Confessions of a Muckraker : The Inside Story of Life in Washington During the Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson years

by Jack Anderson, James Boyd

The shattering truth behind the headlines by a master newsman.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics

354 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

There is more than one author with this name

Jack Anderson began writing the column "Washington Merry-Go-Round" in 1969. In 1973 he won a Pulitzer Prize for exposing Richard Nixon's lies about the U.S. tilt in the India-Pakistan War. His column was syndicated in eight hundred newspapers nationwide. He had a national talk radio program, worked as the Washington bureau chief for Parade magazine, and was the founder of the Young Astronauts Program. He is the author of Stormin' Norman and Washington Exposé. He passed way in 2006.

Robert Westbrook is the author of the Howard Moon Deer Mysteries and the Left-Handed Policeman series, as well as many works of nonfiction. He lives in New Mexico.

Reviews

[Ronald Koltnow · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have a new hero, columnist Drew Pearson. Pearson wrote the syndicated "Washington Merry-Go-Round" column from the 30s until his death in 1969 (he died after he saw his nemesis Nixon inaugurated). Confessions of a Muckraker is Jack Anderson's personal memoir of his boss (Anderson would take over the column after Pearson's death). Pearson's staff of dedicated legmen stalked, questioned, and cajoled sources to get the human story (rarely pretty) behind political policy. The old saying goes that you don't want to see how laws, like sausages, are made; Pearson uncovered it all -- the lawmaking, the corruption, the personalities, the habits --of those who held power. He was the most feared man in Washington. The heart of the book is Pearson and Anderson's crusade to unmask Joe McCarthy. This was hard for Anderson, as he and Joe were pals. Breezy, episodic, and often quotable, this is a quick romp through post-war Washington by true insiders.

[Nolan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jack Anderson’s first volume in his memoir grabbed me on page one and never let go. The prose crackles, the stories explode off the page, and the parallels to today’s media circus hit like a slap you didn’t see coming.

Anderson and co-author James Boyd pull back the curtain on Washington from the Truman years through early Johnson, and what you see feels eerily familiar. Reporters picked their darlings, buried inconvenient facts, and twisted the narrative exactly the way many do now. Some things apparently never change.

The heart of the book follows young Jack Anderson as he investigates his one-time friend, Senator Joseph McCarthy. At first Anderson admires the man. Then the digging starts. Fabricated evidence, ruined careers, lives shattered on hunches and headlines—Anderson watches McCarthy morph from crusader to monster and decides friendship can’t trump truth. The chapters on that unraveling are pure electricity.

You’ll meet a parade of names that once dominated the front page—Drew Pearson, Hubert Humphrey, JFK—but many have faded from memory. That’s okay; Anderson makes them live again. I smiled at Pearson pushing hard for Humphrey in 1960, certain money and organization didn’t matter. West Virginia proved him spectacularly wrong.

Honest caveat: this first memoir volume wanders a bit more than the second one (which I gave five stars back in June). The storytelling still dazzles, but the structure occasionally meanders.

If you love political history told by someone who lived in the trenches, grab this book. Anderson reminds us that courage in journalism isn’t new—it’s just rare, then and now.

Four rock-solid stars.