Letter to a New President or The Art of Political Murder

Letter to a New President: Commonsense Lessons for Our Next Leader

Author: Robert C Byrd

A legendary Senator advises our next President on the commonsense values necessary to lead our nation United States Senator Robert C. Byrd is the longest-serving member of the United States Senate in the history of our great Republic. Senator Byrd has served the people of West Virginia, and the nation, for fifty-four years, and has served alongside eleven Presidents. He was twice elected by his colleagues to the position of Senate Majority Leader and currently is chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee. Byrd has lived through two world wars, the Great Depression, the civil rights movement, the Cold War, the resignation of a U.S. President, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and traumatic military conflicts around the globe, including Iraq and Vietnam. Byrd has been a witness to it all. And now, in his ninetieth year of life, he wants to share the commonsense lessons he has learned from his unique vantage point in history.

In Letter to a New President, Byrd recounts lessons drawn from his remarkable life as a young boy growing up poor in the coalfields of southern West Virginia to his meteoric rise to the pinnacles of power in Washington, D.C. From his unique vantage point in history, Byrd focuses his observations on underappreciated and seldom discussed virtues like personal responsibility, careful consideration before making decisions, and a sense of decency and fairness even toward fierce opponents. A student of history and a defender of our Constitution, Byrd looks to the past for lessons and, in Letter to a New President, studies present failures as guides for constructive lessons for the future.

This book will help the next President grapple with the heavy demands of the office. Every American who cares about where this country is heading will find rich wisdom in Byrd's sage advice. Enlightened by a wide-ranging knowledge of American history and a love for the guiding principles of the Constitution, Byrd's observations sharpen the focus of the historical moment in which we find ourselves, as no one but Senator Byrd can.

Publishers Weekly

In this book-length letter to the next president, Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) draws on his 56 years of experience in Congress to offer advice, admonition and encouragement. With frequent references to past presidents, especially his personal favorite, Harry Truman, Byrd claims that his passion for the Constitution is only rivaled by his love for his wife. He presents a readable, if slight, survey of past presidencies and a scathing evaluation of the "greatest crisis" in the nation's history brought about by the "failings" of the Bush administration: the buildup to the war in Iraq and the president's bungled handling of Hurricane Katrina's aftermath. Chapter headings such as "Bring Back the Fireside Chat" and scads of references to Emerson, Jefferson and Thoreau provide a rich philosophical context to Byrd's political thought, even as much of his advice feels familiar and anodyne: "Build Your Presidency Around Accountability." The book's detailed analysis of the great power and responsibility of the executive branch is timely, and prospective presidents and concerned citizens would be well-advised to read Byrd's book. (July)

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

What People Are Saying

"Senator Byrd draws on a lifetime of experience to offer a guiding hand to our country's next Commander in Chief. His unfailing faith in God and country provides an example of the best we should hope to find in our leaders as well as any of our fellow citizens."
---President Jimmy Carter

Table of Contents:

Dear New President     1
Bring Back the Fireside Chat     53
Teach the People About the Constitution     65
No Life Stands Outside of History     75
A Big Lie is Still a Lie: Tell the Truth     87
Build Your Presidency Around Accountability     97
Let the Press do Its Job, Even When that Might Sting     109
We Can do Better Than Photo-op Diplomacy     123
A New Approach to the Rest of the World: Influence     135
Less Partisan Warfare, More Real Debate     151
Don't Forget the Basics: Have the Patience
To Reflect     163
Notes     175
Index     179

Look this: Dignity and Daily Bread or Study Guide for Use with Financial Accounting

The Art of Political Murder: Who Killed the Bishop?

Author: Francisco Goldman

The Art of Political Murder is a riveting narrative reconstruction and investigation into one of present day Latin America's most controversial, bizarre, and historic criminal cases-the murder of Guatemala's great human rights leader, Bishop Juan Gerardi. Goldman's book exposed a cover-up of the crime, and helped change a small country's destiny as it emerged from decades of civil war. It is an unforgettable story of the heroism of young people who risked all to see justice triumph.

The Washington Post - Pamela Constable

The Guatemalan-born author employs a blend of literary prose and factual reportage to keep readers engrossed in a complex tale involving dozens of characters, a thicket of deception and constantly shifting versions of events. He zooms in like a detective on tiny forensic details, scrutinizing casual comments and wisps of evidence until they begin to make sense…The author also plays a crucial role in the book, weaving in and out of the drama as he tracks down nervous witnesses, plucks facts from webs of deception, reflects on the tragic history of his homeland and unforgettably evokes a world of subtle but omnipresent evil that Bishop Gerardi and his colleagues sought to chronicle as a warning to future generations. Above all, The Art of Political Murder is a passionate cry of outrage that should be read and passed on by anyone who believes, as Goldman proves here, that truth is always more improbable than fiction.

The New York Times - Carolyn Curiel

In The Art of Political Murder, his first book of nonfiction, Goldman returns to Guatemala to try to solve a real killing, that of Bishop Juan Gerardi Conedera, a Roman Catholic human rights advocate. Becoming by turns a little bit Columbo, Jason Bourne and Seymour Hersh, Goldman gives us the anatomy of a crime while opening a window to a misunderstood neighboring country that is flirting with anarchy. More, he offers an overdue indictment of brutal war criminals who were not just behind the one killing, but also contributed to a generation of atrocities…Goldman's intricate and insightful reporting of the crime and the trial recalls that of Gabriel Garcia Marquez in News of a Kidnapping…

Publishers Weekly

Novelist Goldman (The Divine Husband, etc.) pursues in his first nonfiction book the infamous murder of Bishop Juan Gerardi, the Guatemalan human rights leader murdered after the release of his multivolume report on the genocidal terror campaign led by the army in the 1980s and '90s, in which 200,000 people disappeared or were killed. The book, which began as a New Yorkerpiece, casts light into the darkest corners of this tortuous case, the U.S.-supported war in Central America and the continuing legacy of violence and corruption. The large cast and myriad details can be overwhelming, but overall Goldman manages a clear narrative (aided by a "dramatis personae" and chronology). Drawing on a wealth of sources, including interviews, declassified documents and court records, his meticulously researched book is an impressive organizational achievement, as well as a vital moral accounting. Goldman-who was baptized in Gerardi's church of San Sebastian, attended by his Guatemalan-born mother-invests this eye-opening account with a layer of personal reflection. Like Latin American writers García Márquez, Vargas Llosa or Carlos Fuentes, his journalism isn't so much a departure from his fiction as an extension of his concerns with the fraught landscapes where "truth" is as contested as the soil underfoot, yet central to battles waged over it. (Sept.)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Kirkus Reviews

Thorough, engrossing summary and analysis of Guatemalan Bishop Juan Gerardi's death in 1998. In the forefront of the civil-rights movement in Guatemala, 66-year-old Gerardi had been celebrating the release of a four-volume, 1,400-page account of government-sponsored murder and other atrocities over a period of four decades. Later that same week, he lay dead in the garage of the parish house, his head bashed and bloodied. Better known as a novelist, Goldman (The Divine Husband, 2004, etc.) is also a long-time journalist; he covered the bishop's death for the New Yorker, never imagining at the time that he would be devoting much of the next eight years to the case. And what a case, with a cast of heavies and heroes worthy of the richest novel or film: archetypal fat-cat, blood-soaked military officers; devoted, underpaid public servants; frightened witnesses begging for protection; risk-taking journalists; and cold assassins (both named and unknown) who hurled the brains of their victims into the faces of onlookers and dismembered the brother of one of the prosecutors. A homeless man who turned out to be a former soldier trained in intelligence served as a key witness for the prosecution. A priest was also involved-perhaps as part of a ring of thieves, perhaps as host of a homosexual pleasure dome-and even this priest's dog became a major player. Goldman presents unscrupulous lackeys in the government and in the press who endeavored to discredit the truth-tellers and whistle-blowers. Readers will find themselves as overwhelmed as the author was by complexity and confusion of acronyms, agencies and multiple levels in the justice system. Ultimately, some heads rolled-but were they the rightheads? The only ones?First-rate research and reporting on the darkness of hearts. First printing of 50,000. Agent: Amanda Urban/ICM