Nixon, Richard Milhous

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I think..
Slice of history from a man who shaped it
History by the man who caused history
RN - A Deeply Flawed, Great Man. Fascinating.
A Great Read from a Great but Flawed President

RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0671707418

Customer Reviews:

I think.........2007-02-16

what this man did was wrong in terms of his involvement and his support of bullying in the whitehouse. This man was seen as one of the most liberal presidents and founded the Environmental Protection agengy as well as food stamps and strove to implement far reaching welfare reforms. He did many things we equivocate with democratic setbacks, and we have to wonder how much the nation suffered. He tried to protect himself under the presidency: Was he attacked? The FBI tried to sheild us from this man, and we have to wonder where the balance lies. Surely this man did great things perhaps as no president has done after him for social reform. Much to ponder. In later years, he confessed to wrongdoing and advised several presidents without want of attention or credit.I tend to like Mr. Nixon, but tend also to grieve his past actions against the war demonstrators in terms of actions he could not implement as he did not have the support of the FBI. The problem was the wire tapping of journalists, and the breaking into a psychiatrists office to try to get info on one of the journalists who oppose Nixon. Yes,much to think about. Am I bothered by racial remarks he's made on tape when he tried to institute the largest welfare program since FDR saved us from the depression? Save for perhaps Kennedy..No. I think his actions counterbalance the remarks he's made. The wiretapping and the break in are his shame, more so the wiretapping as I'm not sure about the extent of the involvement he had in that. I enjoy Mr. Nixon's attempt to guide the nation via advice of succeeding presidents and look forward to reading thE progressive social policy that's in his seven books.

Slice of history from a man who shaped it.......2007-02-02

It's always a wondrous experience delving into the lives of American presidents. By now, the trends seem consistent with each other in several respects: the humble beginnings in a kindly rural area (for Nixon, it was a Puritan home in southern California), the warm anecdotes growing up, life in higher education, early political careers and relationships, and finally the culmination of the presidency. It is a terrific journey for the reader that Nixon led an eventful and important life (the Alger Hiss case, his foreign policy, Vietnam, Watergate, etc). Obviously, Nixon's presidency occurred much before my time, so it is worthwhile to gain insight from a perspective that I will double-back on after pouring through, I am sure, the hundreds of material analyzing Nixon's life.

This hefty tome is not only a warm autobiography, but it is also an insider's account into the astounding 20th century. Nixon shaped the century's most crucial events, such as Vietnam and the Soviet threat, which the memoir documents with appreciative detail. Occasionally, of course, the author slips in an expected self-justification for some wrongdoing that occurred, while sometimes barely addressing others (I found it humorous, about one Nixon tale, how he broke into a college professor's office to peek at his exam results; needless to say it's not here).

This is all standard recounting of important life events from a president, but it stands out for being written by a monumental figure that will forever be tied to political life and, more importantly, to political scandal.

History by the man who caused history.......2006-02-06

I read it twenty-five years ago and just read it again. Fast paced until he gets bogged down in justifying his actions in Watergate. Nixon was an excellent writer, but his self-justification requires you to read other bios of the 37th President. From Jerry Vorhis to Alger Hiss to John Dean, a great take on postwar American history by someone who was there.

RN - A Deeply Flawed, Great Man. Fascinating. .......2005-08-08

Nixon became president the month I was born and had left the scene before I became politically aware. Nobody spoke of him during the 70's, or of Johnson for that matter - they belonged to a past era which nobody much wanted to revisit, and so I knew very little about either of them as a kid or teen.

By resigning Nixon had admitted at least some guilt in the vast number of things he was accused of and his abdication was a political cataclysm. Through my childhood years he lived out his old age as a pariah off in San Clemente, California, the personification of the period of enormous turbulence during the height of the Vietnam war. He was the living embodiment of the dark heart and excess of the GOP, and everyone, especially in Democratic Massachusetts, considered him a cancer on the body politic and was happy he was gone.

But his resignation was sincere and he was mostly contrite. In retirement he was a sad old giant in exile and after a while the Press which had hounded him out of office allowed him some dignity as an elder statesman and left him alone.

He's nothing like the caricature I expected. I have to say - I really like him. He's very thoughtful, well spoken, modest, with good intentions towards the country and had a warm, respectful dialogue with the major statesmen and characters of the day.

It's a beautifully written book. It was easy to see how he had become a leader. He had the air of solid, calm composure and reasonableness which I admire. As for doublespeak tendencies, the clues are missing for someone who didn't live through that time period.

The contrast with Bush could not be more clear. Maybe the candor came from Nixon's retirement, but I can't imagine Bush being this straight and honest with his audience. POTUS 43 isn't smart or eloquent enough to write this kind of book, and he's too secretive to make that leap of trust with the little people to allow them into his mind.

Of course Nixon was at least as bad as Bush - he was famous for having a blind-spot as big as a barn, which one can see in his writing. Despite the resignation, he wasn't entirely remorseful - he saw himself as the victim of many media conspiracies and other antagonists, both real and imagined. But Nixon has the breadth of worldview and honesty with himself, and by extension the reader, to allow us into his world.

His dark tendencies had other origins. In an era when 30 soldiers were being killed in Vietnam every single day - over ten times the volume of Iraq - and the world convulsing in protest and chaos around them, Nixon's lieutenants and were just brutalized by their environment and lost their sense of direction and fought back with every realpolotik' weapon and dirty trick they could imagine.

Nixon himself is much too close to the action to see how complicit he was - and as the leader he was de-facto fully culpable. But he did take responsibility resign over it - so if it is noble to forgive, then he deserves some rest.

My folks on the other hand strongly disliked Nixon because they thought the GOP machine had sabotaged all the moderate Democratic primary candidates, leaving only Muskie and worse, McGovern, who were far too weak and radical. So he had effectively dismantled the American democratic process - even aside from the Watergate bugging and coverup. Nixon's Southern Strategy of making the GOP a safe place for whites upset by the Civil Rights movement, is still the dominant fault-line in American politics.

Now, after the cancer has been lanced and we have survived him, Nixon's transgressions feel like water long past under the bridge. I'm only sad and sorry that he passed away. He was a wise, complex man and this book shows that his shadow is still very large.

A Great Read from a Great but Flawed President.......2005-01-12

A good autobiography is one in which the author shares himself with the reader, his dreams and aspirations, his joys and sorrows and if you are lucky, his inner thoughts and emotions. President Richard Nixon does this in his memoirs and when you finish this massive book, you feel for the guy, understand him better and realise that the public at large do not understand or appreciate one of the greatest presidents of all time.

That may sound like a big statment, but when you look at what Nixon accomplished both domestically and foreign policy wise, you realise that this man did more than most presidents to shape the world into a better place. He opened China in 1972 and used the leverage of his visit to conclude the ABM and SALT I treaties with the USSR. He strengthened NATO and always accorded foreign leaders with great respect. He brought the US back from the brink of civil war by ending the Vietnam war, abolishing the draft and cracking down on extremists like the Weatherman. He created the Enviromental Protection Agency (EPA)and reformed healthcare and the welfare system.

Great acheivements obscured by Watergate: this book helps explain Nixon's mistakes in handling the situation, and he doesn't hide his criminal behavoir. But you understand that he played by the rules of his predessors who also bugged people and covered up, but that he got caught for it.

A Greek Tragedy was Nixon's life, but what I take home from his book is the man's intellegence, his vision and his belief in never giving up until you have reached the mountain's summit.

Average customer rating:

Richard M. Nixon : Excellent political memoir
Historically, a first rate book

The Memoirs of Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Manufacturer: Warner Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0446932590

Customer Reviews:

Richard M. Nixon : Excellent political memoir.......2002-05-27

"Even Richard Nixon has got soul", wrote Neil Young in his song 'Campaigner'. This book chronicles Richard Nixon's rise and fall with candid honesty and demonstarates a warmth and human falibilty that does indeed afirm Young's lyric.
I was surprised at Mr. Nixon's book in that I was unsympathetic at the time with his handling of Vietnam and felt he was out of touch with the vast anti-war movement in the USA. I feel now that he was harshly judged and that he should be saluted for his untiring efforts to maintain freedom and democracy in Asia.
The best parts of the book are when he describes meetings with other world leaders and provide a fascinating insight into the process of diplomacy at the highest level of goverment.
The Watergate sections are complicated and one is left with the impression that he got into a hole and could'nt stop digging.
I would strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in the machinations of high politics and anyone who wishes an insight into a turbulent period in American history.

Historically, a first rate book.......2001-06-12

Richard Nixon experienced a "comeback" in the late 70's and throughout the 80's, and it started with this excellent book. In it, he goes through all of the relevant things concerning his family experiences, and, of course, his politcal life, culminating in the Presidency and then complete disgrace. But this book isn't really a "downer," and it has wonderful Historical value. It is an excellent read as well as a terrific buy.

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Dont be stupid
1-1 is a raving idiot
War Criminal
Architect of a modern foreign poligy
"The Longest Journey Begins With The First Step"

The White House Years
Henry A. Kissinger
Manufacturer: Little Brown & Co (T)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0316496618

Customer Reviews:

Dont be stupid.......2006-08-26

1 "1" how the hell could they have ended the war when Hanoi demanded a unilateral pullout and that the US toppled the Saigon government on the way out?? It took years of political and military pressure for Hanoi to abandon that demand. Dont be stupid.

1-1 is a raving idiot.......2005-12-02

1-1 has cut and pasted the same idiotic rant for all three volumes of Dr. Kissinger's memoirs, and has obviously NOT READ ONE SINGLE PAGE OF ANY OF THEM!!!! Go post your polemics on Indymedia you moron.
This is a first rate account of one of the most influential statesman in history.

War Criminal.......2005-03-01

if you want the evil truth about Dr K and how he undermined the 1968 peace talks, read "No Peace, No Honor: Nixon, Kissinger, and Betrayal in Vietnam" by Larry Berman.

This book explains how Nixon and Kissinger illegally colluded with SVN and Nguyen Van Thieu - he was told by Nixon via Anna Chenault to "hold on, we are going to win" and "you will get a better deal with us". So Thieu says he won't talk peace, Nixon wins, Kissinger openly changes sides after working with the Democrats, and together they crank up the war.

The point is: The War could have ended in 1968 if it were not for this man - Dr Death himself, Henry Adolf Kissinger!

Architect of a modern foreign poligy.......2005-01-24

I started this book on a whim in a coffee shop and soon decided to read all 1,475 pages (which required buying the book!) Kissinger has an amazing story to tell and writes exceptionally well. He gives vivid descriptions of encounters with world leaders and of Washington politics. His reflections range over history, politics, culture in many countries, war, and US policy.

He is full of surprises, sharp-edged, hilarious, philosophical, and always authoritative. Professor Kissinger doesn't use fancy words. He is never aloof. His purpose is to make the material understandable. Some passages about negotiations have perhaps more detail than one really wants.

The last four years of the Viet Nam war figure prominently in the book. Nixon and Kissinger's insistence on winding down the war slowly over four years is controversial. The whole book is unsentimental, convincing and will appeal to the liberal or conservative reader. It is also a revealing study of the "Cold War", including Nixon's trip to China, the Middle East, the SALT treaty, European relations, war between India and Pakistan, and more.

"The Longest Journey Begins With The First Step".......2001-01-23

The title of this review stems from an ancient Chinese proverb. Henry A. Kissinger's book, White House Years is the first of a three-volume trilogy that covers his remarkable career. This initial book begins with his appointment as National Security Advisor to Richard M. Nixon January 1969, and ends with the initialing of the Paris Peace Accords in 1973. Kissinger lets the reader know early on, they were under no illusions their journey would be easy or joyous.

He paints a vivid picture of Lyndon Johnson at Nixon's inauguration. If a political heavyweight like L.B.J. could be humbled by (sic) "Veetnam" no one could expect an easy time. Nixon, who had made a career of exhorting political opponents to, "Get tough with the Communists," now had his turn. He would either succeed where his predecessors had failed, or share L.B.J.s fate.

A series of opportunities to "get tough" with the Communists soon followed. The Soviets continued to harass Berlin; the Strateg!ic Arms Limitation (SALT) Talks provided critics from the right and left; West German leader Willie Brandt's Ostpolitik threatened the cohesion of the Atlantic Alliance and the Soviets' establishment of a submarine base at Cienfuegos, Cuba created a situation reminiscent of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Also, the election of Salvador Allende in Chile threatened to introduce a second, Communist state into the Western Hemisphere. Elsewhere, a crisis was brewing between India and Pakistan, and the powder keg in the Middle East threatened to explode at any time.

All these things occurred while the bulk of our military forces were mired in a seemingly endless stalemate in Vietnam that was tearing our nation apart and steadily draining both our coffers and our national resolve. Any of them had the potential to bring the two nuclear equipped superpowers into direct confrontation at any time. Kissinger calmly states: "Statesmen do not have the right to ask to serve only in simple t!imes." The early '70's were anything but, "simple times."

White House Years is a first-person account from a key player in each of these crises. Kissinger takes us step-for-step through the decision-making process they undertook before each action. These deliberations led to the most spectacular diplomatic initiative of our time: Nixon's historic trip to The Peoples Republic of China! The diplomatic opportunities made possible by this trip still shape our world today. Among other things it made Hanoi serious about negotiating an end to the War in Vietnam.

Dr. Kissinger narrates the maddening, secret negotiations with North Vietnam's Le Duc Tho in Paris. The differences between what the Communists were feeding the Western media and what they were saying behind closed doors makes the reader both loathe and admire them for their political skill. Their efforts finally led to the signing of the Paris Peace Accords. Kissinger sincerely believed South Vietnam would surv!ive. Unfortunately, he was wrong.

White House Years reads like a Greek tragedy. The reader gets excited and then remembers how it all ends. The very secretiveness that produced spectacular successes also sowed the seeds that would lead to Nixon's self-destruction.

I highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the War in Vietnam and/or international relations. The conduct of international diplomacy today is still unquestionably influenced by the events narrated here. I am much better informed for having read it. You will be as well!

One of Us: Richard Nixon and the American Dream

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RN: One of us; "the silent majority."
a tough book to rate
Now really. . .
An excellent and concise account of Nixon's Vietnam War
policy discussions during the nixon administration

One of Us: Richard Nixon and the American Dream
Tom Wicker
Manufacturer: Random House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0394550668
Release Date: 1991-02-27

Book Description

From his seemingly "poor boy makes good" childhood to his college years, this piercing, perceptive examination of the people, places, and events that shaped the character of Richard Nixon gives the reader a rare and a fair glimpse of the forces that shaped him.

From the Trade Paperback edition.

Customer Reviews:

RN: One of us; "the silent majority." .......2007-02-19

Richard Nixon. The mere mention of the name is enough to inspire some of the most mean-spirited, gut reactions. On the other hand, as Mr. Wicker quotes a Nixon associate in his book "you get back out of life what you plow into it." For all of his dark, quirky, idiosyncracies, RN, was in many ways "One of Us."

Tom Wicker paints about as sympathetic and generous portrait of the late 37th president as you are going to get from a liberal New York Times reporter. The book is not without its snide and petty moments. Wicker, for whatever personal or professional reasons, has a field day down-playing the communist infiltration of the government in the Truman administration and describing, rather underwhelmingly, the high drama of the Alger Hiss case.

The key quote, a quote in which the entire premise of the book rests upon, comes from none other than Henry A. Kissinger who poignantly asks "What would he (RN)have been like had somebody loved him?" At this point in the book, it all comes together: Here was an enormously gifted man who, because of his inner doubts and insecurities, destroyed himself from within. Missing, unfortunately, was RN's remarkable comeback to respectability. This book retains a slight flavor of the animous that "establishment liberals" had for the man who came from a decidely lower-middle class/working-poor background; a man who was a self-made man in every sense of the word.

At times Wicker's attempt at amateur psychologist is agonizing. How can he possibly know what he knows re: RN's motivations, thoughts, desires, secrets, fears, etc. But to be fair, The Old Man was so uncomfortable with himself, so quirky and ill-at-ease "an introvert in an extrovert's" world, as he described himself, perhaps the only way to get your head around the man is to put him on the couch. I think that Fawn Brodie, who wrote a pscyo-babble biography of RN and Thomas Jefferson was hardly a source to be consulted. Notwithstanding, comments from Nixon relatives Lucille Parsons, Jessamyn and Merle West are highly insightful. It is, however, very unfortunate that Wicker is not more generous in his treatment of RN's parents, particularly his Quaker mother and the influence he had on her life. Father Frank Nixon is made to look like nothing more than a loud-mouth lout; Hannah is portrayed as this taciturn, cold, unfeeling mother who could not find it in her heart to express emotion. In short, I think Wicker has been watching too much Oprah, because not everyone feels the need to show their soul bare-naked to the world. Especially those of RN's generation and ethnic/religous group. Outward signs of affection were not the norm. Yet Wicker, instead of appreciating the diversity of the human condition, chooses to pathologize Mrs. Nixon's behavior (he does a good job on Pat in this regard as well).

Jonathan Aitken's biography Nixon: A Life gives a fuller, more balanced and nuanced portrait of the impact pacifist Hannah Nixon had on her precocious son, as well as a better balanced account of who Frank Nixon was and why he was the way he was. Wicker's analyses of Nixon's parents, and of Nixon himself, are too simplistic and, at times, just plain mean.

a tough book to rate.......2005-10-28

Over the last few years I've read 35 presidential biographies, usually using Amazon readers as my guide to picking the best available choice. It's difficult to find a balanced Nixon biography, and I eventually chose Wicker's One of Us, but rating this book is difficult too. First, it's more of a political biography than a retelling of Nixon's life, but Nixon was so driven by politics that this decision doesn't seem to leave much out. Second, Wicker is more interested in describing who Nixon was than he is in telling a straight narrative. Once, he has given the reader the complete picture of Nixon's psyche, Wicker just stops writing. He leaves out Watergate and the last year and a half of Nixon's presidency. I don't know if Wicker felt too close to Watergate or if he just got tired of writing. Third, there have to be more editorial oversights in this book than just about any serious biography I've read. Towards the end of the book, I had the feeling that Wicker or the editor just turned on the spell checker but didn't bother to make sure the correct words were used.

Despite these major criticisms there is a great deal of merit to One of Us. Although there is a fair amount of psycho-babble, Nixon is certainly in the top 5 presidents as far as needing to be explained from a psychological perspective. And Wicker absolutely nails Nixon's personality. The reader gets the absolutely driven, intelligent, paranoia, manipulative Nixon who has a realpolitik approach to ethics and values.

Nixon was the first president who I really grew up in terms of a broad awareness of the issues of the times. Wicker does a great job of capturing America's concerns. We were obsessed with finding communists under every rock. Civil rights and race rights led to code words like law and order, Students got divided into good kids or rock throwers with little in between. With each of these issues Nixon found a way to play to his constituency, "the silent majority", in an often manipulative way that played more to television sound bites than solutions.

Finally, for the Nixon skeptics out there, this book deals well with Nixon's supposed skills at international relations. It shows how the team of Nixon and Kissinger working together while ignoring the advice and consent of the Congress, State Department, or even the CIA led to serious long-term problems in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Cambodia, with missile reduction treaties, and on and on. Wicker's analysis is difficult to dispute, and it is a powerful argument against the sort of power diplomacy used by Nixon and his ilk.

Now really. . ........2005-07-08

One of us??? Well, I guess -- if you consider yourself part of a group of square, sex-hating, self-deluded, egomaniacal bores who refer to themselves in the third-person. Actually, that would be unfair to all the self-deluded, sex-hating squares in our midst. 'Cause Richard Nixon was part of nothing other than the squalor of his own mind. When he looked out at the world, what he saw was the inside of his own eyeballs.

Tom Wicker -- the quintessent(is that a word?) liberal panty-waste gets two stars here because of the unintentional humor of the tome. (It is almost 800 pages of tome.) But the humor is more than off-set by the outrage of the book. For it is a historical lie. All the so-called "progressive" achievements of Nixon's time (the EPA, expansion of voting rights and other minority protections, worker safety rules, etc) were accomplished IN SPITE of Dick Nixon, not because of him. They were gifts of that time because of the Congress, the media, and mostly -- oh how far we've come -- because the American people were then in much better touch with their own interests. Nixon, to quote Ed Harris as E.Howard Hunt -- was the darkness reaching out to the darkness, and our own very dark time is still haunted by the vicious hatred of all democratic values unleased by the Whittier Vampire. George W. Bush is much more the child of Nixon, than of his own father.

An excellent and concise account of Nixon's Vietnam War.......2003-11-11

Chapter 14, pp 569-614 of "One of Us" is probably the best account of Richard Nixon's Vietnam War policy that I have read. Most Vietnam books tend to skimp on the latter years of the war, when it was winding down. In general this book is very even-handed and at times surprisingly sympathetic. However, Wicker is also honestly frank in his criticisms of Nixon's Vietnam policy and other aspects of his foreign policy.
The reviewer is the author of "Killed In Action: The life and times of SP4 Stephen H. Warner, draftee, journalist and anti-war activist"

policy discussions during the nixon administration.......2003-09-29

good work on the policies during the nixon adminstration
very clear and concise writing in laymen's terms of some rather complex subject matters. the writier's skill in presenting his ideas clearly are done very well inthis book.

Average customer rating:

Interesting and informative
Stellar Work on Nixon and Watergate
Well balanced with the focus on Watergate
A Nixon Finale
Watergate happened in a democracy!

Nixon: Ruin and Recovery, 1973-1990
Stephen Ambrose
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Customer Reviews:

Interesting and informative.......2005-04-01

For a guy that didn't grow up during Watergate, I found the third volume in this series to be a real page turner. Ambrose does a good job of telling you what happened, why it happened, how the public saw it and all the ways Nixon tried to keep the public from seeing it all.

Ruin and Recovery is a great subtitle for this volume because Nixon truly did recover. There were a few things he never lost... his ability to guage the American people and how they felt about candidates and the ability to breakdown foreign affairs. It was good to see that in the final years of his life he was called on as an expert on both.

I'm going to say it..."I ADMIRE RICHARD NIXON." Obviously I don't admire his Presidency or his decision-making during Watergate... but... for the most part I feel he was an idealistic, patriotic person that took a bad path and ruined his place in history at least when it comes to his Presidency. He did many things that Americans should respect though and it's high time we did.

I am glad he has made a recovery in the minds of many Americans and as I read this final volume I think I saw Ambrose almost making a case for Nixon being a kinder, gentler person who should be slightly more respected in American history.

Everybody makes mistakes and true Nixon made a big one, but I think in this final volume Ambrose almost makes a personal peace with Nixon and in a way advises Americans who resented Nixon to do the same.

Really an enjoyable series of books that I would recommend to anyone willing to spend 1900 words delving into what made Nixon both good and bad as a person and politican.

Stellar Work on Nixon and Watergate.......2004-08-16

To fully understand Nixon, I highly recommend first reading volumes 1 and 2 of Ambrose's work. If, however, you are more interested in the Watergate affair, this volume certainly stands on its own.

This is the final part of Ambrose's definitive three-volume biography of Nixon. The destructive tendencies wonderfully described by Ambrose in the first two volumes come to a head in Ruin & Recovery. Ambrose takes the reader through the unfolding of the mess that was Watergate.

Even though we all know the ultimate outcome will be resignation, the author manages to maintain enough tension and suspense to keep the reader engrossed. In the wake of resignation, Ambrose follows Nixon's remarkable comeback as an elder statesman.

If an affordable copy is not currently available, be patient. Because this book is out of print, it will be more expensive than you might expect, but you can find it for $20 to $30 if you look around.

Well balanced with the focus on Watergate.......2002-08-31

This third volume of the Nixon series is dominated by the Watergate scandal, with Ambrose skilfully detailing how the great election victory in 1972 slowly unravelled, as the full weight of the media and Democrat-controlled Congress worked to expose the whole tawdry episode. During this era, there was also the bombing of Hanoi followed by the Vietnam ceasefire, and summits with the Soviet leadership, but Watergate overshadowed all. Ambrose makes it clear that Nixon reinvented the story over and over, and bears a large burden of blame for the predicament he found himself in. He also makes clear that this was the opportunity for Nixon's arch enemies in the media and Congress to go for blood. The descent into the nightmare of possible impeachment and eventual resignation reads like an inevitablity, that Nixon lasted till August 1974 said a lot about his tenacity and stubborness in the face of relentless adversity.

The recovery of Nixon was never fully realized, although he was an authoritative elder statesman in later years, and Ambrose shows that Nixon had regained a fair amount of respect in his later years. Since his death the left has continued to disparage and villify his legacy, but as hard as it is to defend Nixon at times, he was still a statesman to be reckoned with, and his foreign policy record, especially with his China trip, is one of distinction. The eastern establishment despised Nixon, but he did not cater to them, it was the silent majority that was his constituency. One finishes this book wondering where America would have gone had the Watergate scandal not occurred.

A Nixon Finale.......2002-05-05

I enjoyed this concluding part of Stephen Ambrose's three-volume biography of Richard Nixon. This could have been the most difficult of the volumes to write - as the author needed to write in a way which maintained the reader's interest through the often tortuous intricacies of Watergate. I thought that the dangers (or challenges) were twofold: a reader's familiarity with the issues behind and history of Watergate could produce boredom, or the sheer complexity of the affair could bewilder the less well-informed reader.

I sat somewhere in the middle - I knew the broad issues (having read Woodward and Bernstein, and seen various TV documentaries) but being a non-American, my grasp of the relative roles and importance of the various US institutions involved and the politico-constitutional nuances was to say the least, tenuous. I think that Ambrose succeeded in both keeping my attention and guiding me through the whole affair: the book read at times like a political thriller, but with passages which guided me through the more complex issues. Whether or not this would bore politically aware Americans is not for me to judge.

The vast majority of this book is (rightly) devoted to Watergate. I thought that Ambrose made a good point, and one which is perhaps forgotten as the collective memory of the 1970s fades, that Watergate became such a tremendously irritating bore - people wanted rid of it because it was just so tedious, seeming to have been dominating the news forever, and producing a sclerosis in the body politic when major events of world importance needed to be addressed. Again, not being an American, I can't attest to the accuracy of Ambrose's point, but it seems to me to ring true.

The remainder of the book deals with Nixon's post-resignation reconstruction of himself, and one has to admire Nixon's sheer tenacity and willpower. At the end, Ambrose attemps an assessment of the man and his impact on America and the world. It's up the each reader to take his/her own view on that assessment, but in this cynical world when our trust in politicians seems to be ebbing ever further away, I thought that it's tempting to agree with Ambrose that Nixon's tragedy was that he got caught.

Watergate happened in a democracy!.......2002-03-26

Stephen Ambroses third Nixon Volume : "Ruin And
Recovery" takes on into the heart and soul
of democracy.
Cynics accustomed to political scandal might
be bemused by Watergate. What was all the
hullabaloo really all about?

Ambrose puts it something like this in the book:
To the british, with their official Secrets Act, nothing
that Nixon had done seemed that out of the ordinary,
much less illegal. The Italians simply threw up their hands
at the crazy Americans. To the French. Watergate
confirmed their suspicions about the naive Americans.
In west Germany, the frequent comparison of Nixon
to Hitler by his enemies in America showed either
how little the Americans understood Hitler,
or how little they understood Nixon, or both.
Nixons friends in China, could not understand
why he just didn't shoot his critics.

But in a democracy you must play by the law,
and you must trust and have faith in the wisdom
of the election process.
Watergate was all about how these things were
violated and how american democracy proved strong
enough to recover.
Ruin and Recovery reads like a detective story,
absolutely undeniable brilliant stuff. Richard M. Nixon: The American Presidents Series: The 37th President, 1969-1974 (The American Presidents)
Average customer rating:

Nixon Called It!
Fair, Thoughtful and Probing
Drew's wise insights on Nixon
A life in the arena
A Hateful Screed

Richard M. Nixon: The American Presidents Series: The 37th President, 1969-1974 (The American Presidents)
Elizabeth Drew
Manufacturer: Times Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0805069631
Release Date: 2007-05-29

Book Description

In this provocative and revelatory assessment of the only president ever forced out of office, the legendary Washington journalist Elizabeth Drew explains how Richard M. Nixons troubled inner life offers the key to understanding his presidency. She shows how Nixon was surprisingly indecisive on domestic issues and often wasnt interested in them. Turning to international affairs, she reveals the inner workings of Nixons complex relationship with Henry Kissinger, and their mutual rivalry and distrust. The Watergate scandal that ended his presidency was at once an overreach of executive power and the inevitable result of his paranoia and passion for vengeance. Even Nixons post-presidential rehabilitation was motivated by a consuming desire for respectability, and he succeeded through his remarkable resilience. Through this book we finally understand this complicated man. While giving him credit for his achievements, Drew questions whether such a manbeleaguered, suspicious, and motivated by resentment and paranoiawas fit to hold Americas highest office, and raises large doubts that he was.

Customer Reviews:

Nixon Called It!.......2007-07-08

Shortly before his death in 1994, Richard Nixon was asked how he thought history would remember him. "It depends who writes the history" was the reply that our 37th President gave and this book reflects that prediction.
Hopefully, people will not rely on this 151 page volume to provide a definitive account of Nixon's life and works. Drew made her bias known throughout, particularly linking Nixon to racism. Though she did give him credit for a number of foreign (openings to China and Russia and an end to American involvement in Vietnam)and domestic(OSHA, EPA, revenue sharing)
initiatives, the book was hardly balanced. I am glad that three other reviewers thus far have noted the same lack of objectivity.

Fair, Thoughtful and Probing.......2007-07-05

Elizabeth Drew combines her skill as a premier journalist with the touch of a careful historian in her Richard M. Nixon. This short biography is fair, thoughtful and probing. It is part of the American President's series. Having read many of these biographies, for me she tops the field in this valuable series.

Drew's highest standards of journalism means that she digs into and analyzes the public record. She combines that record with a detailed knowledge of Nixon the person. Drew recognizes Nixon's complexity and she thrives in it. The result is a knowing and fair book that provides readers with fresh insights into Nixon the politician, the man and the President.

Drew will anger liberals because she recognizes Nixon's boldness in his opening to China and the importance of negotiating arms control agreements with the then Soviet Union. He could initiate and produce what liberals could not. She recognizes his political abilities with his domestic accomplishments but gets beyond the policy results to show Nixon's patterns of cynicism. That cynicism manifested itself in Vietnam as well, extending the war at the cost of an added 30,000 American lives lost.

As Drew reported over 30 years ago on Watergate, she stands as the best digger and interpreter at unraveling that scandalous abuse of power. She captures the fear and tension the American people lived through in that troubled time.

The late Arthur Schlesinger, the series editor, rightly wrote that "the President is the central player in the American political order." Drew demonstrates an uncanny ability to undertsand the institution of the Presidency, our other governing institutions and Nixon's creative and destructive interactions with them.

In Drew's writing she never falls prey to cynicism or sentimentality. That makes her contribution in writing Richard M. Nixon a lasting one.

Drew's wise insights on Nixon.......2007-07-03

Nick Kotz, journalist and historian Washington D.C.

Elizabeth Drew, one of the nation's most perceptive journalists, has written a timely new biography of Richard Nixon. She provides fresh insights about the damage inflicted on the country by an overreaching imperial presidency. Drew's distinguished contribution to the American Presidents Series carries an eloquent and powerful reminder of how America suffers when a President violates basic democratic principles, defies the separation of power between Congress and the White House, and lies to the country about war-and-peace decisions which waste precious lives, dissipate national wealth, and rupture a needed measure of national unity and purpose. It's impossible to read Drew on Nixon today without seeing the unfortunate analogies between the excesses of the Nixon presidency of 1969-74 and those of the current Bush administration. Particularly instructive today is how Nixon mishandled the endgame of extracting America from the tragic quagmire of Vietnam. Nixon inherited a situation in Vietnam not unlike the present conditions we face in Iraq today. Although Nixon did begin drawing down troop levels in Vietnam, he conducted our "withdrawal" in a way that allowed the war to drag on for another six years with the loss of additional thousands of American lives. One clear lesson of Vietnam was that once trapped in a chaotic no-win situation with an unreliable ally, there is little to gain and much to lose by continuing to play a losing hand.

Vietnam issues aside, Drew's book has many other virtues. She manages to pack an incredible amount of information and analysis into the 150 pages of her Presidential series book. We see the Nixon of great accomplishments---the openings to China and the Soviet Union--and the progressive legislation he signed, including important early environmental and consumer protection laws. And we realize the necessity of a robust independent Congress with the courage to thwart the never ending ambitions of the White House to expand its powers. The virtue of "divided government" is manifest. Thanks to Democratic control of both houses of Congress throughout the Nixon presidency, President Nixon was restrained to pursue a moderate course, at least in domestic affairs.

Throughout the years, Drew has probed the anatomy of power in Washington through her many timely magazine articles and books. This book is another useful contribution from one of the country's most astute reporters. As a student of American politics, I will eagerly look for her next byline.

A life in the arena.......2007-07-03

Elizabeth Drew does an excellant job of trying to describe the person of Richard Nixon in an objective way. The book brings to life the times of the 50's and 60's and helps us to realize how they shaped Richard Nixon. She describes his flaws, but also how hard he worked to overcome them. Even though we always know how his story will end, it is fascinating to read how we get to the end.

A Hateful Screed.......2007-06-14

Elizabeth Drew's obvious hatred for Richard Nixon made her a curious choice to write this latest in the American Presidents series. Her venomous and visceral loathing for the 37th president prevents her from making an objective analysis of the Nixon presidency and keeps her from giving RN credit for anything. Anyone reading this diatribe would come away wondering how such a man was able to earn his way onto five national tickets (a record equaled only by FDR), let alone accumulate more votes than any other politician in American history. This is an unworthy addition to the American Presidents series; what's next, Kenneth Starr writing the book on Bill Clinton?

Shadow : Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate

Average customer rating:

Inside of the White House
The effect the Independent Counsel had on the Presidency
Interesting, disturbing look at the presidency
An important bridging of common sense psychology & politics
Overall good, but too soft on Clinton

Shadow : Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate
Bob Woodward
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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The Agenda: Inside the Clinton White House

ASIN: 0684852624
Release Date: 1999-06-15

Amazon.com

There are two ways to look at this bestseller by Watergate scoopmeister Woodward. First, it's an original take on Clinton's sex scandal, framing it as the latest consequence of Nixon's assault on the U.S. political system. Woodward sketches each president's tussles with scandal managing after Watergate permanently turned up the press heat on the White House. Ford lies about a meeting concerning a potential deal to pardon Nixon, but remains convinced he did nothing wrong. Carter's pious advocacy of truth telling backfires when he's confronted with conundrums involving his pal Bert Lance, the fallout from CIA-provided hookers, and cash for King Hussein. Reagan's men try to make him understand the lies and shocking wrongness of the Iran-Contra debacle, but he simply, stubbornly doesn't get it. And by the time prosecutors interview Reagan in 1992, he's so ill he can't remember his own oldest friends and advisers.

All provocative stuff, some of it new. But most readers will flip to the book's second half, a fly-on-the-wall account of the backroom mud-wrestling in both the Clinton and Starr camps in the Monicagate morass. It's a trove of racy facts (mostly from anonymous sources). We read that Clinton called Nixon a "war criminal," yet tried to minimize Watergate in his Nixon eulogy, that he disgusted Ford and Jack Nicklaus by cheating while golfing with them, and that he kept falsely assuring aides, "I'm retired! [as an adulterer]." We hear Hillary's alleged words of agony and see the pain on Bill's face after Chelsea reads The Starr Report on the Internet. Starr comes off like RoboCop without the human side. Woodward calls him "pathetic and unwise" in rejecting his staff's urgent demand not to send the lurid details of presidential sex to Congress. "I love the narrative!" Starr weirdly exulted, according to Woodward's new Deep Throat (or Throats). Since Monica was interrogated at Starr's mother-in-law's apartment, which he called "Grandma's place," ethics expert Sam Dash suggested they call it "Operation Red Riding Hood." What sharp teeth everyone in this book has!

To tell the truth, Woodward doesn't really knit together 25 years' worth of scandals into a single strong narrative. But the Clinton part is the closest thing yet to what we all crave: a tale of Monicagate with some of the flavor of a John Grisham thriller. --Tim Appelo

Book Description

Twenty-five years ago, after Richard Nixon resigned the presidency, Gerald Ford promised a return to normalcy. "My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over," President Ford declared.

But it was not. The Watergate scandal, and the remedies against future abuses of power, would have an enduring impact on presidents and the country. In Shadow, Bob Woodward takes us deep into the administrations of Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton to describe how each discovered that the presidency was forever altered. With special emphasis on the human toll, Woodward shows the consequences of the new ethics laws, and the emboldened Congress and media. Powerful investigations increasingly stripped away the privacy and protections once expected by the nation's chief executive.

Using presidential documents, diaries, prosecutorial records and hundreds of interviews with firsthand witnesses, Woodward chronicles how all five men failed first to understand and then to manage the inquisitorial environment.

"The mood was mean," Gerald Ford says. Woodward explains how Ford believed he had been offered a deal to pardon Nixon, then clumsily rejected it and later withheld all the details from Congress and the public, leaving lasting suspicions that compromised his years in the White House.

Jimmy Carter used Watergate to win an election, and then watched in bewilderment as the rules of strict accountability engulfed his budget director, Bert Lance, and challenged his own credibility. From his public pronouncements to the Iranian hostage crisis, Carter never found the decisive, healing style of leadership the first elected post-Watergate president had promised.

Woodward also provides the first behind-the-scenes account of how President Reagan and a special team of more than 60 attorneys and archivists beat Iran-contra. They turned the Reagan White House and United States intelligence agencies upside down investigating the president with orders to disclose any incriminating information they found. A fresh portrait of an engaged Reagan emerges as he realizes his presidency is in peril and attempts to prove his innocence.

In Shadow, a bitter and disoriented President Bush routinely pours out his anger at the permanent scandal culture to his personal diary as a dozen investigations touch some of those closest to him. At one point, Bush pounds a plastic mallet on his Oval Office desk because of the continuing investigation of Iran-contra Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh. "Take that, Walsh!" he shouts. "I'd like to get rid of this guy." Woodward also reveals why Bush avoided telling one of the remaining secrets of the Gulf War.

The second half of Shadow focuses on President Clinton's scandals. Woodward shows how and why Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's investigation became a state of permanent war with the Clintons. He reveals who Clinton really feared in the Paula Jones case, and the behind-the-scenes maneuvering and ruthless, cynical legal strategies to protect the Clintons. Shadow also describes how impeachment affected Clinton's war decisions and scarred his life, his marriage and his presidency. "How can I go on?" First Lady Hillary Clinton asked in 1996, when she was under scrutiny by Starr and the media, two years before the Lewinsky scandal broke. "How can I?"

Shadow is an authoritative, unsettling narrative of the modern, beleaguered presidency.

Download Description

Twenty-five years after Nixon's resignation, the reporter who helped break the story explains how Watergate--the premier scandal of our time--has indelibly altered American politics, culture, and the presidency.

Customer Reviews:

Inside of the White House.......2005-06-15

Another Bob Woodward book, another masterpiece. I am getting great pleasure from his books. Detailed research, witnesses, and main character interviews are combined to revealed truth with every respect. In Shadows, he discovers the last five presidents scandals and events around them. Book starts with Ford, Nixon and Watergate, This is the most interesting chapter of the book, and it is explained with every detail. Secondly, Carter and payment made to Jordan King and Iran Hostage crisis. You can feel Carter's pain in this chapter. After that, of course Reagan and Iran-Contra weapon sale and Oliver North incident. This chapter is also very interesting. The role Regan and Senior Bush is much different than public knows. Senior Bush's role is very controversial. There are always something learn from his books. When Senior Bush was at the White House, subject is the war again. First gulf war and Saddam stories given. There is also little bit information about Bush-Saudi relations in that time. Inevitable, Mr. Bandar's name is also here. Finally, Clinton era, Whitewater and Monica. This is also very big chapter. In Whitewater investigation is explained very well. Also Monica scandal is the fun part of the book. Star and Clinton have not a bad relation as we know.

This is the best book for near presidential history. I give all the credits to Mr. Woodward for this great book. Buy it and read it!

The effect the Independent Counsel had on the Presidency.......2003-12-26

I think this is a pretty good book on the Presidency of the United States since Watergate. Of course, Mr. Woodward played a significant role in reporting Watergate and has written extensively about the Presidency since then.

This book examines the various difficulties and scandals the Presidents since Nixon have had and the shadow the legacy of Watergate fell on those events and affected how they were handled and perceived. The most significant event in the way these things played out was the creation of the Independent Counsel. While I was never wild about the Independent Counsels before I read this book, I have come to the conclusion that it was an awful idea and an abuse of our Constitution. While the office was designed to not be accountable to the President to afford a credible ability to investigate the Executive Branch, it has no reasonable boundaries or limits and is not subject to any of the checks or balances that enable our government to function as reasonably as it does.

Freed from any limits of time, budget, or public accountability it is not surprising that many, but not all, of these Independent Counsels end up pursuing all kinds of things apart from what they were originally charged to pursue. My chief conclusion from reading this book is that this was a bad law with worse execution and should never be revived. Good riddance!

Half of the book is devoted to the Clinton scandals. The other large section is Iran-Contra. How you perceive Woodward's balance and objectivity will be colored by your personal politics. I have to admit that I found my own reading of the book varied at different points because of my own view of these scandals and whether or not I agreed with Woodward or felt that his own political biases were creeping in (which is impossible to avoid). But all-in-all there is a lot of good reporting here and is written in way that is easy to read. There are lots of endnotes to document the sources for the various statements, meetings, and conclusions drawn.

I recommend the book highly.

Interesting, disturbing look at the presidency.......2003-02-03

Heard the taped version of SHADOW: FIVE PRESIDENTS
AND THE LEGACY OF WATERGATE by Bob Woodward . . . it
is a very interesting, as well as disturbing, look at what it takes to be president in this country.

Because of Watergate, the press no longer takes a "hands off"
approach to what is being done in the White House . . . consequently, Woodward points out that all presidents--from Nixon through Clinton--seem to have had lapses in judgment, during which they either did not tell the truth or had others help cover it up for them.

I got a fresh perspective on Ford's pardon of Nixon, and though
I had thought I had known a lot about the Monicagate morass,
I now know even more (including a lot of dirt not uncovered
elsewhere).

Fortunately, Woodward is only heard at the beginning and
the end . . . he does not have a great speaking voice, that's
for sure . . . the rest was narrated by James Naughton . . . his
impressive baritone voice made for easy listening . . . moreover, he actually sounds like many of the characters he portrays, such as James Carville, Ronald Raegan and Jimmy Carter.

An important bridging of common sense psychology & politics.......2003-01-18

The first line in Micahel Lind's deeply provocative treatise on the modern American conservative movement UP FROM CONSERVATISM kicks you in the stomach, regardless of your political beliefs:"American Conservatism is dead." Like the political Nietzsche he is, Bob Woodward, in SHADOW: FIVE PRESIDENTS AND THE LEGACY OF WATERGATE, finishes that statement in this 500-plus page tome by saying, essentially, "...and Nixon has killed it."

None other than Gore Vidal has nicknamed America the *United States of Amnesia* so often that the trueness of it stops it from being funny. Yet any psychologist worth their salt will tell you the many reasons why memory, in a person or culture, is often the first thing to be EXORCISED. It isn't always something that leaves willingly. Bob Woodward brings common sense psychology--memory--back into the discussion of what has happened to the presidency, and America's relationship to it, since the quasi-psychotic Nixon disgraced it in the early 1970's. He reveals this with SHADOW, not by calling out and judging the Nixonians from the perspective of opinion, but via showing and analysing actual history. The degree to which the entire concept and institution of the American Presidency has been almost irrevocably debilitated by Watergate is the subject of this book, and it cannot be ignored in our time after reading it. In revealing the new cynically invasive psychic architecture of American politics, built on the destroyed remnants of the trusted Tao of FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, LBJ and Kennedy, he offers a glimpse of what Watergate symbolized about Nixon's soul. And what that tortured soul has meant for American culture today, in the 21st century.

Doing this not only puts Monica Lewinsky into a less mythological perspective. It also puts all of the machinations that now go into politicking for your right to actually BE President long after you have been elected--Republican or Democrat--into a new, important, and ultimately saddening perspective. (The degree to which her very existence in the public mind is shown to be part of a desire of Clinton's powerful enemies to erase Nixon's legacy from the annals of history with the impeachment of a Democratic President is brilliant. That omen is ironically overshadowed, however, by the way he explains the uncontrollable political Frankenstein that was the Office of Independent Counsel. This evil genie, with its granted near absolute power, is what Clinton let out of the bottle; a bottle that, after Watergate, was thought never to be opened again. Without it, the reincarnation of the Salem witch trials with Kenneth Starr and the pornography of his reports would never have occurred.)

I happened to have picked up this book to read after reading Conason and Lyons' THE HUNTING OF THE PRESIDENT--something which truly must be read in tandem with this if one is to really understand the social forces that also took center stage in the Clinton drama, despite their desire to still remain hidden. As such I found the Clinton chapters of SHADOW a rehash of previously digested material. SHADOW nonetheless, with its detailed meticulous analyses of the weaknesses and foibles of Ford, Carter, Regan, Bush and Clinton, and how these weaknesses became debilitating through the sins of their Watergate predecessor Nixon, cuts to the quick of our social consciousness today.

It is so important, it seems, for the American public not to have a historical perspective on anything that happens in politics. As if the pretense that all of it has no precedence somehow makes it more real or important--or worse, justifies an often hypocritically manufactured moral outrage. (I'll never forget the rage Clinton-haters would express at the mere mentioning of Sally Hemmings [Thomas Jefferson's slave mistress], Judith Exner [one of Kennedy's mistresses] or the broken first marriages of Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich, seemingly defending their right to believe Bill and Monica had ushered in the seventh sign of the Book of Revelations with their original sin.) Woodward's SHADOW destroys any validity that way of thinking had, and redefines the desire to be willfully politically/historically ignorant (as if ignorance buys someone moral virtue) as anything but sane. The book has a way of revalidating the entire concept and discipline of psychology, and its ability to explain the source of today's events, as it gives new strength to the battle weary line of Santayana: "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

Anyone interested in a deeper perspective on the Clinton presidency, the presidency of both Bushes, and modern American culture would highly benefit from this powerful trinity: Michael Lind's UP FROM CONSERVATISM, Conason and Lyons' THE HUNTING OF THE PRESIDENT, and this book. Woodward's SHADOW is extraordinarily well written, tremendously informative, and, even with its inevitable biases both in favor of journalism as it is presently practiced (Consaon and Lyons are fortunately not so kind--particularly to the Washington Post) and against the possibility of a president after Nixon inspiring the kind of faith and hope that those like FDR and Kennedy did (though he is almost right, Conason, Lyons and Lind will explain clearly why it could have happened but would not be allowed in Clinton's case), Woodward's masterful writing and storytelling skills hide a multitude of sins. Highly recommended.

Overall good, but too soft on Clinton.......2002-04-29

Woodward does an exceptional job of covering the impact of Watergate on the Nixon-Bush administrations. However, he is far too easy on the Clinton administration.

If we are to believe the Woodward account, every Clinton scandal was one big misunderstanding after another. Travelgate...Filegate...Fostergate...Paulagate...WhiteWatergate...Monicagate. The Clintons were being up front, but poor Starr and the Republicans just kept misinterpreting everything.

Nice try, Bob. But it just don't add up.

If this had happened just once or twice, that would be explainable. (After all, every administration has some bad apples. That's just a fact of life.)

However, the plethora of scandals reflects a systemic problem in the Clinton White House. A fundamental rule of leadership (to quote John Maxwell) is that WHO YOU ARE is WHAT YOU ATTRACT.

If Clinton had that many people in his inner circle who were so dishonest, then that reflects his own ineptitude as a leader.

Customer Reviews:

The Nixon Family Revealed.......2006-06-30

The life of former first lady Pat Nixon, 1912-1993, is beautifully detailed in a fascinating biography written by her daughter, Julie Nixon Eisenhower.

Altho it was first published in 1986, it is worth reading again as we compare the presidency of Richard Nixon and George W. Bush. As for their wives, Pat Nixon and Laura Bush are both inspiring women, tho different personalities.

Julie's research and observations about her mother's amazing abilities, her courage and grace, her love for all people and especially her family, is deeply moving. This is an excellent portrait of the Nixon family, especially about her beloved mother, Pat, and it is very personal.

The White House years during the Vietnam war were filled with turmoil. I remember watching President Nixon tender his resignation on television and seeing his family trying to hold back the tears. Reading about the administration trying to control "leaks", the corruption that existed and the biased media, is not unlike today's political frustrations, more than forty years later.

Thank you Julie Nixon Eisenhower for a well written portrayal of your family. So many books have been written about the Nixon presidency,your family, etc. however, you have given the American people a valuable tool in which to make their own judgements. You are unafraid to write the truth as you view it and I, for one, deeply appreciate this thoroughly enjoyable book.

"iron and courage," and a lot of love.......2003-07-17

This is one of the most engrossing books I have ever read; fast paced, extremely moving in parts, painstakingly researched, and written in a solid, straightforward style .
Pat Nixon was born in 1912, and after her mother's death when Pat was 13, she had a hard existence that taught her the survival skills to work her way through her education during the Depression, the many political campaigns that sometimes ended in failure, and the stress and isolation of being First Lady during times of war, revolt, and impeachment.
It is also a love story; it was love at first sight for Richard, but it took many ardent, romantic letters and several years of wooing to win the heart of this strong and fiercely independent woman...for him, she was always "part of everything beautiful I see," and he never tired of telling her how proud he was of her.
There are excerpts from many letters, journal entries, and interviews with friends and family, as well as conversations between mother and daughter. Also fascinating are the glimpses into the lives of the powerful and famous, like J.Paul Getty, Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson, Leonid Brezhnev, and many more.

The early chapters will be interesting for those who like me, live in Southern California, as a snapshot of what life was like in the first half of the 20th century; the descriptions show how much it has changed, and it is also significant to take note of the growth of our government since the days when Nixon was vice president in the '50s. The recounting of the violence and unrest of the '60s in the middle chapters vividly brings to life that troubled time, which we tend to gloss over and forget. There is much history in this book, that provides a good perspective to the world conditions of the present era.
Mrs. Eisenhower does not shy away from the downward spiral of the Watergate crisis, and is very blunt about how it affected her family; she truly does tell us "The Untold Story," and lays out many facts, succinctly and with candor. Written in 1986, it has many marvelous photographs, and clear, readable print. The editing is terrific; there are no dull passages, and no awkward phrases. I am in the habit of giving books away once read, but this is one I will keep.

Mrs. Nixon passed on the 22nd of June, 1993, exactly ten months before her husband. They both rest side by side, surrounded by aromatic roses, blue agapanthas, and the sound of birdsongs, in the garden of the extraordinary Nixon Library and Birthplace in Yorba Linda, California. The peace and beauty of this memorial site is overwhelming, and so fitting for this courageous, loving woman.

Average customer rating:

An excellent book for the post-Watergate generations
Great Book
Where's Vietnam?
Amazing grasp of the complex...
Good. Very, very good.

Watergate
Fred Emery
Manufacturer: Touchstone
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0684813238

Customer Reviews:

An excellent book for the post-Watergate generations.......2006-07-03

This is a terrific look back on the Watergate scandal. Emery writes that his purpose is to tell the story for those who did not live through Watergate, and in this he achieves success. The account is direct, informative, and accessible. I was in primary school during the time of Watergate and understood nothing of what was going on (despite my father's assurances to me during the Ervin hearings that I was watching history being made). The only flaw, if one could call it that, in Emery's approach to the book is his failure to recognize that his intended audience has difficulty regarding Nixon as exceptional among American presidents. For those of us who came of age during the presidential scandals of the 1980s and 1990s, it is hard to resist the idea that what makes Nixon different is that he was foolish enough to ensare himself through the secret taping system. Apart from that, the pattern of Nixon deceptions parallels that of Clinton and, one doesn't really doubt, other presidents who have managed to keep their political secrets. All that said, this is a fascinating book, and I recommend it to anyone in the post-baby boom generations who wants to understand why Nixon resigned.

Great Book.......2005-04-21

This is a great book that became the basis for the Discovery Channel's 5-part documentary on Watergate. It is an extensive examination of the entire Watergate episode based on interviews with the relevant participants (excluding Nixon and Mitchell). In fact, Emery was one of the last people to interview Bob Haldeman before he died in 1993. If you don't believe what Emery writes or what Nixon's men said, I'd suggest viewing the Discovery Channel's documentary and you can see Haldeman, Erlichman, Colson, Magruder, LaRue, Dean, Liddy, etc... admit to what was going on in and around the White House.

If you're looking for a very readable and historically accurate account of Watergate, this is an excellent choice. No preposterous theories are advanced here, such as those in presented in Silent Coup. Instead, this book is based on interviews with the participants, the actual Watergate tapes, and tedious documentation of White House memos from the Nixon years. Emery also points out and attempts to resolve the many contradictions that exist among the published accounts of many of the Watergate players. While those that know all the secrets of Watergate are becoming fewer and fewer each year, this account is fairly difficult to dispute.

Finally, ignore the review written by True_Blue. Every one of his/her points are addressed in the first 100 pages of Emery's book. Based on the criticisms in that review, it is obvious that he/she never read this book.

Where's Vietnam?.......2004-05-15

It's unfortunate that most people don't remember what Watergate was but is even more unfortunate when historians forget what it was! First off, there is no evidence that the whitehouse approved the Watergate break-in! I have listened to over 500 hours of the tapes and not once does anyone approve the break-in. Again, it is a conclusion made by the author with no documentations (mainly because it does not exist.)

That being said, the author also forgets to place Watergate into the proper perspective, meaning Vietnam. After Daniel Ellesberg stole classified government documents, the President created the Plumbers to help plug the leaks. This led to the Fielding break-in, which Nixon ordered for National Security because he believed that the documents put U.S. soldiers at risk, and a plan by Chuch Colson to retrieve stolen documents from the Brookings institution.

Also, the public did not know that Nixon was secretly meeting with the Chinese, the Soviets, and Le Duc Tho. Mainly because the public debates, begun under LBJ, were unproductive and Nixon believed that leaks would discourage the Chinese, Soviets, and North Vietnamese from further negotiations.

AS for Watergate, after the Plumbers were disbanded, many of them were rehired by the Committee to Re-elect the President or CRP. Note to author, the press renamed CRP CREEP...it was not called CREEP! From here, what happens is up to speculation but what is certain is that the CRP broke into Watergate and not the White House. Nixon, of course, began covering up at this point, claiming political containment, and approving hush money for the "burglars (they never stole anything)."

Nixon admitted to his misjudgement and did the honorable thing and resigned. It is baffling that so many historical erros could be made because there is over 5,000 hours of tapes at the National Archives and they provide enough sources to produce a far bettter book. Also, he relies heavily on John Dean's Blind ambition which Dean recently admitted to not writing under oath. Also, Haldeman announced even before his book, Ends of Power, was published that it was sensationalized and entirely written by Joseph Diamona. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy!

In my opinion, there has not been a well-researched and definitive work on Watergate. Most of them are simplistic, neglect the Vietnam War, and look at Watergate in mere political context. Emery's Watergate is one of those.

Amazing grasp of the complex..........2001-11-07

After reading Emery's book, I must say he has an amazing grasp of the complex. It is rare that one author can provide such a gripping account of an event that is itself full of contradictory accounts. As the participants run for cover and attempt to discount each others testimony, Emery maintains one voice and keeps the reader on track.
This should be read by anyone who's knowledge of Watergate is limited to a viewing of "All the President's Men". Emery has done us a great service by producing such a readable account of THE American scandal.

Good. Very, very good........2001-08-04

I lived Watergate. I was a teen in McLean, Virginia when Nixon resigned. One of my classmates was a son of Robert Bork. Yet, after many years, I had to admit I didn't know much of what the fuss was about. This fine, objective book changed all that. Emery has consolidated the facts, identified the sources, and presented the alternate views that, within his sense of reason, deserve consideration. This is journalism as it should always be and, sadly, was not in the early '70s.

As you choose books about Watergate, consider this: When I started to read this one, in the Fall of 2000, I got only a few pages into it when I realized I was doing something important. I got out of my chair, locked my study door, turned off the phone, and sat back down to read. Only Shirer's book about the Third Reich has also induced such a feeling of moment.

Watergate: The Fall of Richard M. Nixon
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Watergate: The Fall of Richard M. Nixon

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