People: Mar. 18, 1985

It all began five years ago, when Senators Gary Hart and William Cohen sat down over a cup of coffee. Spookily enough, it turned out that the Colorado Democrat and the Maine Republican had each hankered to write a spy novel. Both are experienced authors (Hart, 48, has written two books about politics; Cohen, 44, has two volumes of nonfiction and one of poetry), and they stuck to an outline jotted down on the back of an envelope at the outset. The result, to be published in May, is The Double Man, a Washington potboiler about a U.S. Senator on a trail of international intrigue. “It was a novel approach to bipartisanship,” cracks Cohen. If only the Government ran so smoothly.