American based Federation World Airlines has just acquired a Concorde jet, which will make its inaugural commercial flight from Washington D.C. to Paris and then to Moscow as a goodwill gesture prior to the 1980 Olympic Games. Among those on board is Maggie Whelan, a television reporter, who is taking both legs of the trip. Just after boarding at Dulles International Airport, she receives documents conclusively and unequivocally stating that her boyfriend, Dr. Kevin Harrison, the Chairman of Harrison Industries, an aerospace contractor, is complicit of illegally selling arms to enemy regimes. Regardless, Maggie loves Kevin, who vows to do the right thing by making a public statement to his illegal activities. Maggie also intends on making an on-air report of the story once she arrives in Moscow. Kevin, however, has other thoughts. He plans on destroying the documents, the most convenient way being to bring down the Concorde with Maggie aboard, initially having the attack on the plane ...

Texan rancher Bick Benedict visits a Maryland farm to buy a prize horse. Whilst there he meets and falls in love with the owner's daughter Leslie, they are married immediately and return to his ranch. The story of their family and its rivalry with cowboy and (later oil tycoon) Jett Rink unfolds across two generations.

Jack Burden is a newspaper reporter who first hears of Willie Stark when his editor sends him to Kanoma County to cover the man. What's special about this nobody running for county treasurer? He's supposedly an honest man. Burden discovers this to be true when he sees Stark delivering a speech and having his son pass out handbills, while the local politicians do their best to intimidate him. Willie Stark is honest and brave. He's also a know-nothing hick whose schoolteacher wife has given him what little education he has. Stark loses the race for treasurer, but later makes his way through law school, becoming an idealistic attorney who fights for what is good. Someone in the governor's employ remembers Stark when the governor needs a patsy to run against him and split the vote of his rival. The fat cats underestimate Stark; but Jack Burden, Stark's biggest supporter...