CONFESSION AND AVOIDANCE: A Memoir

by Leon with Mickey Herskowitz Jaworski ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 1979

Although he had filled several important public roles previously, it was Watergate that elevated Texas lawyer Jaworski to star-status, commemorated in The Right and the Power. Then Jaworski re-emerged--into an admittedly dimmer limelight--as counsel to the House Ethics Committee investigating charges of Korean bribery of Congress. It was that experience that is apparently behind this general memoir, since that chapter is the longest. Omitting mention of the mundane clients that made him a millionaire, Jaworski recounts his early legal practice in Houston--with a generous sprinkling of down-home homilies--and his service as a war-crimes prosecutor in Germany. This, lightly handled, leads up to his role as counsel to Lyndon Johnson's 1960 Presidential campaign and his subsequent service in the Kennedy assassination investigations (Jaworski is convinced of the validity of the Warren Commission's findings). His discussion of Watergate is largely confined to countering Nixon's efforts at self-rehabilitation, as Jaworski emphasizes the former President's criminal actions and drunken maliciousness. Though Jaworski implies again that he did not pressure Ford to issue a pardon in order to avoid deciding whether or not to prosecute Nixon, he does make the banal assertion that Nixon paid a high price in losing the Presidency. And he disdains the term ""Koreagate"": the Korea scandal was important, he emphasizes, but not in the same league as Watergate. Like his earlier book, this one contains nothing that is new or newsworthy, and in particular no revelations on Korea.

Pub Date: June 1, 1979

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Anchor/Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1979

Categories: NONFICTION