Eyewitness to Power: Moral and Ethical Leadership in the American Presidency
David Gergen, co-director of the Center for Public Leadership and professor of public leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School, has advised four U.S. presidents. In 2000, he published the best-selling book, “Eyewitness to Power: The Essence of Leadership, Nixon to Clinton.” He is a senior political analyst for CNN.
A speechwriter in the Nixon White House, Gergen later worked in the Ford administration and the 1980 Bush presidential campaign. He served as director of communications for Ronald Reagan and advised the Clinton administration on domestic and foreign affairs.
Gergen joined the Harvard faculty in 1999. As co-director of the Center for Public Leadership, he works closely with a rising generation of younger leaders. The center prepares students to serve as leaders for the common good and promotes scholarship at the frontiers of leadership studies. In the 1980s, Gergen began a career in journalism and became a regular commentator on public affairs. Twice he has covered elections on teams that won Peabody awards. In the late 1980s, he was chief editor of U.S. News & World Report, and he appears frequently on CNN.
Gergen graduated with honors from both Yale College and Harvard Law School and served as an officer in the U.S. Navy for more than three years, posted to a ship in Japan.
