Talking Back: ...to Presidents, Dictators, and Assorted Scoundrels

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1: Copyboy
I'm not sure how I got to be so pushy. In the beginning, and even now, I wanted to emulate Miss Virginia Clair and be a lady and an ace reporter at the same time. It's a balancing act I'm still sorting out after nearly four decades in the business.

Chapter 1: Part 2
Soon I had my own program, an hour of chamber music airing every Tuesday night at eight. Pretentiously, I called it 'Musica da Camera.' The theme was the third movement of Respighi's Ancient Airs and Dances for the Lute.

Chapter 1: Part 3
Only two months later, on June 5, I was home watching the returns from the Democratic primary election in California when Bobby Kennedy was shot. In what seemed like an instant replay of the shock and horror of the King assassination

A frank, highly engaging, behind-the-scenes memoir by one of today's top journalists.

Andrea Mitchell started her pathbreaking career as the quintessential girl reporter and quickly became one of the first women in broadcast news. She's been labeled a "pushy broad," yet her intelligence, tenacity, and ability to always be "where the action is" have catapulted her to the top of her profession. As one of America's most watched correspondents, Mitchell has regularly shared her observations with millions of television viewers for more than three decades.

Time and again, Mitchell has proven herself by taking on the tough assignments - starting with her first posting abroad in Guyana after the previous NBC correspondent had been murdered by Jim Jones's henchmen. She has had unique access to all the presidents and their staffs from Jimmy Carter to George W. Bush, and here gives us her unvarnished insights into these men and those who surround them. Whether it was revealing that Ronald Reagan's napping caused the delay of a space shuttle landing, conducting exclusive interviews with Fidel Castro, or accompanying Condoleezza Rice on her first trip abroad as secretary of state, she is known as the one to beat to the story.

But what sets this book apart is not only the unique front-row seat Mitchell has in the political world, but also the role she plays in the glamorous social scene in Washington. Her marriage to Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, has created professional challenges, but also given her special entrée to the "A" list drawing rooms of Washington and other capitals. Here she gives us glimpses of what it's like to go from a 7 p.m. newscast to an 8 p.m. black-tie party, to go from being the reporter staking out a state dinner to being one of the invited guests.

Smart and candidly written, Mitchell's memoir will be a must read for anyone interested in politics and current affairs and will also fascinate anyone who wonders what it's like to be a powerful woman in a man's world.

Andrea Mitchell has been chief foreign correspondent for NBC since 1994, reporting for broadcasts such as NBC Nightly News, Today, and Meet the Press. Previously she was NBC's chief White House correspondent and has reported on presidential politics since 1972..

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