James Reston Jr. is the author of 15 books, three plays, and numerous articles in national magazines. In 1963 he graduated from the University of North Carolina on a Morehead Scholarship where he received a B.A. in philosophy. After graduation, he served as assistant to Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall. His latest book, Accidental Victim, about the Dallas assassination is dedicated to Udall. From 1965-68 he served in the U.S. Army as an intelligence officer. His first book, To Defend, To Destroy, a novel, was published in 1971. In 1983, Reston won the Prix Italia and the Dupont-Columbia Award for his 90-minute NPR radio documentary Father Cares: The Last of Jonestown.

In 1998, Reston published The Last Apocalypse: Europe in the Year 1000 A.D., a main selection of the Book of the Month Club. This was followed by Warriors of God: Richard the Lionheart and Saladin, which has sold more than 250,000 copies worldwide. Fragile Innocence, his 2006 memoir about raising a handicapped daughter, was a Washington Post top-ten bestseller. In 1976-77, he was David Frost's Watergate adviser for the famous Frost/Nixon interviews, seen by 57 million people worldwide. His account of that experience, The Conviction of Richard Nixon: The Untold Story of the Frost/Nixon Interviews, published in 2007, was British playwright Peter Morgan's main inspiration in the making of his hit play Frost/Nixon, a drama later made into an Oscar-nominated movie directed by Ron Howard. In the movie, Reston is played by actor Sam Rockwell.