As Chairman of the Federal Reserve

Board, Paul Volcker reigned over

this country s most important

financial institution. His

controversial tenure led many to

view him as the second most

powerful man in America. In fact,

his influence was so profound that

even minor announcements from his

office resulted in shifts in global

financial markets.

Yet as one of the most publicized

economic leaders of our time,

Volcker leads a very private life and

little has been known of the man, of

his rise to the top, or of his sudden

resignation--until now. Volcker:

Portrait of the Money Man offers a

rare and insightful look into the

mind of the man behind the aloof

public image, the man whose

decisions have altered economies of

countries around the world.

Through exhaustive research and

hours of private interviews with the

former Chairman, award-winning

Washington correspondent William

Neikirk brings the reader behind

closed doors into top-level meetings

of the Federal Reserve. He examines

Volcker s unprecedented decision to

extend immense loans to the

Mexican government, which

jeopardized billions in American"

dollars. He probes the Chairman s

decision to restrict the nation s

money supply in the early 1980s, a

move that would have cataclysmic

repercussions and drive the country

into its worst recession since the

1930s. Neikirk examines why Volcker

chose to step in and bail out