Nothing Random About Random House

I was sitting in my office, feeling left out. Was I the only person in the country who had not been slipped an advance copy of Colin Powell’s book? Then I heard a hum.

Mirabile faxu! Someone at Random House remembered me. And they were leaking me something even more valuable than the book - a confidential memo about the book, typed on the pooh-bah’s stationery:

Date: Aug. 1, 1995

From: Harry Evans

To: Colin Powell

Re: The campaign

Now that your presidential campaign is about to go into hard covers, I would like to review our strategy.

If my orchestration of your book tour goes as planned, in the course of a single breathless week you will be transformed from a self-promoting bureaucrat who left Saddam in power to an overwhelming favorite to win the White House. Remember, “Crusade in Europe” helped get Eisenhower the Republican nomination, and that was back before Larry King invented the fawn-o-rama.

I understand your distaste for the traditional political process. It’s grubby and demeaning for a man such as yourself to bother with pig roasts, position papers and small-time reporters. That is the beauty of our plan: You float above the fray, a generalizing general. Merchandising transcends politics. No, merchandising is politics. With a first printing of 950,000, who needs a vision?

I’m pretty certain you can be bigger than the pope. (He works with our people, too. He’ll be here next month. Let’s do lunch.) You can bypass New Hampshire and Iowa and go straight to the Kirkus primary. Don’t worry about those books by Lamar Alexander and Ross Perot. They’ll only get Sally Jessy.

Stay on message as you crisscross the country: “I’m not campaigning at the moment,” “I don’t know if I’ll ever campaign” and “I’m not an expert on these matters yet.” Rehearse these lines as often as you did that brilliant “Cut it off and kill it” line about the Iraqi army. (Maybe you should have rehearsed the “kill it” a little more. Ha, ha!)

You have a gift for elusiveness rare in this confessional age. The book is a slippery masterpiece, eluding your role in various world travesties. From My Lai to Iran-Contra to Desert Storm, you had a bad feeling but by the time things blew up you had moved on, and it was not your fault. Don’t mention your pals Woodward and Bradlee at the Wal-Marts. If people realize what a total Beltway animal you are, we won’t be able to protect you from pork rinds. And try not to sound so defensive when you talk about Saddam. Remember, you were not the president or secretary of defense. It was not your fault.

Our marketing strategy is a dynamic mix of access and the denial of access. This will whip everyone into a frenzy. We kick off the campaign with a party at I Trulli on the East Side. Tina and I will round up the usual elites. Eat fruit tart enigmatically and offer some Reaganesque remarks about how there is no limit to how far this country can go. Liz Smith will rave about the bound asparagus. Wait until she sees the bound book!

We’ve also arranged a conglomerate tease. We sell excerpts to Time, and then shriek when Newsweek purloins the book, giving us double exposure. Time will be mad, but they’ll still pony up a party in Washington.

We’ll give an exclusive - I know you prefer to be inclusive, ha, ha! - on the “issues” to Barbara Walters. The papers will have to run excerpts from an ABC press release hyping the Walters interview because we’ll bar them from writing about the book for several more days! This will be part of an elaborate series of cascading embargoes. If reporters whine that they feel exploited, just murmur: “I’m sorry. Random House has my hands tied.” It isn’t your fault.

Then you move on to Katie-Tom-Larry-David-Jay, never letting yourself be pinned down. Say it would be easiest to run as a Republican. Also say that the time has arrived for a third party. Also say that you haven’t ruled out challenging Bill Clinton. (Note: Don’t get the Larrys confused. Sanders is not a real talk show host.)

Don’t worry about a conflict of interest. I’ll be available for more image consulting once you’re in the Oval Office. What’s good for Random House is good for the United States.