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Full Description
An insightful, often humorous look at how Washington works, or doesn't
The title "Bit Player" perfectly reflects Stephen Hess's long and distinguished career as a Washington insider. As a 25-year-old, recently discharged Army private in 1958, he suddenly found himself as part of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's speechwriting team that ultimately helped draft the famed "Farewell Address" warning of the influence of the "military industrial complex." Then over the next two decades, Hess played bit roles aiding Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan—along the way observing up-close those presidents and many other senior political leaders. During his subsequent four-and-a-half decades at the Brookings Institution, Hess was well-positioned to monitor and comment on the achievements and failures of successive administrations.
This memoir by a certified member of Washington's old-guard establishment is rich with insight into contemporary American democracy, poignant in its reflections of avoidable missteps by even the best and most experienced leaders, and consistently good-humored in the author's self-awareness of his own role behind the scenes of political power.
Now in his mid-eighties, still involved at Brookings as a "senior fellow emeritus," Hess uses this memoir to look back at what he describes as concentric circles of research, travel, advising, writing, and teaching. But more than just a memoir, Bit Player offers deeply informed commentary on the major political actors and seminal events in the nation's capital over the past six decades.
One of the foremost authorities on media and government in the United States, Stephen Hess is a senior fellow emeritus in Governance Studies at The Brookings Institution. He first joined Brookings in 1972 and was distinguished research professor of media and public affairs at the George Washington University (2004-2009). Hess served on White House staff during the Eisenhower and Nixon presidencies and as advisor to Presidents Ford and Carter.
Contents
Contents:
Foreword
Preface
Eisenhower
First Words
Getting There
First Politics, 1952
Enter Professor Moos
Drafted
The Eisenhower White House, 1958-61
The Staff
The 1960 Election
Speeches
Remembering Ike
Nixon
Interregnum, 1961
The Harlow Miracle
Working for Richard Nixon
California, 1962
November 22, 1963
A Bookmaker
Lincoln Week, 1966
Harvard, 1967-68
Miami Beach, 1968
The 1968 Campaign and Spiro T. Agnew
Deputy Assistant to the President for Urban Affairs
To HEW
The White House Conference on Children
A White House Conference on Youth
What Next?
Leave-Taking, 1972
Brookings
Settling In
Governmental Studies
Things to Do
Watergate
Talk
The Presidency Book
Newswork
Transitions
Beth's List: A Summing Up
September 11, 2001
Des Moines, Iowa, 1976
Kansas City, 1976
United Nations, 1974 and 1976
Make-A-Wish Foundation
Campaign Etiquette
Political Cartoons
The Notorious RBG
Hyman Rickover, "Father of the Nuclear Navy," 1954
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, 1977
Richard Avedon, 1990
Oliver Stone, 1994
Former British Prime Minister John Major, 2009
Circles within Circles
Afterword
Thanks
Index
