Includes index.

Attorney General Janet Reno is a singular American leader. From the day she arrived in Washington, the first woman to head the Justice Department, she has been the most intriguing person in the Clinton administration. With keen intelligence and an ethical certainty rarely seen in American politics, she has made every tough call - from the Waco debacle to the Whitewater affair. Through it all she has remained her own person - blunt and honest. But behind the public image stands a very private human being operating under enormous pressure in a shifting political landscape.

Here, for the first time, is an in-depth portrait of the real Janet Reno. Paul Anderson, whose reports on Reno have appeared in The Miami Herald for over a dozen years, now covers her daily on the Washington beat. Drawing on his personal experience as well as on in-depth interviews with many of her close friends and family, Anderson explores Janet Reno's past and offers penetrating insight into her rugged South Florida childhood; her years at Harvard Law School, where she was one of sixteen women in a class of 525; and her tenure as an innovative prosecutor in Miami, an ethnically diverse city at Ground Zero in the war on drugs. He analyzes her bruising battles with the White House and Capitol Hill and examines the impact she has had on Washington behind the scenes.

Janet Reno's first year in office revealed some hard truths. Even as she captured the public imagination with her legendary intransigence on matters of personal principle, she found that standing on principle can be lonely. But as she struggled to take control of the vast bureaucracy at the Justice Department, the nation always knew where she stood on crime, on gun control, and, especially, on the nation's children in crisis. Paul Anderson's chronicle of Reno's initiation into the ways of Washington provides an unprecedented glimpse of the complex person inside the public figure - the fun-loving friend who cherishes her solitude and hasn't had a romantic relationship in years, the beloved aunt and passionate advocate of children who never had a child of her own. Brutally frank, uninterested in what is fashionable or trendy, unimpressed with wealth, Reno would rather hike the Everglades than attend a White House ball. She is a true American original.

But how will Janet Reno fare in the coming seasons? So far, her prickly sense of principle has served her well. She thrives politically because she is seen by voters as uncompromising and willing to accept responsibility for her decisions. But what will happen in the inevitable conflict she faces in a city known for its willingness to sacrifice principle for expediency? Paul Anderson offers clues to her future in Washington D.C. With photographs, including family snapshots, tracing Reno's rise to national prominence, Janet Reno: Doing the Right Thing is a rewarding close-up look at the woman at the pinnacle of America's legal establishment.

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