This book is the definitive account of how private citizens, led by Mary Lasker, Sidney Farber, Laurence Rockefeller, Benno Schmidt, and Ann Landers, persuaded Congress to enact the "War on Cancer" legislation; how Senator Edward Kennedy championed the cause in the US Senate; how Rep. Paul Rogers brokered a compromise that kept the National Cancer Institute within the National Institutes of Health; and how President Richard Nixon embraced the legislation even though he had earlier proposed to cut the cancer research budget. In the wave of technological enthusiasm from putting a man on the moon, the account documents the exaggerated claims for cancer research advanced by advocates of the legislation and the sober evaluation by the scientific community of prospects for a cure for cancer. The 1971 National Cancer Act set the stage for major expansion of federal financing of cancer research.

Barbara's strength and inspiration was to warn 50,000 Canadian school children and millions of other North Americans about the dangers of smoking.