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Book Summary and Reviews of Write it When I'm Gone by Thomas M. DeFrank

Write it When I'm Gone by Thomas M. DeFrank

Write it When I'm Gone

Remarkable Off-the-Record Conversations with Gerald Ford

by Thomas M. DeFrank

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  • Published:
  • Oct 2007, 256 pages
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Book Summary

In an extraordinary series of private interviews, conducted over 16 years with the stipulation that they not be released until after Gerald Ford's death, the 38th president of the United States reveals a profoundly different side of himself: funny, reflective, gossipy, strikingly candid, and the stuff of headlines.

In 1974, the award-winning journalist and author Thomas M. DeFrank, then a young correspondent for Newsweek, was interviewing Ford when the vice president 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 of their relationship for the next 32 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.

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This information about Write it When I'm Gone was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

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