Greenspan Discusses Memoir With Publishers

Alan Greenspan is in talks with major publishers about writing a memoir, and bidding for the former central banker’s story already has reached $5 million, sources familiar with his proposal said Monday.

Greenspan is represented by Washington-based lawyer Robert Barnett, who negotiated an $8-million advance for Sen. Hillary Clinton with Simon & Schuster and a $12-million deal for former President Clinton’s memoir, published by Random House imprint Alfred A. Knopf.

One Random House executive confirmed that the publisher was among those looking at Greenspan’s proposal.

Greenspan retired at the end of January after 18 1/2 years as Federal Reserve chairman. He became a household name for playing a key role during America’s longest economic expansion in the 1990s.

Those familiar with the book proposal said it had not been decided whether Greenspan would write the book alone or hire a ghostwriter for the memoir, which will tell of his years as America’s top central banker, the monetary and fiscal crises he handled and the people he met.

Anne Soukhanov, the U.S. editor of Microsoft’s Encarta college dictionary, said Greenspan’s challenge would be “writing in a language the average person can understand.”

Greenspan’s choice of words can sound “like gibberish to Joe Sixpack who is trying to figure out where the economy is going.”