Includes bibliographical references and index.

The Reporter and the President -- The Outsider -- Scotty and Sally -- Big Cities -- War -- The Sulzberger Adoption -- Mr. Gus -- Scoops -- Wise Men -- The Restons of Woodley Road -- High Politics -- The Great Fear -- The Other Newspaper Family -- Bureau Chief -- What's Good for Reston Is Good for the Times -- JFK -- At the Summit -- Missile Crisis -- A Bleak Year -- LBJ -- Vietnam -- Scotty Versus Abe -- The Gazette -- Nixon's Washington -- Kissinger -- Deadline.

When President Kennedy finished his most difficult meeting ever with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, the first person he talked to was not one of his advisers, not his vice president, and not his wife. Walking out of the meeting, still steamed and shocked, Kennedy spoke first with James Reston. And so it was for others, for president after president, from Truman through Eisenhower, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, and Carter. James Reston was the most powerful, most admired, most influential newspaper columnist America had ever seen, the best journalist of his time, and perhaps the best of any time. Reston, who emigrated from Scotland as a boy, tapped into his vast reserves of intelligence, hustle, and ambition to rise steadily up the New York Times ranks, and helped make it the greatest paper in the world. As a writer, he was read by more Americans than any other on public affairs. As a talent spotter, he brought into the Times a galaxy of future stars. He was the model of what a young journalist wanted to become: wise, fair, able to speak in his own voice, and so well respected by those in power that he was routinely granted access to the greatest secrets of the world he covered. But in time, some of Reston's greatest virtues would become liabilities, and proximity to power would take its toll. And thus Reston's story encompasses not only the life of one great man, but also the rise and fall of American journalism. More than brilliant biography, Scotty is a secret history -- of one man's life, of what went on behind closed Washington doors, of the stories that shaped our world and the stories that never made the papers.