Monday, April 29, 2013

Went to dinner at Matisse Restaurant on Wisconsin Avenue and Fessenden Avenue, N.W. I took out Richard (Rick) Atkinson to dinner to get his advice on writing my book (autobiography). He was extremely helpful on how to approach this and gave me several names of agents, editors, historians, etc. he encouraged me to “shop around” for the best people. He confirmed what Edwin Grosvner and Ari Emanuel said that I clearly have a NY Times bestseller and possibly Pulitzer Prize autobiography in me and encouraged me strongly to pursue this. I am very excited (almost agitated) about doing this. I have a worrisome feeling that the USG will not allow me to do this. Even though it is MY autobiography, most of it relates to my government service. I will probe this and see what happens. Parenthetically, the Washington Nationals, who are supposed to win the World Series this year on the basis of pure talent have gotten off to a bad start. The only people that are doing great thus far are Bruce Harper and Jordan Zimmerman. ***H7N9 continues to occur in China from chickens to human → 126 cases and 24 deaths. Still confined to China. Need to keep an eye on this.