Byrd begins, for instance, by explaining that he was an ambitious 25-year-old butcher in West Virginia in the early 1940s when opportunity knocked: a chance to prove his mettle by joining the black-hating, Jew-baiting, anti-Catholic organization.

Byrd threw himself into the challenge, recruiting 150 new Klansman as a Klan Kleagle in just a few months.

The feat so impressed Klan Grand Dragon Joel Baskin that Baskin urged the eager Klansman to enter politics. "The country needs young men like you in the leadership of the nation," the Grand Dragon advised.

According to coverage of the book in the Washington Post, Byrd promptly took Baskin's advice, running for the position of the Klan "Exalted Cyclops" - the top spot in his local KKK chapter.

Byrd won the race "unanimously," he reveals.

Another telling detail: Byrd's father was a full-fledged Klansman, who participated in KKK parades as his young son cheered from the sidelines.

In less credible passages of the book, the West Virginia Democrat tries to paint the Klan not as a gang of notorious nightriders but as a Southern version of the Rotary or Elks Club.

According to the Post, Byrd insists that the Klan was "a fraternal group of elites – doctors, lawyers, clergy, judges and other 'upstanding' people."

At no time, claims the former Senate majority leader, did the Klan he knew preach violence against blacks, Jews or Catholics.

Byrd also apparently shades the truth about the amount of time he spent as a Klansman.

During his first race for the House in 1952, his opponent made an issue of his Klan ties. In a dramatic radio address, the would-be congressman acknowledged that he had once been a Klansman, but only from "mid-1942 to early 1943," after which he had cut his ties.

A few months later, however, contrary evidence emerged.

It was a 1946 letter handwritten by the West Virginia Democrat to the Klan's Grand Imperial Wizard. "The Klan is needed today as never before, and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia," Byrd insisted.

The top Senate Democrat declines to explain the discrepancy in his memoir.

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