cover image This Time, This Place: My Life in War, the White House, and Hollywood

This Time, This Place: My Life in War, the White House, and Hollywood

Jack Valenti. Harmony, $25.95 (468pp) ISBN 978-0-307-34664-3

Valenti, an ""obscure owner of an advertising and political consulting agency in Houston,"" came under the national spotlight when, with little fanfare, he became a special assistant to President Lyndon B. Johnson. Valenti opens with Kennedy's assassination, right after which Johnson told Valenti, without warning, ""I want you on my staff."" After his arrival in Washington, Valenti jumps back in time, cruising through his Houston childhood, experience as WWII B-25 pilot and subsequent Harvard education. The dramatic arc works well, setting up nicely the book's weightiest portion, an insider's view of the Johnson White House, featuring a fascinating discussion of Robert McNamara's summer 1965 plan to increase U.S. military involvement in Vietnam. The last third chronicles Valenti's 38 years as chair and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, an organization with close ties to Washington politics; Valenti shares enlightening details of developing and implementing the MPAA's voluntary movie rating system, still in place today, as well as his relationship with numerous ""icons of the silver screen"" (Kirk Douglas gets the most space). Valenti's informal prose occasionally runs purple, but his life story, populated with Washington power-brokers and Hollywood royalty, is an absorbing one. 15 b/w photos.