The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington by Robert D. Novak

From Barnes & Noble

In the half century in Washington, conservative political journalist Robert D. Novak has often been a newsmaker as well as a news commentator. During the LBJ and Nixon administrations, his columns were closely read for their insider's information on Vietnam and Watergate. In more recent years, he has been embroiled in debates over the Valerie Plame leak scandal and his own abrupt dismissal from CNN. In The Prince of Darkness, this controversial pundit bares his soul and his secrets about life on that side of the Potomac.

From the Publisher

Long before Robert Novak became the center of a political firestorm in the Valerie Plame CIA leak scandal, he had established himself as one of the finest—and most controversial—political reporters in America. Now, in this sweeping, monumental memoir, Novak offers the first full account of his involvement in that affair, while also revealing the fascinating story of his remarkable life and career. This is a singular journey through a half century of stories, scandals, and personal encounters with Washington’s most powerful and colorful people.

Novak has been a Washington insider since the days when the place was a sleepy southern town and journalism was built on shoe leather and the ability to cultivate and keep sources (not to mention the ability to hold one’s liquor). He has covered every president since Truman, known (personally and professionally) virtually all the big movers and shakers in D.C., and broken a number of the biggest stories—the Plame story, we see here, being far from the most important. In this book, he puts it all into perspective. He also reveals the extraordinary transformations that have fundamentally remade Washington, politics, and journalism—and his own role in those transformations.

Moving beyond the “first draft of history” that is daily journalism, Novak can at last tell the stories behind the stories. He vividly recalls encounters with the Kennedys (angry meetings with Bobby, a scary ride home in Jack’s convertible), his unusual relationship with Lyndon Johnson (who hosted Novak’s wedding reception and who, “drunk as a loon,” had to be carried out of a bar by theyoung newsman), a decidedly odd off-the-record lunch with Ronald Reagan, and his first meetings with George W. Bush—at which the veteran journalist seriously underestimated the future president. We meet other fascinating characters as well, from Deng Xiaoping to Ted Turner to Ezra Pound.

Writing with bracing candor, Novak tells us how politics and journalism truly operate at the highest levels, both publicly and behind closed doors. He is equally open about his private experience. He writes frankly about the days when his drinking reflected too closely the boozy ways of the town. He acknowledges times when his job took precedence over his family. He is reflective about his political journey to the right. And he writes more personally than ever before about his spiritual journey, from his early life as a secular Jew to his conversion to Catholicism at the age of sixty-seven.

Packed with riveting, never-before-told stories, The Prince of Darkness is a hugely entertaining and equally perceptive view of fifty years in the life of Washington and the people who cover it.

The New York Times - Jack Shafer

Journalism is the first rough draft of history, Philip Graham, the publisher of The Washington Post, once said. Many Novak columns—including the Plame piece—are first rough drafts of journalism; they require further assembly by readers. While other writers concentrate on the arteries of power, Novak has made a specialty of the capillaries. Still, his book is an enlightening field guide to the politicians and journalists who inhabit those micro places.

Publishers Weekly

The barbs start flying on page one (Bush critic Joseph Wilson: "What an asshole!") and continue to nearly the end (CNN correspondent Ed Henry: "duplicitous phony") of this thick memoir by the conservative journalist and pundit. Novak recounts his journey from Associated Press cub reporter through longtime "Evans and Novak" columnist scooping up Beltway political dirt to ubiquitous talk-show talking head. Along the way he drinks and gambles, battles liberal media bias, wrangles contracts with cable channels, settles scores with critics (more-hawkish-than-thou pundit David Frum is "a cheat and a liar"), defends his outing of Valerie Plame and tosses in many old columns, which read like a seismograph tracing of political microtremors (Melvin Laird to be Nixon's defense secretary!). More tantalizing are the glimpses of his relations with official sources, who know they won't be attacked in print as long as they give good tips. Novak's insider perspective, vitriolic pen and damn-the-torpedoes frankness make it a lively and eye-opening account of big-foot journalism. (July)

Kirkus Reviews

The controversial conservative columnist bares all-or some, at any rate-to stake a claim for fame beyond naming Valerie Plame. To trust Novak, long ago nicknamed "the prince of darkness," he named Joe Wilson's CIA-agent wife as a sort of afterthought in the wake of a conversation with Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. Why, Novak asks, would the CIA send Wilson, with no intelligence experience, off to check on whether Saddam Hussein was buying yellow cake uranium in Niger? Because his wife is in the agency, Armitage replies: And the rest, apart from a quick check of Who's Who, is history. "I have written many, many more important columns," Novak laments, "but the one on the CIA leak case will forever be part of my public identity." As if by way of rebuttal, Novak's memoir offers a rich self-assessment of his work. Regardless of what one thinks of his politics, which can charitably be branded as somewhere between paleoconservative and reactionary, Novak's abilities as a writer of vigorous, highly readable prose are not to be dismissed. And admirably for a journalist these days, Novak takes pride in his legendary scrappiness: "I am not a person who is easy for a lot of people to like," he writes. "No stirrer-up of strife is ever very popular." When he is not recounting his stinging disagreements with every administration since Ike's-his longtime partner Rowland Evans made Nixon's enemies list, but Novak, unaccountably, did not-Novak details the boozy world of Washington politics, writing, for instance, that Daniel Patrick Moynihan "was most qualified to be president and did not make it," thanks in good measure to an over-fondness for the sauce. Moreover, he tallies up his legendaryfeuds with just about everyone who is anyone-revealing, along the way, that political operatives such as Carville and Atwater can be as vicious to their own kind as to their enemies. Sure to be popular reading inside the Beltway, and worthy of an audience far beyond it as well. Agent: Esther Newberg/International Creative Management, Inc.

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Table of Contents