William Safire is a man of many careers: journalist, speechwriter, historian, novelist, lexicographer. He worked on the first Eisenhower Presidential campaign and later became a senior speechwriter in the Nixon White House. He escaped from there in time to write Before the Fall, a history of the pre-Watergate White House. As a lexicographer, he is author of Safire’s New Political Dictionary, a half-million-word study of the words that have inspired and inflamed the electorate. As an historical novelist, he wrote Freedom about the Civil War, and his latest novel is Scandalmonger about the origins of America’s press freedom. His anthology of the world’s greatest speeches, Lend Me Your Ears, has become a classic. As a political columnist, he began his twice-weekly column thirty years ago in The New York Times, writing from the point of view of a libertarian conservative. He is a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary, and is now a member of the Pulitzer Board.