Write it When I'm Gone
by Thomas M. DeFrank
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Book Summary Information
Author: Thomas M. DeFrankEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2007-10-30
ISBN: 0399154507
Number of pages: 272
Publisher: Putnam Adult
Book Reviews of Write it When I'm Gone
Book Review: Revealing & Touching Tribute to Our 38th President!
Summary: 4 Stars
Like many baby boomers,I was grateful Gerald R. Ford was there when the nation needed him. After the god-awful Watergate mess revealed a President at his worst, it was comforting to have Ford, a man widely liked and respected, assume the Presidency. Ford's reputation as an earnest, unpretentious and decent individual able to laugh at himself survived and even thrived in subsequent years when compared to those who followed him into the White House. That image is borne out in WRITE IT WHEN I'M GONE, Thomas DeFrank's touching memoir based on years of private interviews with Ford. DeFrank's book gives us a much deeper and illuminating portrait of both the man and the politician.
While Ford's take on the American political scene from the 1970s on made for interesting reading and confirms him as an astute analyst, I was much more taken with the insights on the man. Though he loved politics and was an ardent spokesman for the Republican Party, Ford's values and innate courtesy caused him to be circumspect in his public comments. Unlike today's slash-and-burn politicians, Ford viewed his Democratic colleagues as friendly adversaries worthy of respect. If he had critical or harsh views of others, he kept them largely to himself...that is until he talked with DeFrank.
Over the course of the book's 250 pages, I grew to like and admire Ford far more than I had in the past; the Nixon Pardon still rankles! DeFrank shows us a normal guy who loved to laugh and toss down a few with the boys; a genuine and genuinely kind man who never lost the common touch; a straightforward, old-fashioned ex-football jock appalled by the underhanded machinations of various politicos; a devoted family man who never cheated on his wife. Yet Ford has his moments of anger and pique as documented in the book. Likewise DeFrank doesn't shy away from some questionable aspects of Ford's life such as his merchandising of himself after he left the Presidency. After all is said and done though, you like Jerry Ford; reading of the decline of such a gregarious, active individual in the closing chapters is hard. He was a good man.
Though I enjoyed DeFrank's book, I thought it could have been more tightly edited. Various redundancies occurred throughout the book.
Whether you're a Jerry Ford fan or not, you'll want to read WRITE IT WHEN I'M GONE. It offers an unvarnished look at the unique life of a kind and decent man who gave America hope and stability during the worst of times. Historians will have the final say on Gerald R. Ford but, for me, I can only echo DeFrank's closing line: 'Thank You, Mr. President.'
Summary of Write it When I'm Gone
In an extraordinary series of private interviews, conducted over sixteen years with the stipulation that they not be released until after Ford's death, the thirty-eighth president of the United States reveals a profoundly different side of himself: funny, reflective, gossipy, strikingly candid-and the stuff of headlines.In 1974, award-winning journalist and author Thomas DeFrank, then a young correspondent for Newsweek, was interviewing Vice President Gerald R. Ford when Ford blurted out something astonishingly indiscreet related to the White House, came around his desk, grabbed DeFrank's tie, and told the reporter he could not leave the room until he promised not to publish it. "Write it when I'm dead," he said-and that agreement formed the basis for their relationship for the next thirty-two years.
During that time, they talked frequently, but from 1991 to shortly before Ford's death in 2006, the interviews became something else-conversations between two men in which Ford talked in a way few presidents ever have. Here is the real Ford on his relationship with Richard Nixon (including the 1974 revelation that, in DeFrank's words, "will alter what history thinks it knows about the events that culminated in Ford's becoming president"); Ford's experiences on the Warren Commission; his complex relationships with Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter; his startling, never-before-disclosed discussions with Bill Clinton during the latter's impeachment process; his opinions about both Bush administrations, the Iraq war, and many contemporary political figures; and much more. Here also are unguarded personal musings: about key cultural events; his own life, history, and passions; his beloved wife, Betty; and the frustrations of aging.
In all, it is an unprecedented book: illuminating, entertaining, surprising, heartwarming, and, in many ways, historic.
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