Lou Cannon
Author

Lou Cannon is the foremost biographer of Ronald Reagan. He has written five books about Reagan, including the acclaimed PresidentReagan: TheRoleofaLifetime, a Book of the Month Club main selection when first published by Simon and Schuster in 1991. 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." George F. Will said that Cannon was "Reagan's best biographer."

An updated version of President Reagan 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. In 2003, PublicAffairs published Governor Reagan: His Rise to Power. "It's another major contribution to Cannon's definitive portrait of The Gipper," said columnist David S. Broder of The Washington Post. Michael Barone of U.S. News and World Report called it "essential reading for anyone who wants to understand Ronald Reagan." Both books were reissued in a 2004 slipcover edition under the title, Ronald Reagan: His Life in Politics.

Cannon worked 26 years for The Washington Post, where he won many awards and was considered a "reporter's reporter" by his colleagues. Subsequently, he was a contributing editor and then chief executive officer of California Journal, an acclaimed non-partisan magazine. He has lectured frequently on the presidency, the media, California politics, and police issues.

Among Cannon's noteworthy books is OfficialNegligence: HowRodneyKingandtheRiotsChangedLosAngelesandtheLAPD, published in 1998 by Times Books and in paperback in 1999 by Westview Press. Garry Wills called this monumental social history "a classic," The LosAngelesTimes ranked OfficialNegligence 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."

In 2001, PublicAffairs published Ronald Reagan: The Presidential Portfolio, an illustrated history from the collection of The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum. It includes a wealth of photographs, documents, artifacts, some published for the first time, plus a 60-minute audio CD with excerpts from key Reagan speeches and a discussion by Cannon of the Reagan legacy. Cannon's earlier Reagan books include Reagan (1982) and Ronnie&Jesse: APoliticalOdyssey (1969) a dual biography of Reagan and the late Jesse Unruh. His books on other subjects include The McCloskey Challenge (1972) and Reporting: An Inside View (1977).

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 SanJoseMercury-News. He moved to Washington as a national correspondent for Ridder Publications. Beginning in 1972 he worked for TheWashingtonPost, as political reporter, White House correspondent, columnist, and Los Angeles bureau chief. During the Reagan presidency, Cannon was the senior White House correspondent for TheWashingtonPost and wrote a weekly syndicated column.

Cannon was honored by the American Political Science Association in 1969 for "distinguished reporting of public affairs." In 1984 he received the White House Correspondents Association's 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.

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 articles for Smithsonian magazine, NationalReview, and George and op-ed pieces for The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and other newspapers.

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 .