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BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times • The Washington Post • Fortune • Bloomberg From two of America's most revered political journalists comes the definitive biography of legendary White House chief of staff and secretary of state James A. Baker III: the man who ran Washington when Washington ran the world. For a quarter century, from the end of Watergate to the aftermath of the Cold War, no Republican won the presidency or ran the White House without the advice of James Addison Baker III. A scion of Texas aristocracy who became George H. W. Bush’s tennis partner, Baker had never worked in Washington until a devastating family tragedy struck when he was thirty-nine. Within a fe...
As secretary of state, James A. Baker III played a critical role on the world stage in the final years of the Cold War as the Soviet Union unraveled. His political sense and the ability to test Soviet leaders, negotiate insoluble problems in the Middle East, charm friends, and achieve the placement of a unified Germany in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization were unmatched. Diana Villiers Negroponte, an author, lawyer, and professor, highlights how Baker mobilized a coalition of international military forces, including the Soviets, to repel Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. Baker seduced Israeli and West Bank Palestinians to meet face to face and begin the Oslo peace process and ended two civil ...
Told in the form of interviews with those who knew and hated him, this hilarious and irreverent mockumentary recounts the rise and fall of notorious Hollywood producer Shark Trager. As a young man, Shark had dreams of directing artistic movies, but when his film school project is savaged by a snobby French critic, Shark turns instead to producing exploitative trash, the more shocking and outrageous the better. Fueled by a nonstop supply of sex and drugs, Shark's life and work become increasingly bizarre and erratic. Yet we meet a different side of Shark too, as we learn how he saved a group of Sunday school teachers held hostage by terrorists, prevented a horrific attack on Nancy Reagan by a...
White House chief of staff twice over, former secretary of state, past secretary of the treasury, and campaign leader for three different candidates in five successful campaigns—few people have lived and breathed politics as deeply or for as long as James Baker. Now, with candor, down-home Texas storytelling, and more than a few surprises, Baker opens up about his thirty-five years behind the scenes. Beginning in 1975 with the Ford administration, in a job procured for him by friend and tennis partner George H. W. Bush, Baker was in the thick of American politics. He recounts the inside story of Ford’s rejection of Reagan as a running mate in 1976 with the same insight he has into Reagan...
The origins and ever-changing story of America's favorite holiday
The United States faces the realistic and indefinite threat of terrorist attack with nuclear weapons. Whether the United States is successful in preventing such an attack will depend on whether we effectively wield the instruments of security. It will also depend on whether we effectively manage national security processes and apply the law in a manner that both enhances security and upholds our core values. As a result, lawyers, not just presidents, generals, and spies, will decide the outcome of this conflict. This book, first published in 2007, is essential for anyone wanting an understanding of national security law and process. The book includes chapters on constitutional law, the use of force, and homeland security, presented in the context of today's threats and as applied to issues like rendition and electronic surveillance.
Assessing the legal and practical questions posed by the use of artificial intelligence in national security matters The increasing use of artificial intelligence poses challenges and opportunities for nearly all aspects of society, including the military and other elements of the national security establishment. This book addresses how national security law can and should be applied to artificial intelligence, which enables a wide range of decisions and actions not contemplated by current law. James Baker, an expert in national security law and process, adopts a realistic approach in assessing how the law—even when not directly addressing artificial intelligence—can be used, or even mis...
This book explores English single sheet satirical prints published from 1780-1820, the people who made those prints, and the businesses that sold them. It examines how these objects were made, how they were sold, and how both the complexity of the production process and the necessity to sell shaped and constrained the satiric content these objects contained. It argues that production, sale, and environment are crucial to understanding late-Georgian satirical prints. A majority of these prints were, after all, published in London and were therefore woven into the commercial culture of the Great Wen. Because of this city and its culture, the activities of the many individuals involved in trans...
Captain James A. Baker, Houston lawyer, banker, and businessman, received an alarming telegram on September 23, 1900: his elderly millionaire client William Marsh Rice had died unexpectedly in New York City. Baker rushed to New York, where he unraveled a plot to murder Rice and plunder his estate. Working tirelessly with local authorities, Baker saved Rice’s fortune from more than one hundred claimants; he championed the wishes of his deceased client and founded Rice Institute for the Advancement of Literature, Science and Art—today’s internationally acclaimed Rice University. For fifty years Captain Baker nurtured Rice’s dream. He partnered with leading lawyers to create Houston’s...
By anyone's reckoning, James Baker's years as Secretary of State contained some of the most pivotal events of the second half of the 20th century, and few men played as crucial a role in so many of them as did Baker. This candid, revealing account offers readers a unique perspective on such world-shaking events as the fall of the Eastern Bloc, the invasion of Panama, the Gulf War, and the birth of freedom in South Africa. Photos.