New Delhi, Jan. 28: President Pranab Mukherjee today added a footnote minutes after the second volume of his three-part memoir was released: "highly controversial matters" he has been privy to would be buried with him. (Unless some hacker breaks open a digital vault.)

"People may be disappointed" with The Turbulent Years but this is a deliberate decision, Mukherjee said, adding that Sharmistha Mukherjee, his daughter and the custodian of his diaries, had been told to digitise them but never to release them. "Some facts are to be buried with me."

Dwelling on the decision, Mukherjee acknowledged that there are different views on how to treat confidential matters of state in memoirs written by people in positions of power. Many, including former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, had written about facts of state, he added.

"I have a conservative view. As and when they are released by the government, they will come out but I am bound by oath not to divulge any information that I have come to know as minister," said the one-time trouble-shooter for several Congress governments at the Centre.

His proximity to former Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi - the latter briefly - was such that it drew ridicule from inside and outside the party.

One instance is mentioned in the book. Dyed-in-the-wool Congressman Vasant Sathe is quoted as stating - with a dig at Mukherjee's modest height - when Rajiv Gandhi accepted his advice against nationalising Union Carbide after the Bhopal gas tragedy: "Like Indiraji's government, this one, too, is being run by one-and-a-half men (meaning the Prime Minister and I)."

Although the book has been titled The Turbulent Years, Mukherjee has measured his words. Karan Singh, a fellow-traveller for 50 years, said the book provided a shrewd assessment of various Prime Ministers - Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, P.V. Narasimha Rao and Chandra Shekhar - without dwelling on them too much.

Mukherjee has described his own "misadventure"- launching a political party, the Rashtriya Samajwadi Congress, after being "expelled'' from the Congress under Rajiv - as a "fiasco". This detail was flagged by both Congressman Singh and BJP Rajya Sabha member Chandan Mitra in their introductions to the book.

Mitra also alluded to the quip that is often associated with Mukherjee: That he is prime minister for life owing to his initials (PM). "Many feel he should have lived up to the initials...," Mitra said, adding that the President has not sparked any controversy in the book published by Rupa Publications.

While this book tracks his political journey from 1980 to 1996, the first part released in 2014 - The Dramatic Decade: The Indira Gandhi Years -maps Mukherjee's early years in politics. The last in the series will bring it up to speed till July 2012 when he moved into Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Vice-President Hamid Ansari and former foreign minister Natwar Singh, both former career diplomats and who feature in the book for their role in the successful hosting of the NAM (Non-Aligned Movement) Summit in 1982, were present at the book launch.