A Time to Die.

WICKER, Tom.

Item Number: 128009

New York: Quadrangle/The New York Times Book Co., 1978.

First edition of the New York Times reporter’s award-winning account of the Attica Prison Revolt. Octavo, original half cloth, cartographic endpapers, illustrated. Association copy, inscribed by the author on the half-title page, “To Bill Safire – from his liberal, elitist, do-gooder firend – Tom Wicker.” The recipient, William Safire was an important American author, columnist, journalist, and presidential speechwriter. He joined Nixon’s campaign for the 1960 Presidential race, and again in 1968. After Nixon’s 1968 victory, Safire served as a speechwriter for him and Spiro Agnew. He authored several political columns in addition to his weekly column “On Language” in The New York Times Magazine from 1979 until the month of his death and authored two books on grammar and linguistics: The New Language of Politics (1968) and what Zimmer called Safire’s “magnum opus,” Safire’s Political Dictionary. Safire later served as a member of the Pulitzer Prize Board from 1995 to 2004 and in 2006 was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush. Fine in a near fine dust jacket. Jacket design by Milton Glaser.

In 1971, the inmates of Attica revolted, took hostages, and forced the authorities into four days of desperate negotiation. The rebels demanded -- and were granted -- the presence of a group of observers to act as unofficial mediators. Tom Wicker, then the Associate Editor of the New York Times, was one of those summoned. This is his account. It received an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best Fact Crime book.