Washington Merry-Go-Round

Washington Merry-Go-Round
Author: Drew Pearson
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 821
Release: 2015-09-15
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1612346936

For most of three decades, Drew Pearson was the most well-known journalist in the United States. In his daily newspaper column—the most widely syndicated in the nation—and on radio and television broadcasts, he chronicled the political and public policy news of the nation. At the same time, he worked his way into the inner circles of policy makers in the White House and Congress, lobbying for issues he believed would promote better government and world peace. Pearson, however, still found time to record his thoughts and observations in his personal diary. Published here for the first time, Washington Merry-Go-Round presents Pearson’s private impressions of life inside the Beltway from 1960 to 1969, revealing how he held the confidence of presidents—especially Lyndon B. Johnson—congressional leaders, media moguls, political insiders, and dozens of otherwise unknown sources of information. His direct interactions with the DC glitterati, including Bobby Kennedy and Douglas MacArthur, are featured throughout his diary, drawing the reader into the compelling political intrigues of 1960s Washington and providing the mysterious backstory on the famous and the notorious of the era.

Washington Merry-Go-Round

Washington Merry-Go-Round
Author: Drew Pearson
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 696
Release: 2015-09-15
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1612347428

For most of three decades, Drew Pearson was the most well-known journalist in the United States. In his daily newspaper column--the most widely syndicated in the nation--and on radio and television broadcasts, he chronicled the political and public policy news of the nation. At the same time, he worked his way into the inner circles of policy makers in the White House and Congress, lobbying for issues he believed would promote better government and world peace. Pearson, however, still found time to record his thoughts and observations in his personal diary. Published here for the first time, Washington Merry-Go-Round presents Pearson's private impressions of life inside the Beltway from 1960 to 1969, revealing how he held the confidence of presidents--especially Lyndon B. Johnson--congressional leaders, media moguls, political insiders, and dozens of otherwise unknown sources of information. His direct interactions with the DC glitterati, including Bobby Kennedy and Douglas MacArthur, are featured throughout his diary, drawing the reader into the compelling political intrigues of 1960s Washington and providing the mysterious backstory on the famous and the notorious of the era.

The Columnist

The Columnist
Author: Donald A. Ritchie
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2021
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0190067586

"In the Washington Merry-Go-Round, a nationally syndicated newspaper column that appeared in hundreds of papers from 1932 to 1969, as well as on weekly radio and television programs, the investigative journalist Drew Pearson revealed news that public officials tried to suppress. He disclosed policy disputes and political spats, exposed corruption, attacked bigotry, and promoted social justice. He pumped up some political careers and destroyed others. Presidents, prime ministers, and members of Congress repeatedly called him a liar, and he was sued for libel more often than any other journalist, but he won most of his cases by proving the accuracy of his charges. Pearson dismissed most official news as propaganda and devoted his column to reporting what officials were doing behind closed doors. He broke secrets-even in wartime-and revealed classified information. Fellow journalists credited him with knowing more dirt about more people in Washington than even the FBI and compared his efforts to Daniel Ellsberg with the Pentagon Papers or Edward Snowden with WikiLeaks, except that he did it daily. The Columnist examines how Pearson managed to uncover secrets so successfully and why government efforts to find his sources proved so unsuccessful. Drawing on a half century of archival evidence it assesses his contributions as a muckraker by verifying or refuting both his accusations and his accusers"--

Round and Round Together

Round and Round Together
Author: Amy Nathan
Publisher: Paul Dry Books
Total Pages: 260
Release:
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1589882822

"A snapshot of the civil-rights movement in one city provides insight into the important role of individual communities as change moved through the country…a case study of how citizens of one city both precipitated and responded to the whirlwind of social change around them."—Kirkus Reviews "A profoundly moving tribute to the intrepid unsung heroes who risked their lives to help bring an end to Baltimore's Jim Crow Era."—Kam Williams, syndicated columnist On August 28, 1963—the day of Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous "I Have a Dream" speech—segregation ended finally at Baltimore's Gwynn Oak Amusement Park, after nearly a decade of bitter protests. Eleven-month-old Sharon Langley was the first African American child to go on a ride there that day, taking a spin on the park's merry-go-round, which since 1981 has been located on the National Mall in front of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Round and Round Together weaves the story of the struggle to integrate that Baltimore amusement park into the story of the civil rights movement as a whole. Round and Round Together is illustrated with archival photos from newspapers and other sources, as well as personal photos from family albums of individuals interviewed for the book. There is a timeline of major Civil Rights events. "Amy Nathan's book deftly describes the courageous struggle by blacks and whites to end discrimination in the park, the city, and the nation. Readers will walk away with a clearer understanding of segregation and the valiant Americans who fought against this injustice."—Debra Newman Ham, Professor of History, Morgan State University "Round and Round Together tells the inspiring story of how a generation of college and high school students provided the energy and enthusiasm that ended racial segregation in Baltimore's Gwynn Oak Amusement Park and changed the direction of Maryland's history."—James Henretta, Professor Emeritus, University of Maryland "With clarity and passion, Amy Nathan portrays the struggle of everyday citizens to end racial segregation in Baltimore. This compelling history, for and about young people, is simple but profound like freedom itself."—Taylor Branch, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of the trilogy America in the King Years

The Cave Dwellers

The Cave Dwellers
Author: Christina McDowell
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2021-05-25
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1982179805

A compulsively readable novel in the vein of The Bonfire of the Vanities—by way of The Nest—about what Washington, DC’s high society members do away from the Capitol building and behind the closed doors of their suburban mansions. They are the families considered worthy of a listing in the exclusive Green Book—a discriminative diary created by the niece of Edith Roosevelt’s social secretary. Their aristocratic bloodlines are woven into the very fabric of Washington—generation after generation. Their old money and manner lurk through the cobblestone streets of Georgetown, Kalorama and Capitol Hill. They only socialize within their inner circle, turning a blind eye to those who come and go on the political merry-go-round. These parents and their children live life free of consequences in a gilded existence of power and privilege. But what they have failed to understand is that the world is changing. And when the family of one of their own is held hostage and brutally murdered, everything about their legacy is called into question. They’re called The Cave Dwellers.

Drew Pearson's Washington Merry-go-round

Drew Pearson's Washington Merry-go-round
Author: Drew Pearson
Publisher:
Total Pages: 28
Release: 1932
Genre: Statesmen
ISBN:

Typescripts of the syndicated Washington merry-go-round columns published 1932-1969, initially by Pearson and Robert S. Allen. These are the typescripts sent to Pearson's office by the syndicate when the columns were distributed to newspapers around the country.

Poisoning the Press

Poisoning the Press
Author: Mark Feldstein
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
Total Pages: 474
Release: 2010-09-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 142997897X

It is March 1972, and the Nixon White House wants Jack Anderson dead. The syndicated columnist Jack Anderson, the most famous and feared investigative reporter in the nation, has exposed yet another of the President's dirty secrets. Nixon's operatives are ordered to "stop Anderson at all costs"—permanently. Across the street from the White House, they huddle in a hotel basement to conspire. Should they try "Aspirin Roulette" and break into Anderson's home to plant a poisoned pill in one of his medicine bottles? Could they smear LSD on the journalist's steering wheel, so that he would absorb it through his skin, lose control of his car, and crash? Or stage a routine-looking mugging, making Anderson appear to be one more fatal victim of Washington's notorious street crime? Poisoning the Press: Richard Nixon, Jack Anderson, and the Rise of Washington's Scandal Culture recounts not only the disturbing story of an unprecedented White House conspiracy to assassinate a journalist, but also the larger tale of the bitter quarter-century battle between the postwar era's most embattled politician and its most reviled newsman. The struggle between Nixon and Anderson included bribery, blackmail, forgery, spying, and burglary as well as the White House murder plot. Their vendetta symbolized and accelerated the growing conflict between the government and the press, a clash that would long outlive both men. Mark Feldstein traces the arc of this confrontation between a vindictive president and a flamboyant, crusading muckraker who rifled through garbage and swiped classified papers in pursuit of his prey—stoking the paranoia in Nixon that would ultimately lead to his ruin. The White House plot to poison Anderson, Feldstein argues, is a metaphor for the poisoned political atmosphere that would follow, and the toxic sensationalism that contaminates contemporary media discourse. Melding history and biography, Poisoning the Press unearths significant new information from more than two hundred interviews and thousands of declassified documents and tapes. This is a chronicle of political intrigue and the true price of power for politicians and journalists alike. The result—Washington's modern scandal culture—was Richard Nixon's ultimate revenge.

The Marriage-Go-Round

The Marriage-Go-Round
Author: Andrew J. Cherlin
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2010-12-08
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 0307773515

Andrew J. Cherlin's three decades of study have shown him that marriage in America is a social and political battlefield in a way that it isn’t in other developed countries. Americans marry and divorce more often and have more live-in partners than Europeans, and gay Americans have more interest in legalizing same-sex marriage. The difference comes from Americans’ embrace of two contradictory cultural ideals: marriage, a formal commitment to share one's life with another; and individualism, which emphasizes personal choice and self-development. Religion and law in America reinforce both of these behavioral poles, fueling turmoil in our family life and heated debate in our public life. Cherlin’s incisive diagnosis is an important contribution to the debate and points the way to slowing down the partnership merry-go-round.