Book excerpt: With the nation at war in the 1940s, 22-year-old Jack Valenti flew combat in Italy. He was in that fateful Dallas motorcade in 1963, flew back to Washington with the new president, and for three years worked in the inner circle of the White House as special assistant to President Johnson. Then, for the next 38 years, with American society and popular culture undergoing a revolutionary transformation, Valenti was the public face of Hollywood in his capacity as head of the Motion Picture Association of America. From growing up poor in a neighborhood of Greek and Italian immigrants in Houston to rising to the highest summits both of national government and Hollywood, Valenti has led several lives. Here is a candid reflection of the life of a brilliantly successful man who helped to shape politics and entertainment in the second half of the twentieth century.