Gergen begins Eyewitness to Power with his reminiscence of being the thirty-year-old chief of the White House speechwriting team under Richard Nixon, a young man at the center of the Watergate storm. He analyzes what made Nixon strong -- and then brought him crashing down:

• Why Nixon was the best global strategist among recent presidents. How others may gain his strategic sense.
• How Nixon allowed his presidency to spin out of control. Why the demons within destroyed him. What lessons there are in Nixon's disaster.

Gergen recounts how President Ford recruited him to help shore up his White House as special counsel. Here Gergen considers:

• Why Ford is one of our most underrated presidents.
• Why his pardon of Nixon was right on the merits but was so mishandled that it cost him his presidency. Even in his brief tenure, Ford offers lessons of leadership for others, as Gergen explains.

Though Gergen had worked in two campaigns against him, Ronald Reagan called him back to the White House again, where he served as the Gipper's first director of communications. Here he describes:

• How Reagan succeeded where others have failed. Why his temperament was more important than his intelligence. How he mastered relations with Congress and the press.
• The secrets of "the Great Communicator" and why his speeches were the most effective since those of John Kennedy and Franklin Roosevelt.