortion — have made him unpopular in many liberal circles. But with Moore, he doesn’t have to worry about that. As for Moore, who has spent so much of his life trekking through dangerous territory, Flynn offers a new glimpse of life outside Concord — of the grit with which he sought so avidly to surround himself in his younger days. Says Flynn: “Robin was enamored by the lack of political correctness that I have. He thought I’d gone my own way.”

Seth Gitell can be reached at sgitell[a]phx.com.