Special Relationships: A Foreign Correspondent's Memoirs from Roosevelt to Reagan

Brandon ( The Retreat of American Power ) here recalls close friendships, working relationships and occasional hostile contacts that marked his 40 years as a Washington correspondent, mostly for London's Sunday Times. His portraits of Truman, Acheson, De Gaulle, Macmillan, Kennedy and Nixon, among others, are incisive. He also offers trenchant observations (``Americans need to be scared out of their wits to shoulder the burdens of their destiny'') and a benevolent appraisal of Washington, D.C., as a cultural world capital. He tells us that he was in Cuba when Soviet missiles arrived there, was lunching with Richard Helms when the CIA chief first heard of the Watergate burglary. His best passages include an illuminating discourse on Henry Kissinger's character and achievements, along with what may be the pithiest synopsis yet of the Reagan presidency. Photos. (Jan.)