Knopf to publish political memoir by former Secretary of Labor Robert B. Reich.

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 19, 1997--

He details his experience inside the Clinton Administration in "Locked in the Cabinet," to be published April 25th

Alfred A. Knopf Inc. announced today a major addition to its spring publishing list - a memoir by former Secretary of Labor Robert B. Reich of his four years as one of the highest-ranking members of the first Clinton administration. Entitled "Locked in the Cabinet," it will be published on April 25th.

Reich's book grew out of the journal he maintained while he was Secretary of Labor. Since leaving the government to return to private life, he has devoted his time to preparing his book for publication. The manuscript was completed late last week.

"Locked in the Cabinet" is a close-up view of the way things work, and often don't work, at the top echelons of government - and a uniquely personal account by the man whose ideas inspired and animated much of the Clinton campaign of 1992, and who became the cabinet officer in charge of helping ordinary Americans get better jobs.

Reich, writer, teacher, social critic, and a friend of President and Mrs. Clinton since they were all in their twenties, came to be known as the "conscience" of the Clinton administration and one of the most successful Labor Secretaries in history. His book is a sometimes hilarious, sometimes poignant chronicle of his efforts to put ideas and ideals into practice.

With wit, passion, and dead-aim honesty, Reich writes of those in Washington who possess hard heads and soft hearts, and those with exactly the opposite attributes. "Locked in the Cabinet" is an intimate odyssey with a memorable cast - a friend who is elected President of the United States, only to discover the limits of power; Alan Greenspan, who is the most powerful man in America; and Newt Gingrich, who tries to be.

And a host of others: White House staffers and cabinet members who can't find "the loop"; political consultant Dick Morris, who becomes "the loop"; baseball players and owners who can't agree on how to divide up $2 billion a year; a union leader who accuses Reich of not knowing what a screwdriver looks like; a heretofore invisible civil servant deep in the Labor Department whose brainchild becomes the law of the land; and a wondrous collection of senators, foreign ministers, cabinet officers, and television celebrities.

Here is Reich - determined to work for a more just society, laboring in a capital obsessed with exorcising the deficit and keeping Wall Street happy - learning that Washington is not only altogether different from the world of ordinary citizens but ultimately, and more importantly, exactly like it; a world in which Murphy's Law reigns alongside the powerful and the privileged, but where hope amazingly persists.

Reich is University Professor of social and economic policy at Brandeis University's Heller School. He is the author of seven books, including "The Work of Nations," "The Resurgent Liberal," "Tales of a New America," and "The Next American Frontier." He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with this wife and their two sons.

CONTACT: Alfred A. Knopf Inc.

William T. Loverd, 212/572-2103

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