Biography of Lou Cannon

Cannon has written five Reagan biographies, including the acclaimed "President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime," a Book of the Month Club main selection when first published by Simon and Schuster in 1991. An updated version of this book with new material from former Soviet diplomats, Nancy Reagan, and former independent counsel Lawrence Walsh was published in April 2000 by PublicAffairs and became a best-seller. The late John Chancellor called "President Reagan" "indispensable," saying that it presented "the real Reagan, without the makeup or the handlers, seen through the eyes of the keenest Reagan-watcher of them all."

Cannon's latest book is "Governor Reagan: His Rise to Power," published by PublicAffairs in September 2003. David S. Broder said of this book: "Ronald Reagan was not born to be president. He trained for the job. Lou Cannon, his most eminent biographer, looks back on a critical part of that preparation-the years Reagan spent in Sacramento. The story is full of surprises and is told, as always with the balance and scrupulous fairness Cannon brings to his work."

Cannon's other Reagan books include "Ronnie & Jesse: A Political Odyssey" (1969) a dual biography of Reagan and the late Jesse Unruh, "Reagan" (1982), and "Ronald Reagan: The Presidential Portfolio," a history illustrated from the collection of The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum. It includes a wealth of photographs, documents, artifacts, some of them published for the first time, and a 60-minute audio CD that contains excerpts from key Reagan speeches and a discussion by Cannon of the Reagan legacy.

Born in New York City and raised in Reno, Nevada, Cannon attended the University of Nevada (now UNR-Reno) and San Francisco State College. After service in the U.S. Army he became a reporter for various California newspapers and covered Reagan's first term as governor of California for the San Jose Mercury-News. He moved to Washington as a national correspondent for Ridder Publications. Beginning in 1972 he worked 26 years for The Washington Post, as political reporter, White House correspondent, columnist and Los Angeles bureau chief. During the Reagan presidency, Cannon was the senior White House correspondent for The Washington Post and wrote a weekly syndicated column.

Cannon has won many awards, beginning with one from the American Political Science Association in 1969 for "distinguished reporting of public affairs." In 1984 he received the White House Correspondents Association coveted Aldo Beckman award for overall excellence in presidential coverage. The following year a survey by Washington Journalism Review named Cannon as "the best newspaper White House correspondent." In 1986, Cannon won the Merriman Smith award for excellence in presidential news coverage-a single story written under deadline pressure. He won the first Gerald R. Ford Prize (1988) for distinguished reporting on the Nixon, Ford, and Reagan presidencies.

Other books written by Cannon include "The McCloskey Challenge" (1972), "Reporting: An Inside View" (1977), and "Official Negligence: How Rodney King and the Riots Changed Los Angeles and the LAPD," published in 1998 by Times Books and in paperback in 1999 by Westview Press. Garry Wills called this social history "a classic" and George Will said it was "a dazzling demonstration of the reporter's craft." The Los Angeles Times ranked "Official Negligence" among the best non-fiction books in 1998. The newspaper's Jim Newton said the book is "the definitive work of modern Los Angeles, a massive effort to see the nation's most dynamic city at its most important crossroads."

On October 1, 2000, Cannon wrote the cover story, "One Bad Cop," for The New York Times Magazine, describing how the violent actions of a rogue officer had plunged the LAPD into crisis. Cannon has also written cover stories for California Journal, National Review, and George. He has contributed op-ed articles to The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, and has been a frequent commentator on television and radio.

In 1995 Cannon was Raznick Distinguished Lecturer in the history department of the University of California at Santa Barbara. In 1996 he was Freedom Forum journalist in residence at the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Southern California.

Cannon has four children and six grandchildren. He and his wife, Mary, live in Summerland, near Santa Barbara, California.