Brownstein, Ronald and Easton, Nina. Reagan's Ruling Class: Portraits of the President's Top One Hundred Officials. New York: Pantheon Books, 1983. 760 pages. With an introduction by Ralph Nader.

The authors of this book are staff writers for Ralph Nader, whose Public Interest Research Group provided additional support. Of the 100 officials profiled, 57 agreed to interviews. Each profile includes a photo and averages five or more pages, which is broken down into a description of the responsibilities of the office, general biographical information, major issues surrounding the individual's performance in office so far, and a section detailing data from the individual's financial disclosure form filed with the Office of Government Ethics.

The authors spent a year collecting information, and the first edition went to press in 1982. In other words, this excellent compilation is only able to spotlight the first year of what turned out to be a disastrous twelve years of Republican mischief. As Nader points out, "Over a fourth of the top one hundred Reagan Administration officials have net worths of seven figures, or more.... Little of this wealth was inherited. The nouveau riche status may help to explain the absence of noblesse oblige which has characterized the paternalism of the Old Rich who entered politics." Ten years later the rich are richer, the middle class is poorer, and mainstream journalists are beginning to notice that they missed the biggest story of the 1980s.
ISBN 0-394-71495-4

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