Interview
Gary Ginsberg, author of "First Friends"
- The book covers nine first friendships, with a planned chapter on Bill Clinton and Vernon Jordan that represents the only instance where the author felt able to pose specific questions to a sitting president.
- David Ormsby-Gore is identified as the most interesting subject, characterized as John F. Kennedy's closest personal friend and most important foreign policy advisor near the end of his life.
- Ormsby-Gore's proposed Cuban Missile Crisis blockade perimeter and the strategy to release satellite photographs are presented as unique insights not considered by other government officials.
- The friendship between Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, which lasted 50 years, is predicted to be the foundational cause of the U.S. state university system, the second party system, and the nation's basic governmental structures.
- Nathaniel Hawthorne is described as a unique case where the friend is currently more famous than the president, while the author notes this was a surprising discovery during the book's conception.
- The author asserts that Joshua Speed was instrumental in helping Abraham Lincoln save the Union, serving as a confidant for the Emancipation Proclamation and ensuring Lincoln's name remained known to the public.
- The relationship between Richard Nixon and B.B. Rebozo is characterized as a failed attempt at moral ballast that instead involved undermining a Washington Post IPO and facilitating a connection to a $100,000 campaign contribution from Howard Hughes.
- A claim is made that evidence supports the position that the Nixon-Rebozo-Hughes financial connection was the reason for the 1972 DNC bugging, positioning Rebozo as the first enabler whose friendship directly led to a president's resignation and impeachment.
- The author expects some chapters to contain revelations that have already garnered significant attention, while also highlighting the 2018 initial contact with Vernon Jordan as the first step taken upon conceiving the book idea.