Tom DeFrank

Biography

Tom DeFrank is one of Washington`s most respected President-watchers. An award-winning correspondent and author, he has covered every President since Richard Nixon and the last 12 Presidential elections.

He was Newsweek`s White House correspondent for a quarter-century and for the last 15 years has been Washington bureau chief of the New York Daily News.

He has covered the resignation of one President, the impeachment of a second, and was an eyewitness to two assassination attempts against a third.

The White House Correspondents' Association has honored him for "his exclusive reporting as well as his ability to pack lively analysis into compact spaces."

His 2007 book on 30 years of private conversations with President Gerald R. Ford, "Write it When I'm Gone, " was a New York Times and Washington Post bestseller.

Ford once called him "one of the finest journalists I have ever known. Everyone I know feels the same way: you are fair, trustworthy and professional."

Publications

Write it When I`m Gone:
Remarkable off-the-record Conversations with Gerald R. Ford

Tom covered Gerald R. Ford for a third of a century and conducted dozens of interviews with the 38th President. In 1991 Ford agreed to be interviewed every year with the understanding that nothing he said could be disclosed until his death.

The resulting bestseller, "Write it When I`m Gone: Remarkable off-the-record Conversations with Gerald R. Ford," documents Ford`s feelings about Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan and others with a remarkable candor not seen in Ford`s official memoir.

Titles

A Washington View: Obama`s Troubles, Republican Resurgence and Implications for 2012
Tom draws on 42 years as a White House and national political correspondent to analyze the current political scene in Washington. His conversational style, peppered with anecdotes drawn from his institutional memory and current reporting, creates a presentation both informative and entertaining.

A Tale of Nine Presidents: Covering history at the White House from LBJ to Obama

A Ford, Not a Lincoln: Remarkable Off The Record Conversations with the 38th President

The Media: Myths and Realities about the Institution Everyone Loves to Hate

Backstairs at the White House: Stories that Never Made it into Print