James A. Baker, III, was recognized as “the man who made Washington work” while serving under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. During his twelve years of service – first as White House chief of staff, then as secretary of the treasury and finally as secretary of state – he proved himself the ultimate principled pragmatist in service to our country.
Secretary Baker discussed the Reagan and Bush administrations in an onstage interview conducted by Dallas-based lawyer and historian Talmage Boston. The transcript of the interview was be featured in Boston’s book, “Cross-Examining History: A Lawyer Gets Answers About America’s Past From the Experts,” published in the spring of 2016 by Houston-based Bright Sky Press. The book contains a foreword written by documentary filmmaker Ken Burns and thirty-one edited conversations with presidential insiders and esteemed presidential biographers focused entirely on the lives of America's most significant presidents.
Join the conversation online with #BakerLiveChat.
Attendance at this event was for our current Roundtable members only.
For questions about Baker Institute membership, please contact assistant director of development Starr Dickerson (713.348.8087 or [email protected]).
Featured Speaker
Talmage Boston, J.D., is the author of "Raising the Bar: The Crucial Role of the Lawyer in Society" (TexasBarBooks, 2012), which includes a chapter profiling James A. Baker, III, and Leon Jaworski, who Boston names the two most important American lawyers of the last half century. His other publications include "1939: Baseball’s Tipping Point" (Bright Sky Press, 2005) and "Baseball and the Baby Boomer" (Bright Sky Press, 2009). Boston's forthcoming book, "Cross-Examining History: A Lawyer Gets Answers About America’s Past From the Experts” (Bright Sky Press, 2016), will contain the edited transcripts of his onstage interviews with presidential historians and presidential insiders. The content of this interview will be included in a chapter of that book. Boston is also a shareholder at Winstead PC, and has been a commercial trial and appellate litigator in Dallas, Texas, since 1978. He has been recognized by Texas Monthly as a “Texas Super Lawyer” every year since 2003, as one of the “Best Lawyers in America” every year since 2013, and as one of the “Top 100 Attorneys in Dallas/Fort Worth Region.” Boston has served as both a director of the State Bar of Texas and chair of the State Bar’s Litigation Section. For his service, he received Presidential Citations from the State Bar of Texas’ presidents every year from 2005 to 2011. He holds a B.A. with honors in economics and a J.D. from The University of Texas at Austin.