PORTRAITS OF THE PRESIDENTS Power and Personality in the Oval Office

Des Moines: Time Inc. Near Fine in Very Good dust jacket. 2000. First Edition. Hardcover. Autograph; vi, 186 pages; Inscribed and Signed on half-title by the author - "For Rowly and Kay, / two of the great and / graceful players in this / drama. From their friend / Hugh S" OCLC 1273586797 PROVENANCE: Rowland Evans was a provocative newspaper columnist, commentator and author who antagonized liberal politicians and championed conservative causes. He left Yale and enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1942 during World War II and was discharged in 1944 because of malaria. In 1963, Mr. Evans and Mr. Novak began writing ''Inside Report,'' an insider's view of politics that was published four times a week until Mr. Evans retired in 1993. Mr. Evans and Robert Novak began their work as columnists in the early 1960's, a time when newspaper columnists wielded outsize influence in national politics. The pair pioneered in transferring that influence to the medium of cable television with the political discussion program ''Evans & Novak'' -- carried on CNN from that cable network's beginning. Rowland Evans and his wife Kay (Katherine Winton Evans), also a respected writer and editor, were mainstays on the Washington social scene, hosting many memorable gatherings in their handsome Georgetown house -- to which flocked influential and remarkable people drawn from journalism, politics and general society over the decades from the 1960s to the 2000s. Both Evans and Novak became more predictably conservative over the years, particularly during the Reagan years. Reportedly, both columnists voted for JFK in 1960 and for Lyndon Johnson in 1964. Evans earned a place on Richard Nixon's infamous "Enemies List." Novak reported that Evans had JFK as a guest for the first Washington dinner party the latter attended as President Elect. Kay and Rowland Evans has a particularly close friendship with Robert F. Kennedy, his wife Ethel and their family.; Signed by Author .