The Transition to Governing Project is pleased to publish Preparing to Be President: The Memos of Richard E. Neustadt. The volume includes memos Neustadt wrote to presidential candidates, presidents-elect, presidents, and their advisers discussing how to make a smooth transition into office.

Shortly after the publication forty years ago of Presidential Power , the most influential modern book onthe presidency, Richard E. Neustadt was asked by then-senator John F. Kennedy to write a series of memos to plan for the transition into office. He obliged the request and later penned transition memos for Reagan, Dukakis, and Clinton. Preparing to Be President presents the previously unpublished memos of the person Arthur J. Schlesinger, Jr., calls "our most brilliant commentator on the Presidency," along with substantial new essays by Neustadt and volume editor Charles O. Jones. This volume provides historical accounts and critical insights into how a new administration takes shape*and what happens behind the scenes between Election Day and inauguration.

Richard E. Neustadt is the Douglas Dillon Professor of Government Emeritus at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. For four decades he was an adviser to presidents, their aides, and members of the cabinet. Charles O. Jones is the Hawkins Professor of Political Science Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and a nonresident senior fellow at Brookings. He is the author of numerous books, including Passages to the Presidency: From Campaigning to Governing (Brookings, 1998), the most current book-length study of presidential transitions. Preparing to Be President is available from the AEI and Brookings presses.