Overcoming disabling injuries, Vietnam vet Paul Bernard becomes an award-winning journalist and television newsman. Known for holding a mirror to American society and long critical of the radical right, after 9-11 Bernard attacks the Bush administration for Osama bin Laden's escape and leading the nation into a disastrous war. On assignment in Iraq, Bernard is killed under suspicious circumstances. Interwoven with the account of his life is an interview of his mentor, Professor Augustus F.X. Flynn, by a magazine writer profiling him. Frustrated by Washington's inaction, the two set out to find the truth about the killing. Book One tells of Paul Bernard's coming of age, his Canadian immigrant roots, the patriotic and religious intensity of the early years. Then through the devastation of Vietnam to recovery and return, immersion in the New York newspaper scene, his family life. Twentieth Century Limited Book Two - Age of Reckoning, continues and completes the story.
His name, Bob Zimmerman. We shot south through Idaho, bleak Nevada and on
into the Bay Area. The first few days in San Francisco would be at Pat's Uncle Al
and Aunt Betty's on Russian Hill, at the foot of a street he told me I would not
believe. Then on to Berkeley for me, back to Cambridge for Pat. Not once the
whole time did he mention law school. The night we arrived, I opened my window
in the old Victorian and peered out at the Golden Gate and the headlands. Ten o'
clock ...
