Call the Briefing!

Presidential press spokesman from 1983 to 1993, Fitzwater offers few revelations (other than accounts of cabinet members' spats) but engaging recollections of the ``psychological wars'' he helped fight in the briefing room with the White House press corps. He also relates his Kansas childhood and his teenage attraction to journalism, as well as his move to the Washington bureaucracy. Fitzwater hardly appears ideological, offering few of his own political views, but his infrequent revisionism--suggesting that Bush should have been more expressive in his response to the fall of the Berlin Wall--makes for interesting reading. He offers tart views, though, of adversaries like the producers of 60 Minutes or Andrew Rosenthal, whose New York Times story about Bush's struggle with a supermarket scanner misled the public, according to the author, yet was picked up by most media. Increased competition, from unprincipled organs of information, Fitzwater fears, now makes it tough for ethical journalists to adhere to their own standards. Photos not seen by PW. Author tour. (Nov.)