For the better part of forty years, I refused to even consider the idea. Of writing a book. About my experiences at the White House during the Nixon and Ford presidencies. Unique though they were. People before me had done it, and many had paid a price. Severe in some cases. Lost friendships and lost respect—and more. And I didn’t want to go there.

Then I made a trip to 100 Beal Street on the North Campus of the University of Michigan in early 2006. During my visit to the Ford Presidential Library, Chief Audiovisual Archivist Ken Hafeli asked me if I’d be willing to give a recorded oral history interview. I agreed, and we spent several hours together the following morning. Afterwards, several members of the library staff invited me to lunch at Zingerman’s, a famous, “no-miss” Ann Arbor deli that creates killer sandwiches of all kinds.

As we talked, these folks began to tell me that I “owed it to history” to put my stories into a book for the world to enjoy. I was still hesitant. Then I met nationally syndicated talk show host Steven Maggi, and the die was cast. A book would be written, or I would never hear the end of it. So in 2016, in a beautiful condo belonging to friends in Sun Valley, Idaho, I began what I thought might be a three-month project. Was I ever wrong!

The book you will receive is the product of literally hundreds of hours of research, fact (and double fact) checking, trips to the Ford Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and poring over hundreds of official White House photos and documents.

In the words of my friend Pavel Palazhchenko (former Soviet interpreter for Mikhail Gorbachev and Eduard Shevardnadze)…

“Fascinating, fun to read. For presidential historians, dog lovers, and all the rest of us.”

With warmest best wishes,

Bill Brockett