Powerful People: From Mao to Now, a Reporter's 50-Year Pursuit of Powerful People

Rowan, a former correspondent for Time, Life and Fortune, has raided his notebooks to produce a scrapbook of portraits, heavily weighted to his interesting experience in a changing China. As a young reporter wandering about China in 1947, he wangled his way into Life with his accounts of the rise of the Communists. He went on to report from elsewhere, including India, where he portrayed the Nizam of Hyderabad, the wealthiest man in the world in 1948, and East Germany, whose Communist leader, Walter Ulbricht, withstood the protests of his people in 1953. In the U.S., Rowan covered the Little Rock desegregation crisis, negotiated to acquire the notorious Zapruder film of JFK's assassination for Life and followed new President Gerald Ford on his maiden forays into diplomacy. He pads the book with pieces on the likes of Imelda Marcos, Frank Lorenzo and silver magnates Nelson Bunker Hunt and his brother William. Illustrations not seen by PW. (Apr.)