Imbued with rugged individualism and fierce independence from his youth on the Kansas plains, Arlen Specter became a renowned big-city prosecutor and then a respected, powerful U.S. senator.

His remarkable forty-year career has encompassed such milestones as originating the Single-Bullet Theory for the Warren Commission; derailing Judge Robert Bork's Supreme Court nomination; interrogating Anita Hill; and playing an important role in President Clinton's impeachment proceedings.

In this brutally honest book, Senator Specter analyzes these and other controversies, assessing each through both a legal and a historical lens. Throughout, he tells the truth, naming names, identifying where the system worked and where it failed -- and even admits to his own mistakes. This illuminating memoir is vintage Specter. thoughtful, provocative, and deeply informative.

Specter opens Passion for Truth in 1959, recounting his beginnings as a newly minted assistant district attorney prosecuting union racketeers -- and earning the recognition and respect of Attorney General Robert Kennedy, who would later call on Specter to serve on the Warren Commission. He describes his election to the office of district attorney at the age of thirty-five and how he structured what would become the model for the modern prosecutor's office. He also details his landmark crusades to promote the legal rights of victims at sentencing, to preserve evidence for rape prosecution, and to expose the inhumane treatment of America's prison population.

I Elected to the Senate in 1980, Specter continued his tireless fight for crime control and judicial reform at the national level. His wisdom and experience would prove invaluable in such measures as the creation of the office of CIA inspector general -- the only tangible reform to follow the Iran-Contra scandal -- and the investigation of the killings at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, which in turn led the FBI to change its rules of engagement on the use of deadly force. And as the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Judiciary Committee on Terrorism, he held top Pentagon officials accountable for the truck bombing of Khobar Towers, which left nineteen Americans dead at the U.S. Air Force base in Saudi Arabia.

In this gripping political masterpiece, Arlen Specter brings all of these events to life, taking the reader into the courtroom, the cloakroom, and the Senate chamber, and offers a clear and honest vision for reforming the way Main Street and Wall Street are governed.