Brinkley's Beat
People, Places, and Events That Shaped My Time
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3.3 • 3 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
From one of America’s most revered journalists–a richly entertaining roundup of the extraordinary individuals with whom he crossed paths in our nation’s capital and of the events that marked the twentieth century.
Here are firsthand profiles of Washington insiders that only an insider himself could have given us: Franklin D. Roosevelt counting out enough cigarettes to get through a half-hour debriefing with the press; May Craig, the first female reporter to penetrate Roosevelt’s inner sanctum, who never failed to remind the president that his wife was a newspaper writer, too; Theodore Bilbo, a Mississippi senator and race baiter who effectively became mayor of Washington at a time when it was a segregated provincial town; Jimmy Hoffa, the popular and ill-fated union leader; Lyndon Johnson, whom Brinkley describes as the most impressive and appalling figure he encountered; and Ronald Reagan, whom he found to be the most mysterious of the eleven presidents he covered. Here is also Brinkley’s account of President Kennedy’s assassination and a poignant remembrance of D-day.
David Brinkley was there and saw it all. In the “sour-lovable manner” (Mark Feeney, Boston Globe) of storytelling that he perfected, and in a narrative style that is both “hilarious and instructive” (George Will), Brinkley’s Beat gives us his vivid recollections and the intelligence, acuity, and clear-sightedness on which his unimpeachable reputation rested for more than half a century.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This volume serves as an appropriate remembrance of the acerbic longtime NBC News and, later, ABC, anchorman, who died in June. A journalist since 1938, Brinkley was an unusual figure in American life: a mainstay media personality whose defining trait was intelligence and good judgment. The subtitle serves as an exact description of the table of contents, as the book indeed does begin with personalities (Hoffa, Reagan), then recounts some of his travels (Hong Kong, Vienna) and closes with reflections on events like the Kennedy assassination. As befits memories of a Washington journalist, the "People" section focuses almost entirely on Washington political creatures, some of them obscure (e.g., Martin Dies, May Craig). The sketches are purposely brief, verging on perfunctory: Brinkley consciously keeps his remarks on the surface, so only some of the sketches have compelling insights to offer. The sketch of Bobby Kennedy, a friend of Brinkley's, is a notable exception, capturing the split nature of his truncated career. Brinkley's skill at handling tone is better displayed in the final two sections. His thoughts about the men who made sacrifices at Normandy in 1944 are very moving; writing about the Mediterranean, he is appropriately charmed and awestruck by its history. Brinkley wrote a somewhat similar volume in 1995, although his tenor has softened considerably in the intervening years.
