Confidential Secretary

by Robert John Donovan

The author draws upon her twenty years of service as confidential secretary to President Eisenhower and Vice-President Rockefeller

208 pages, Hardcover

First published July 28, 1988

About the author

Robert John Donovan was a Washington correspondent, author and presidential historian. Donovan attended Lafayette High School in Buffalo, New York, where he was Captain of the Hocke Herald Tribune after the war and served as a foreign correspondent and Washington Bureau Chief. During the latter period he was President of the White House Correspondents' Association. From the Tribune, he moved to the Los Angeles Times as Washington Bureau Chief and for a short time as Associate Editor in Los Angeles.

Reviews

[Mike · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is not a book deep on revelations on policy development or the thinking of President Eisenhower or Governor Rockefeller. Ann Whitman had a long career as a confidential secretary, but it seems that many of her principal tasks involved retyping speeches and processing thank you letters for presidential gifts. The book successfully portray Eisenhower as lazy and generally dismissive of the needs of his staff. On the other hand, Rockefeller is portrayed as a workaholic who wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty or share his personal wealth.