The Center: People and Power in Political Washington.

ALSOP, Stewart.

$225.00

Item Number: 135146

New York, Evanston, and London: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1968.

First edition of American journalist Stewart Alsop’s vivid portrait of political Washington. Octavo, original cloth. Association copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, “Dear Helene – Bill tells me you even got through the Supreme Court… which is more than I could ever do Best, Stew Alsop.” The recipient, William Safire, was an important American author, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, journalist, and presidential speechwriter. He joined Nixon’s campaign in the 1960 Presidential race, and again in 1968. Following Nixon’s 1968 victory, Safire served as a presidential speechwriter for both Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew. He was a frequent guest on Meet The Press, describing himself as the voice of “libertarian conservatives” and authored several political columns, most notably his weekly column “On Language” which appeared in The New York Times Magazine from 1979 until the month of his death in 2009. He 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. Near fine in a near fine dust jacket.

This vivid portrait of political Washington is a distillation of Stewart Alsop's twenty years as a Washington columnist and top-flight political journalist. It is a revealing picture of the Washington inhabited by political reporters and the people they write about, at the center of political power in the United States and the Western world.