Protect and Defend [Signed by Nancy Pelosi and 117 Other Washington VIPs] by Jack Valenti - 1992

New York: Doubleday, 1992. Very Good/Very Good. New York: Doubleday, 1992. Stated First Edition. Octavo; [iii] + 299pp. Pictorial dust jacket. Gray boards with blue cloth spine, lettered in gold.

Unclipped jacket is pristine, as new. Binding as new; textblock unmarked, seemingly never read.

Jack Valenti, special assistant to Lyndon Johnson in the mid-60s, and former president of the Motion Picture Association of America, appears to have held his political thriller novel in front of every prominent Washingtonian he met as he collected the 118 signatures to be found on the front pastedown, front free endpaper obverse and reverse, initial leaf, rear free endpaper obverse and reverse, and rear pastedown. Among the prominent Washingtonians, still famous or now forgotten, recently heroic or historically shamed, who signed this copy for him are-in selective and cinematic order of appearance-Ruth Boorstin, Amy Bondurant, Susan Toffler, Howard Coble, Mr. and Mrs. Mark Hatfield, Jr., Kevin Chaffee, Ted and Catherine Stevens, Nancy Pelosi, Strom Thurmond, Bob Dole, Lloyd Bentsen, Mark Hatfield III, Jr., John Warner, Ed Markey, Larry King, Tom Daschle, Dick Lugar, Bob Packwood, Patrick Leahy, Anne Wexler, and Ted Kennedy. Other names are lost to history; many are lost to indecipherable penmanship. The epitome of a DC treasure.