Works by
Jules Witcover
(Writer)

Fiction

• The Main Chance (1979)
  The most aggressive team of syndicated columnists in the newspaper business are at the top of their world: Mike Webb, the professor's pro, but somehow still unfulfilled at the middle age; Tom Sturdivant, the young and aristocratic climber with the connections to match Webb's experience; Nora Williams, their ambitious, eye-catching, "legman," who inconspicuously shared their labors, and their lives, but not their prestige.
  
  Two years earlier, in the politically sensitive era of post-Watergate morality, the roguish extrovert Edwin Hacker is going to attempt a comeback, using his own special blend of demagoguery and charm to convince the voters that he was driven unjustly from the White House by the hated press - and particularly by the Webb-Sturdivant column. This time, he vows, the people will not have their vote usurped by the Fourth Estate.
  
  Hacker's second drive for the presidency dramatically alters all their lives. In Washington, and then in New Hampshire, in the first primary campaign of the presidential-election year, al the characters in Jules Witcovoer's brilliant first novel converge - candidate and flack, big-time media star and desperate campaign widow - and none of them is the same for it thereafter. One powerful, ambitious public figure is pitted against the power of the press and the equally ambitious men and women who wield it. An din the course of the struggle, nothing and no one escapes unscathed - not truth, or justice, or friendship, or love. All those who make this high-stakes world their business use and abuse national politics to achieve success - to seize the main chance as circumstance and maneuver bring it within them, the main chance comes when and where they least expect it.

Non-fiction

• 85 Days: The Last Campaign of Robert Kennedy (1969)

• The Resurrection of Richard Nixon (1970)

• White Knight: The rise of Spiro Agnew (1972)

• Marathon: Pursuit of the Presidency -- 1972-1976 (1977)

• Sabotage at Black Tom: Imperial Germany's Secret in America, 1914-1917 (1989)

• Crapshoot: Rolling the Dice on the Vice Presidency (1991)

• The Year the Dream Died: Revisiting 1968 in America (1997)

• No Way to Pick A President (1999)
  Jules Witcover, who has covered every presidential election since 1952, here combines unparalleled anecdotal knowledge about Presidential politics with scintillating wisdom about just what's wrong with those politics. He shows us, in memorable and dramatic detail, how over the years an influx of professional mercenaries-with no party loyalties and virtually no political principles-has corrupted American public life and formed a new technocracy that dominates every phase of electoral politics. Along with this, television has changed politics dramatically, even destructively, which only discourages voter participation and puts off some of our most promising candidates. In this lively, story-filled book, Witcover examines the many ways in which politicians have condoned or encouraged these developments, and how they have responded to the new demands of a media-driven, money-conscious age. He assesses the effect of campaign funds both "soft" and "hard," and of a press corps that practices invasive, "gotcha" journalism in its own quest for greater celebrity and financial reward. He concludes with sage and experienced recommendations on how to improve our Presidential politics-beginning even this year!-and revive public interest and confidence in American democracy.

• Party of the People: A History of the Democrats (2003)
  After more than two centuries of sometimes stormy, always intriguing history, the Democratic Party of the United States survives as the oldest political organization in the world. In Party of the People, veteran political chronicler Jules Witcover traces the Democratic Party’s evolution, from its roots in the agrarian, individualistic concepts of Thomas Jefferson to its emergence as today’s progressive party of social change and economic justice. Witcover describes the Democrats' dramatic struggle to define themselves and shares with us half a century of personal observation of the party through its most turbulent times.
  
  First called, oddly enough, the Republican Party but later known as the Democratic-Republican Party and eventually the Democratic Party, this creature of Jefferson and James Madison evolved from an early ideological and personal struggle with the commerce-minded Alexander Hamilton. Seasoned by the populism of Andrew Jackson, the party was nearly undone by the “peculiar institution” of slavery in the South, which led to the birth of the rival Republican Party and to the Civil War. Half a century later, America emerged from World War I under Democrat Woodrow Wilson as a reluctant international player, and from World War II under Franklin Roosevelt as a liberal bastion and global superpower.
  
  In the civil rights revolution, the party shed much of its racist past, but subsequent white middle-class resentments and the divisive Vietnam War opened the door to a rival conservatism that effectively demonized Democratic liberalism. Defensively, the party under Bill Clinton sought safer centrist ground and seemed on the brink of establishing a “third way," until the disastrous 2000 electoral college defeat of Al Gore left the Democrats shaken and splintered. As the new century emerges, they are debating whether to return to their liberal roots, setting themselves clearly apart from the Republicans, or press on with the centrist pursuit of a broader, less liberal constituency.
  
  In Party of the People (a perfect companion to Grand Old Party by Lewis L. Gould, a history of the Republicans published simultaneously by Random House), Jules Witcover offers a rich and comprehensive popular history of the ideas, struggles, and key figures that have defined the Democratic Party over the past two hundred years and are now

• The Making of an Ink-Stained Wretch (2005)
  In The Making of an Ink-Stained Wretch, this venerated reporter reveals anecdotes from 56 years in journalism, 52 of them in Washington, D.C., and on the campaign trail, tracing his journey from small-town reporter to nationally syndicated columnist and author. In the process, he moved from the confines of straight reporting to analysis, emerging today as a sharp critic of presidents in both parties.
  
  Witcover, as one of the original "boys on the bus," provides a personal perspective on the life of a political writer on the road. He testifies to the often-fickle relationship between the press and the candidates, gives readers more than a glimpse of what goes on behind the scenes, and writes of critical public events from close range. He was only steps away from Robert Kennedy the night of the candidate's assassination and was at Gerald Ford's side in California when another assassination attempt was foiled. He watched from the South Lawn of the White House as Richard Nixon departed Washington after resigning the presidency. He traveled with the campaign of gubernatorial and then presidential candidate Ronald Reagan and a few years ago rode the "Straight Talk Express" with John McCain.
  
  With wit and candor, Witcover captures the grit, glamour, joy, and excitement of newspaper reporting. He presents an insider's view on the changing role and style of reporters, commentators, and other shapers of opinion in today's contentious political climate.

• Very Strange Bedfellows: The Short and Unhappy Marriage of Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew (2007 release)