William Safire is a man of many careers: reporter, public relations man, politician, historian, novelist, lexicographer and columnist.

As a reporter, he worked on a column in The New York Herald Tribune and later served as a correspondent for New York radio and television stations.

As a PR man, he built a firm serving dozens of corporate and financial clients.

As a politician, he worked on the first Eisenhower Presidential campaign and later became a Senior Speechwriter in the Nixon White House. Safire escaped from there in time to do a stint as a historian, writing "Before The Fall," a history of the pre-Watergate White House.