Young journalist David Brinkley first came to Washington, D.C. in 1943, just as World War II was transforming the nation's capital. 

The sleepy Southern town that had been home to a small federal government suddenly burgeoned into a major city filled with office buildings, bureaucracy, lobbyists, and lots of money. 

After the wa, in 1956, NBC paired Brinkley with Chet Huntley to co-anchor their nightly news.

After leaving NBC in the 1970s, Brinkley joined ABC, where he was the founding host of the Sunday morning show “This Week.”  He retired in 1997.

It was in the late 1980s that Brinkley wrote his first book, on account of the War years called Washington Goes to War. It became a major bestseller. And that's when I met him.