President Nixon (A Biography)

Author: Richard Reeves
Publisher: Simon
Publication Date: 2002-10-01
Features: Book Description This biography shows a man alone in a White House ruled by secrets and lies, trying to impose old values at home and new balances of power everywhere in the world. The bestselling author of President Kennedy presents a stunning account of the brilliant and isolated man who destroyed his own presidency. President Nixon shows a man alone in a White House ruled by secrets and lies, trying to impose old values at home and new balances of power everywhere in the world. Reeves proves that the Watergate scandal was no aberration in an administration foreseen by a series of successful uses of 'national security' to cover coups, burglaries, lies, the abandonment of America's allies—and even murder. Reeves portrays a man of vision and iron will who created, used, and was used by a small cast of hard, ambitious men who formed a poisonous circle around their insecure leader. Alone, Nixon challenged and changed the world's political and military balance while also plotting to destroy both the Democratic and Republican parties in an attempt to secretly create a new party of the centre. This account of Nixon's stewardship will stand as the balanced, authoritative portrait of an astonishing president and his ruined presidency. Download Description Who was Richard Nixon? The most amazing thing about the man was not what he did as president, but that he became president at all. In President Nixon, Richard Reeves has used thousands of new interviews and recently discovered or declassified documents and tapes—including Nixon's tortured memos to himself and unpublished sections of H.R. Haldeman's diaries—to offer a nuanced and surprising portrait of the brilliant and contradictory man alone in the White House. President Nixon is a startling narrative of a desperately introverted man who dreamed of becoming the architect of his times. Late at night, he sat up in the White House writing notes to himself on his yellow pads, struggling to define himself and his goals: "Compassionate, Bold, New, Courageous... Zest for the job (not lonely but awesome). Goals—reorganized govt... Each day a chance to do something memorable for someone. Need to be good to do good... Need for joy, serenity, confidence, inspiration." But downstairs he was building a house of deception. He could trust no one because in his isolation he thought other people were like him. He governed by secret orders and false records, memorizing scripts for public appearances and even for one-on-one meetings with his own staff and cabinet. His principal assistants, Haldeman and Henry Kissinger, spied on him as he spied on them, while cabinet members, generals, and admirals spied on all of them—rifling briefcases and desks, tapping each other's phones in a house where no one knew what was true anymore. Nixon's first aim was to restore order in an America at war with itself over Vietnam. But in fact he prolonged the fighting there, lying systematically about what was happening both in the field and in the peace negotiations. He startled the world by going to communist China and seeking détente with the Soviet Union—and then secretly persuaded Mao and Brezhnev to lie for him to protect petty White House secrets. Amazon.com Drawing on thousands of pages of archival material and interviews with surviving associates, presidential biographer Reeves paints a complex, sometimes disturbing portrait of the man forever enshrined as Tricky Dick. "I have decided my major role is more leadership," Nixon wrote in 1972 in one of his myriad memos to himself. (As Reeves writes, "Whatever else he accomplished, Richard Nixon produced more paper and tape than any president before or since.") That resolution quickly collapsed; instead, as the Vietnam War shaded into defeat and protests at home mounted, Nixon sank into a siege mentality, seeing himself as a lone crusader at war with the rest of the world. Reeves examines the cat-and-mouse quality of Nixon's relations with his inner circle and family, as well as the excruciating collapse of national leadership in the wake of missteps, miscalculations, and sheer crimes. Rigorous and thoughtful, Reeves's book adds much to our understanding of Nixon's troubled presidency—and of his troubled soul. —Gregory McNamee —This text refers to the Hardcover edition.