None

From one of America's best-loved journalists—a richly entertaining roundup of the extraordinary individuals with whom he has crossed paths in our nation's capital and of events that marked the 20th century. Here are firsthand profiles of Washington insiders as only an insider himself could give us: Franklin D. Roosevelt counting out enough cigarettes to get through a half-hour debriefing with the press; May Craig, the first female reporter to penetrate the Roosevelt's inner sanctum; Theodore Bilbo, a Mississippi senator and race-baiter who effectively became mayor of Washington at a time when it was a segregated provincial town; Lyndon B. Johnson, whom Brinkley remembers as the most impressive and appalling figure he and appalling figure he encountered; and Ronald Reagan, who he found to be the most mysterious of the 11 presidents he covered. Brinkley also gives us an account of President Kennedy's assasination, and a poignant remembrance of D-Day. David Brinkley has been there and seen it all. Here in the "sour-lovable manner" (Mark Feeney, Boston Globe) of story-telling that he has perfected, and in a narrative both "hilarious and intstructive" (George Will, Washington Post), he shares his vivid recollections and the intelligence, acuity, and clear-sightedness on which his unimpeachable reputation rested for more than half a century.