Book Description
"I'm still here, still arriving at the White
House in the wee hours of the morning, reading the papers and
checking the wire, still waiting for the morning briefing,
still sitting down to write the first story of the day and
still waiting to ask the tough questions."
From the woman who has reported on every president from
Kennedy to Clinton for United Press International: a unique
glimpse into the White House -- and a telling record of the
ever-changing relationship between the presidency and the
press.
From her earliest years, Helen Thomas wanted to be a
reporter. Raised in Depression-era Detroit, she worked her
way to Washington after college and, unlike other women
reporters who gave up their jobs to returning veterans,
parlayed her copy-aide job at the Washington Daily News
into a twelve-year stint as a radio news writer for UPI,
covering such beats as the Department of Justice and other
federal agencies.
Assigned to the White House press corps in 1961, Thomas
was the first woman to close a press conference with
"Thank you, Mr. President," and has covered every
administration since Kennedy's. Along the way, she was among
the pioneers who broke down barriers against women in the
national media, becoming the first female president of the
White House Correspondents Association, the first female
officer of the National Press Club and the first woman
member, later president, of the Gridiron Club.
In this revealing memoir, which includes hundreds of
anecdotes, insights, observations, and personal details,
Thomas looks back at a career spent with presidents at home
and abroad, on the ground and in the air. She evaluates the
enormous changes that Watergate brought, including diminished
press access to the Oval Office, and how they have affected
every president since Nixon. Providing a unique view of the
past four decades of presidential history, Front Row at
the White House offers a seasoned study of the
relationship between the chief executive officer and the
press -- a relationship that is sometimes uneasy, sometimes
playful, yet always integral to democracy.
"Soon enough there will be another president,
another first lady, another press secretary and a whole new
administration to discover. I'm looking forward to it --
although I'm sure whoever ends up in the Oval Office in a new
century may not be so thrilled about the prospect."
