BOOKS BREAD AND WINE
by Jack Casserly

TO PLANT A SEED

BOOKS BREAD AND WINE are the beginning and end of most lives. From a poor Great Depression kid to traveling the world, BOOKS BREAD AND WINE have towered over my existence. BOOKS led me to become a reporter, author and sidewalk philosopher. They lead most people to knowledge and vision. Great hunger as a child taught me respect for man's daily BREAD. And a glass of WINE was a peacemaker wherever I wandered. Age and books have led me year by year to a fork in the road. The spiritual soul has become more important than the intellectual man. This is an inevitable choice between the mortal and immortal in each of us. I began this website to better understand why I found myself at this crossroads. Meng Tze, a venerable Chinese scholar and dear friend of many years, told me of an ancient secret: "You're now approaching 80 years of life. At that reverent time, a man must have fashioned himself into a complete gentleman. He is reaching for the mountain of his existence, the Mandate of Heaven." Meng was a 72nd generation descendant of Mencius, the Chinese philosopher of the 3rd century B.C. who was second only to Confucius himself in developing Confucianism. I pondered his meaning -- the heavenly mandate to choose perfection of the spiritual life over mortal concerns. Thus, my prayer is to plant a seed in this small spot where truth and tranquility may rise in the wilderness of those who have chosen the wrong direction.

John J. “Jack” Casserly was a longtime foreign correspondent (ABC News and Hearst), national reporter, and a current author. He reported from some 60 countries, including the wars in Korea, Algeria, the Middle East, Latin America, and Vietnam. He wrote ten books, including a New York Times bestseller (Goldwater). He also covered the Congress and White House and later became a speechwriter for President Gerald Ford. He was a 1985 Harvard Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government’s Institute of Politics.

Casserly was born in Chicago and was graduated from Marquette University School of Journalism in 1951. He was already a reporter on the Milwaukee Sentinel and soon was covering the Korean conflict for International News Service. After the war, he was assigned to INS New York and in 1957 became the wire service’s bureau chief in Rome, Italy. He also covered North Africa, the Mideast and other parts of Africa from there. After seven years in Rome, Casserly was assigned to ABC Washington in 1964. In 1966, he reported from Vietnam and spent most of 1967 covering Dr. Martin King, Jr. He closed his news career as the editorial assistant to William Randolph Hearst, Jr., in New York.

In addition to the Goldwater book, Casserly wrote these works: The Ford White House; The Hearsts--Father and Son; Scripps--The Divided Dynasty; Once upon a Time in Italy; and five novels--The Dancing Angel; Lions in the City, Invisible Wounds.The Triumph at Tiananmen Square and Caesar's Coin.

Casserly is a longtime member of the Authors Guild and the Overseas Press Club in New York. He lives with his wife, Joy Ruth, in Arizona. They have four sons.

CHINA WILL DISMANTLE THE OLD WORLD ORDER

The 21st century is dawning over China and the East. The Old World Order now wanes over the Western world. That is why it is important to read THE TRIUMPH AT TIANANMEN SQUARE. It explains the background to the 1989 massacre and many of the reasons for the momentous changes now taking place in the New China.
China is poised to surpass even the remarkably rapid ascent of the U.S.A. as a global economic and military superpower. Some 85% of the world's entire economic growth over the next 20 years will come from China and India. China has soared from producing 45% of the U.S. economy to 97% of the American output. That means in the next year or two China could be more critical to the world economy than America. Top U.S. investment brokers say that China's currency will rise to a stunning degree against the U.S. dollar in the next five years. Never in history has a nation developed at such an astonishing speed as China. The Chinese economic revolution will impact every country in the world. U.S. and European industries, in particular, have never encountered such competition. To know China is the understand the global future. THE TRIUMPH AT TIANANMEN SQUARE telescopes the past and coming decades.