War and Politics by Other Means: A Journalist's Memoir

War and Politics by Other Means is a graceful book. We should expect one who has been writing news (and in some cases, making it) for so many years to be able to tell a story and tell it well. but what is most wonderful about Scates is that he cares. Any reporter who has lived with what he calls the "rough mixture of altruism, venality, petty feuds or state government either has to go under, turn cynical and calloused, become a boozer, or have something special called Hope. Obviously, Scates has the latter..... Scates is, thus, a reporter of the old school. He is honest and he is driven, and he is too,more than a little corageous. We know this from his off had descriptions of his war reporting. You should go out and get the book at once. War and Politics by Other Means!...

Shelby Scates has a rare talent as a storyteller. Reading his memoir, you can imagine sitting at the kitchen table ( a bottle of booze within easy reach ) as he relates these tales gathered during his eventful life. Scates stories benefit greatly from the writer's exactness. Most remarkable is the noticable forward movement to his prose, a sense that there is more good stuff coming, a sentence, a paragraph, a page ahead and Scates rarely disappoints. A must read! James Bush, Seattle Weekly

For 29 years Shelby Scates was a presence in regional politics, first for two years as a writer for Phil Bailey's splendid Argus weekly and later as a reporter and columnist for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Since his retirement from the P.I. Scates has kept busy, writing the first full-length biography of Warren Magnusen and now his memoir, "War and Politics By Other Means". It is an interesting read. From a lifetime of writing for newspaper readers, Scates knows the scarcity of reader time and newshole space. He tells his tales briskly, emphasizing his encounters with the famous (Robert Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, etc.) and those who played small but interesting roles in history. A publisher should encourage Scates to start a new project.

Shelby Scates acts like a journalist, he talks like a journalist, he even looks like a journalist. Scates has the world-weary look of someone who has traveled and covered a lot of ground. He says what he wants and doesn't mince words. His newest book " War and Politics by Other Means, a Journalists Memoirs" was recentlyn published by the University of Washington Press. It spans Shelby Scates' entire career from going into journalism covering sports in Dallas to his careers in the wire services such as United Press International and the Associated Press before going to the Seattle Post Intelligencer. He left the newspaper in 1991 to work on books. The stories in the book make you feel like you're on the scene. It's written in the sparse prose of a lifetime reporter - short sentences that are always to the point. It is a fascinating must read book....

"Too bad Ben Hecht never met Shelby Scates, a journalist's journalist. His memoir is an enchanting crackle of political history ( I especially loved the stories about Earl Long and JFK),war chronicles in the Middle East and Cambodia, and other treacherous adventures like his white-knuckle climb up the Karakoram moutain range in Pakistan. And it is all so elegantly written you'll despair when you finish it, as I did. A real friend of a book."