AFTER four decades of Alan Greenspan’s nimble maneuvers, it seemed no accident that his long-awaited memoir’s publication (“The Age of Turbulence”) coincided with global financial turmoil. Instead of examining his frequently suspect management of monetary affairs during 18 years as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, the political and financial worlds last week focused on Greenspan’s self-portrait as a “conservative libertarian” who deplores Republican leaders and their policies.

Greenspan knows that the surest route to praise in Washington is for a purported man of the right to be seen embracing the left. Although appointed by GOP presidents to four of his five terms heading the nation’s central bank, Greenspan in his memoir is markedly more negative about those political benefactors than reviewers have suggested. Only Gerald Ford gets passing grades.

But the “Maestro” sounds false notes in a book probably revealing more than intended. Instead of a detached policymaker, Greenspan comes over as engaged in political games.

I have had enough contact with Greenspan to know the central banker in private is a political junkie, but I had no idea how deeply he was involved with the one Democratic president who appointed him: Bill Clinton.

One veteran Greenspan-watcher, going first to the book’s picture section, was surprised that he had selected a photo of himself – between Hillary Clinton and Tipper Gore – in the place of honor for President Clinton’s first State of the Union address. Federal Reserve colleagues viewed taking that seat as undermining the central bank’s cherished independence.

The Fed chairman was quite concerned at the time about being seen as the president’s pawn. When my column then suggested his presence in the presidential box played into Clinton’s designs, he called me (for the last time) to complain.

In “The Age of Turbulence,” Greenspan buys into the discredited depiction of Ronald Reagan (who first named Greenspan to the Fed) as an amiable dunce and does not conceal contempt for both Bushes (each of whom re-nominated him). Even more surprising is his adoration of Clinton. While scathing in attacking increased spending by George W. Bush, he ignores massive non-defense spending hikes under Clinton and embraces the Democrat’s tax increase “as our best chance in 40 years to get stable long-term growth.”

Greenspan’s book ignores Reagan’s tax-cutting supply-side movement as if it never happened. Seeing no inherent benefits from a lower tax burden, he accepts the Democratic deficit-reduction formula that a dollar of higher taxes is equivalent to one of reduced spending.

Though Greenspan’s memoir makes him a virtual Clinton administration member, he describes himself as a reluctant public servant – which runs counter to my firsthand observations. He writes that he turned down a job in the Nixon administration but in fact was rejected by the new president’s staff because of his 1968 campaign performance. (Temporarily exiled to political Siberia, a distraught Greenspan was reduced to scheduling breakfast with me on his visits to Washington.)

His book shows him reluctantly accepting Reagan’s appointment as Fed chairman in 1987, but in fact he aggressively promoted himself for the job.

“The Age of Turbulence” lacks the confessional candor of the best memoirs, but it tells enough to leave intriguing questions for a future biographer. Why did three Republican presidents name a Federal Reserve chairman fundamentally opposed to the GOP’s economic doctrine? Did Greenspan deceive them?