To be press secretary for the American President is to be uniquely in the know about all that happens in the most important office on Earth, the White House. For six years -- longer than any of his predecessors save for Jim Haggerty, Eisenhower's secretary -- Larry Speakes occupied this hot seat for President Ronald Reagan. Now, in his aptly titled account, Speakes recounts the inside story of the Reagan presidency with candor and an uninhibited independence that make Speaking Out not only captivating and sometimes shocking but also essential reading for Americans who want to learn about the untold story of the Reagan administration.

Speakes, already a veteran press officer for Presidents Nixon and Ford and Senators Dole and Eastland, took over in 1981, the day chief spokesman Jim Brady was shot in the Hinckley assassination attempt on President Reagan. Now, he takes us behind the scenes to tell what really happened -- in the Reagan-Gorbachev summits, the hostage crisis, the Marcos ouster, the Lebanon embassy bombing, Reagan's cancer, the Achille Lauro incident, the Danilof affair, the Libyan bombing, the Challenger,/i>, the Iran-Contra affair.

Larry Speakes is a down-home Mississippian and has the Southerner's special gift for anecdote and an unerring shrewdness about people coupled with earthy humor. His uncensored assessments of media celebrities like George Will, Sam Donaldson, Chris Wallace, and Lesley Stahl, whom he met with day in and day out, will surprise readers. His freewheeling perceptions of the Reagan Presidency's cast of characters, from the President himself and the First Lady to Poindexter, North, McFarlane, Meese, et. al. will titillate, enrage, but, above all, inform.
 
 

Book details

• Format Hardcover
• Pages321 pages
• LanguageEnglish
• ISBN100684189291
• ISBN139780684189291