At the start of his 1962 memoir, Strauss states his belief that "the right to live in the social order established the American founding is so priceless a privilege that no sacrifice to preserve it is too great." This sentiment became the basis of the title of, and the interpretative framework for, "No Sacrifice Too Great", Richard Pfau's 1984 biography of Strauss, which was authorized by the Strauss estate. In it, Pfau acknowledges the ugly and unlawful episodes in Strauss's life, but presents them as the acts of a man with integrity who felt compelled to do what was necessary to protect the nation. Historian Barton J. Bernstein disagrees with this approach, saying that the framework is too generous and that Pfau errs in "seeing Strauss as a man of great integrity (Strauss's own claim) rather than as a man who used such claims to conceal sleazy behavior."