As a Washington correspondent for NBC News for almost 20 years, Mr. Valeriani covered the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon, and wrote Travels With Henry (Houghton, Mifflin, 1979), about the 500,000-plus miles he traveled covering Henry A. Kissinger, then Secretary of State.

He left NBC in 1988 and now works as a freelance journalist; gives seminars at the Buckley School of Public Speaking in Camden, S.C.; and is a consultant with MediaPrompt, in Stamford.