By way of a short biography, I have been a writer, variously employed, over the last half century. I started out in magazines during the 50s, most prominently in Esquire, but then went with LIFE, largely covering politics throughout the 60s and early 70s. Over the decades, however, I've published in most of America's major periodicals, Harper's, Smithsonian, New York Times Magazine, New York, et al., way back, SatEvePost, and inevitably, Reader's Digest.But in the late 70s, I turned to TV, and helped start "20/20" over at ABC—producing and writing for Hugh Downs ("We're in touch. So you be in touch.")—and later creating "3-2-1-Contact" for Children's Television Workshop. Since then, I've worked intermittently for the Ford Foundation, at the Justice Department as Attorney General Dick Thornburgh's chief (and only) speechwriter, and later at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) on a series of policy initiatives,especially on early heathcare proposals and deficit "hawkery."In due course, I've written eight books, including Other Loyalties, a collection of political profiles, and Putting America's House in Order, an early attempt in 1996 to address the debt/deficit problem that has finally overwhelmed our present economy. I have also written fiction for which I won an O. Henry Prize in 1968, as well as other literary awards since. And I am the author of three novels. My second novel, The Late Great Creature, was nominated for the National Book Award in 1973, and is being republished this month, forty years later, by Overlook Press, a NYC literary house determined to revive worthy books that have stood the test of even these parlous times.