Power Game: How Washington Works

As a non-American, interested in US politics, Smith's book is a more than useful insight into how Washington politics works - the deals, counter deals, and a good examiniation of the machinery that makes it all works. Smith stays away from the personalities, and concentrates on the machinery and plotical strcutures and systems, and how they all interact (and some cases how they don't) and it all reveals a complex but continually fascinating political system.

Perhaps a political science classic - Hedrick Smith provides an insightful glimpse not only into Washington's political scene but offers a phenomenal analysis of politics and power itself. he presents why so much of the system has become so cumbersome and complex as people fight for power and control of various aspects. He describes PACs and lobbying groups and their impact on the political system. He also describes how the various players in Wahsington have grown over time. Take this interesting tidbit from the book: Journalists: 1,522 were acredited to Congrssional press galleries in 1961 and 5,250 in 1987; the 1980 census showed 12,612 journalists citywide. When Truman ordered the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan in 1945, I was told, he broke the news to the entire White House press corps - twenty-five reporters. By mid-1987, some 1,708 people had regular White House press passes. So enormous had the wider political community grown - lobbyists, lawyers, journalists, policy think tanks, defense or health consultants, and the hotels, offices, accountants, resterautns, and the service industries that support them - that by 1979 this whole nongovernmental sector actually outnumbered federal government employees in Washington!Other fascinating facts like that are found throughout the book helping to maintin the interest of the reader. If you want to read a book about Washington, politics and the ultimate Power Game, this is the one for you. You won't be disappointed.

...or doesn't work! This is one of the most eye-opening books I have ever read. Learn about "power surfing" and other useful techniques used by the most savy of power players in our nation's capital. Before I read this book, I naively thought power in our federal government was a linear, north-south, hierarchic beast. Boy, was I wrong. It gets passed around like a beach ball. Hedrick Smith uses the Reagan Administration as his example, but the template he draws can easily be transferred to the Clinton White House. This is a long book, but it's worth the investment if you want to become a wiser citizen or just to be entertained by the power plays of our elected officials. I just finished reading former Labor Secretary Robert Reich's memoirs, "Locked in the Cabinet". I venture to say that if he had read this book before he became a Cabinet member, it would have saved him a LOT of grief and made him a more effective official. This book should be required reading to anyone who gets elected or appointed to federal positions in Washington.