James Baker III, 'the man who ran Washington,' topic of virtual book talk, Oct. 29

Wire Staff

October 11, 2020

National Press Club board member Del Wilber continues his virtual COVID Conversations series of book talks at 7 p.m. on Oct. 29, with Susan Glasser and Peter Baker, authors of the new biography, "The Man Who Ran Washington: The Life and Times of James A. Baker III."

To join the conversation, email Del Wilber at [email protected]. More information about how to log into the Zoom event will be provided closer to the day of the talk.

The book has been hailed by reviewers as a penetrating and essential guide to understanding how James Baker influenced policy and cut deals for Republican presidents. James Baker is considered among the most effective White House chiefs of staff to ever to hold the job. He also served as Treasury secretary and secretary of state.

The Washington Post declared the work will rank "among the very best books about American political life in the late 20th century."

The Wall Street Journal described it as "an illuminating biographical portrait of Mr. Baker, one that describes the arc of his career and, along the way, tells us something about how executive power is wielded in the nation’s capital." The book was published in May.

Susan Glasser, Peter Baker

Peter Baker is the chief White House correspondent at the New York Times and the author of a biography of George W. Bush, "Days of Fire." He is not related to James Baker.

Glasser is an award-winning writer at the New Yorker and a former editor of Politico. She spent a decade at the Washington Post, where she oversaw the Outlook section and national news.

(Baker and Glasser are a Washington power couple. How they co-wrote a book and stayed married will be a topic of discussion!)

The couple also spent time in the early 2000s in Moscow, as bureau chiefs for the Post. The also wrote a book about the recent history that informed their observations about life in Russia while posted there, "Kremlin Rising: Vladimir Putin's Russia and the End of Revolution." It was published in 2005.

Publisher Simon & Schuster said of this book: "With the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia launched itself on a fitful transition to Western-style democracy. But a decade later, Boris Yeltsin's handpicked successor, Vladimir Putin, a childhood hooligan turned KGB officer who rose from nowhere determined to restore the order of the Soviet past, resolved to bring an end to the revolution. 'Kremlin Rising' goes behind the scenes of contemporary Russia to reveal the culmination of Project Putin, the secret plot to reconsolidate power in the Kremlin."

Ronald Reagan, James Baker III in Marine One 1981