Simply Barbara Bush; A Portrait of America's Candid First Lady
New York: Warner Books, 1989. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. The format is approximately 5.25 inches by 8.25 inches. xviii, [2], 236 pages. Genealogy table. Illustrations. Index. Slight creasing to DJ edges. Inscribed by the author. The first complete biography of Barbara Bush celebrates her upbringing and devotion to family values, her work on behalf of literacy, education, and cancer research, and the emergence of her popular cloth-coat style. Donnie Radcliffe (July 13, 1929 – February 19, 2010) was a journalist for The Washington Post and a biographer who wrote biographies of First Ladies Barbara Bush and Hillary Clinton. Mrs. Radcliffe joined The Post in 1972 and rose to cover the White House, one of the top assignments at a newspaper, at a time when many male editors did not take female reporters seriously. She advanced her career by writing news stories that, in the hands of some other writers, would have arrived on Washington doorsteps as soft features. During her 22-year career at The Post, Mrs. Radcliffe covered six White Houses. Bob Woodward, the Post reporter who with Carl Bernstein uncovered the Watergate scandal, called Mrs. Radcliffe a "pick-and-shovel reporter -- always digging. That's the biggest compliment I can give someone, a pick-and-shovel reporter." He added that Mrs. Radcliffe used her contacts to set up interviews "with lots of Nixon people" to help him and Bernstein. Mrs. Radcliffe did some of her most memorable reporting during the Reagan White House of the 1980s. From Washington, she wrote about the thousands of dollars in borrowed designer clothes that first lady Nancy Reagan accepted after promising to halt the practice. More