Bush strategist Karl Rove to write memoirs

NEW YORK - Republican strategist Karl Rove has agreed to write about his years as an adviser to President George W. Bush in a deal worth more than US$1.5 million, publishing officials said Friday.

Rove, the architect of Bush's successful 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns and one of the most influential political advisers of his time, signed the deal with Threshold Editions, former colleague Mary Matalin's imprint at the Simon & Schuster publishing house, Threshold's publisher and executive vice president Louise Burke said.

"All of us at Threshold are thrilled to publish the book from the man who had the president's ear for two terms." said Burke.

Rove's agent, lawyer Robert Barnett, said Threshold was chosen over eight other publishers who submitted bids. Threshold did not say how much Rove would be paid, but the bidding reached at least $1.5 million, two publishing officials familiar with the bidding told The Associated Press.

Rove said in a statement that the memoir would offer "a candid, careful look" at Bush's presidency and his role in it.

"It will tackle and shed light on important events and big controversies, spell out their implications for America and set the record straight."

Publishers earlier this year had expressed reservations after Rove announced he would write about his White House years, wondering how much he would reveal.

Rove and Bush have known each other for more than 30 years, dating back to Bush's unsuccessful 1978 congressional campaign in Texas. Rove was a key adviser in Bush's Texas gubernatorial campaigns in 1994 and 1998, and was the chief strategist when Bush won the White House in 2000.

Bush nicknamed Rove "the architect" and "boy genius" for successfully plotting two national election strategies and helping strengthen Republican majorities in Congress in 2002 and 2004.

Rove came under scrutiny in a criminal investigation into the 2003 leak of a CIA operative's name. He testified five times before a federal grand jury, occasionally correcting misstatements made in earlier testimony, but he was never charged with any crime.

The trial of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby on charges of lying and obstructing justice established that Rove was one of the administration officials who leaked the name of the CIA officer, Valerie Plame.

Libby was the only person to face criminal charges in the case. No one was charged with the leak itself, which Plame alleges was politically motivated. Her husband Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador, was a vocal critic of the Bush administration's Iraq war policy.

In a more recent controversy, Rove refused to testify before Congress about the firing of several U.S. attorneys, citing executive privilege.

Said Matalin, a former adviser to Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney and Threshold's editor in chief: "Karl was always in a league of his own in the world of electoral politics and he now will literally create a unique genre for historians, policy makers, political junkies and serious readers."