BOOK REVIEW: The Man Who Ran Washington: The Life and Times of James A. Baker III

By Peter Baker and Susan Glasser. Doubleday, hardcover, 693 pp. with bibliography, notes and index. US$35.

It seems safe to say that if James A. Baker III had stayed with the Houston law firm of Andrews, Kurth, Campbell & Bradley, Washington, DC, the United States and indeed the world would have been a considerably different place. ‘The Man Who Ran Washington’—seems remarkably accurate as a title for this book. From the time in 1969 when he rose from bored T…