Deadline: A Memoir

New York: Random House, 1991. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good/Good. xvii, [1], 525, [1] pages. Illustrations. Appendix. Index. Inscribed by author on title page. Inscription reads To Charles Season with kindest regards, from James Reston June 5, 1992. One of the most eagerly awaited and enthusiastically received memoirs of our time. From 1940, when he joined The New York Times, through his years as a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, editor, and celebrated columnist, James "Scotty" Reston has witnessed many of the great events of the 20th century. Now he tells the stories behind the stories. James Barrett Reston (November 3, 1909 - December 6, 1995), nicknamed "Scotty", was an American journalist whose career spanned the mid-1930s to the early 1990s. He was associated for many years with The New York Times. He joined the Associated Press in 1934. He moved to the London bureau of The New York Times in 1939. In 1942, he took leave to establish a U.S. Office of War Information in London. Rejoining the Times in 1945, Reston was assigned to Washington, D.C.. In 1948, he was appointed diplomatic correspondent,then bureau chief and columnist in 1953. Later, Reston served as associate editor of the Times from 1964 to 1968, executive editor from 1968 to 1969, and vice president from 1969 to 1974. He wrote a nationally syndicated column from 1974 until 1987, when he became a senior columnist. During the Nixon administration, he was on the master list of Nixon political opponents. Reston retired from the Times in 1989. Reston's books include Prelude to Victory, The Artillery of the Press, Sketches in the Sand, and a memoir, Deadline. An award-winning journalist offers an illuminating memoir that reveals the pivotal events of the twentieth century and of his own life, his role as a newspaperman, and the course of American journalism. Derived from a Publishers Weekly article: Although a self-described unreconstructed Scotch Calvinist, the 82-year-old Reston clearly has mellowed, by evidence of this captivating memoir. Perceptive, frank, uncommonly interesting, avuncular, he relates with seemingly total recall ``everything he saw'' during 50 years with the New York Times as correspondent, D.C. bureau chief, executive editor, columnist. We learn much from Reston's close readings of the characters of our era's major political figures: the 10 presidents he has covered, cabinet members, presidential advisers, legislators, international leaders. His shop talk of the Times, revealing of internal workings, analyzes coverage of various controversial events and profiles colleagues. The integrity of the Times , Reston writes, has been one of the ``dominant forces'' in his life.