Right from the Beginning is the personal memoir of Pat Buchanan, the story of how the most controversial conservative in America got where he is today and how he came to believe as he does. It is the intimate first-person account of how the third son in a devout Catholic family of nine children, an expellee from Georgetown University at age twenty-one, without experience in journalism or politics, became, at twenty-three, the youngest editorial writer in America, and, three years later, confidant to Richard M. Nixon, as the twice-defeated ex–vice president began the political comeback of the century.
But Right from the Beginning is more than a personal memoir: it is the sometimes hilarious, sometimes sad, poignant, and moving story of the Buchanan family, a book that brings alive America in the forties and fifties, when “the faith was unquestioned and patriotism unconstrained.”
Patrick J. Buchan, a senior advisor to three American presidents, ran twice for the Republican nomination for president in 1992 and 1996, and was the Reform Party’s presidential candidate in 2000. The author of five other books, including the bestseller A Republic, Not an Empire, he is a syndicated columnist and a founding member of three of America’s foremost public affairs shows: NBC’s The McLaughlin Group, CNN’s The Capitol Gang, and Crossfire.
Michael Wells is a playwright, actor, and musician. He lives in New York City.