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President Nixon: Alone in the White House
Who was Nixon? An amazing thing about him wasn't what he did as president, but that he became president. Reeves' "President Nixon" uses 1000s of interviews & recently discovered or declassified documents & tapes--including Nixon's tortured memos to himself & unpublished sections of Haldeman's diaries--to offer a portrait of the brilliant contradictory man alone in the White House. This is a narrative of an introvert who dreamed of becoming the architect of his times. Late at night, he sat upstairs in the White House writing notes to himself on yellow pads, struggling to define himself & 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 trusted no one because he thought others were like him. He governed by secret orders & false records, memorizing scripts for public appearances, even for one-on-one meetings with his staff & cabinet. His principal assistants, Haldeman & Kissinger, spied on him as he spied on them, while cabinet members, generals & admirals spied on all of them--rifling briefcases & desks, tapping phones in a house where no one knew what was true. Nixon's 1st aim was to restore order in an America at war with itself over Vietnam. But actually he prolonged the fighting, lying about what was happening both in the field & in the peace negotiations. He startled the world by going to Peoples' China & seeking detente with the Soviets--& then secretly persuaded Mao & Brezhnev to lie to protect his petty secrets. Still, he was a man of vision, imagining a new world order, trying to stall the race war he believed was inevitable between the West, including Russia, & Asia, led by China & Japan. At home, he promised welfare reform, revenue sharing, drug programs & environmental protection. He reluctantly presided over school desegregation--all the while declaring that domestic governance was building outhouses in Peoria. Reeves shows a presidency doomed from the start. It begins with Nixon & Kissinger using the CIA to cover up a '69 murder by US soldiers in Vietnam that led to the publication of the Pentagon Papers, then to counterintelligence units in the White House & finally to the burglaries & cover-up known as Watergate.
704 pages, Hardcover
First published September 18, 2001
59 people are currently reading
745 people want to read
About the author
Richard Reeves
57 books57 followersRichard Furman Reeves was an American writer, syndicated columnist, and lecturer at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
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April 9, 2018
https://bestpresidentialbios.com/2018...
President Nixon: Alone in the White House” by Richard Reeves was published in 2001. Reeves is a former journalist and the author of sixteen books, including biographies of John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. He has served as Chief Political Correspondent for The New York Times, as National Editor and Columnist for New York Magazine and Esquire and was Chief Correspondent for PBS’s “Frontline.”
Reeves’s book is neither a comprehensive survey of Nixon’s life nor a thorough study of his presidency. But anyone who has read the author’s 1993 biography of JFK will recognize this 609-page book’s rapid pace and its birds-eye view of events which took place in and around the Oval Office during most (but not quite all) of Nixon’s presidency.
The book begins with a first-person introduction to its subject – Reeves’s perspective on his presidency, his character and his idiosyncrasies. It quickly launches into a day-to-day (and often moment-to-moment) account of Nixon’s presidency beginning with his first full day in office. About three-dozen chapters later, the book concludes its coverage as Nixon watched his political world begin to collapse in April 1973 – about sixteen months before his resignation but after it became clear his presidency would not have a happy ending.
Reeves provides the reader with unique access to Nixon’s presidency; he seems to capture every significant moment as though he was in the room at the time – and was capable of recording everything for posterity. Along the way Reeves occasionally injects his own assessment of Nixon’s character into the narrative but he generally allows the reader to draw his or her own conclusions from the historical record.
Readers familiar with Nixon will value the insight provided into this brooding president’s character as well the debates concerning various foreign and domestic policy matters. Reeves’s discussion of Nixon’s decision to end convertibility of the US dollar into gold and implement wage and price controls was surprisingly interesting as was his review of Nixon’s historic trip to China in 1972.
What is missing from this fascinating survey of Nixon’s life between 1969 and 1973 is any meaningful coverage of his pre-presidency, a serious analysis of his last months in office and anything about his nearly twenty-year post-presidency. And because Reeves fails to follow Nixon closely to the end of his presidency (though there is an Epilogue which captures highlights) he is unable to step back and consider Nixon’s place in history.
But even while it focuses on his first four years in the White House, Reeves’s book often flies so close to the ground that it can be hard for readers unfamiliar with Nixon (or his era) to understand the “big picture.” And because Nixon’s daily routine was often chaotic, the narrative tends to bounce quickly from topic to topic with little time to explore the intricacies of any one issue.
Overall, Richard Reeves’s “President Nixon: Alone in the White House” is a uniquely instructive – and thoroughly fascinating – review of Nixon as president. But because it is not comprehensive (and fails to exhaust even his presidency) it is neither an ideal introduction to Nixon “the man” nor a complete study of his White House tenure. Nevertheless, for readers familiar with this obsessively paranoid man and his illuminating background, Reeves’s book is uncommonly valuable.
Overall rating: 4 stars
President Nixon: Alone in the White House” by Richard Reeves was published in 2001. Reeves is a former journalist and the author of sixteen books, including biographies of John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. He has served as Chief Political Correspondent for The New York Times, as National Editor and Columnist for New York Magazine and Esquire and was Chief Correspondent for PBS’s “Frontline.”
Reeves’s book is neither a comprehensive survey of Nixon’s life nor a thorough study of his presidency. But anyone who has read the author’s 1993 biography of JFK will recognize this 609-page book’s rapid pace and its birds-eye view of events which took place in and around the Oval Office during most (but not quite all) of Nixon’s presidency.
The book begins with a first-person introduction to its subject – Reeves’s perspective on his presidency, his character and his idiosyncrasies. It quickly launches into a day-to-day (and often moment-to-moment) account of Nixon’s presidency beginning with his first full day in office. About three-dozen chapters later, the book concludes its coverage as Nixon watched his political world begin to collapse in April 1973 – about sixteen months before his resignation but after it became clear his presidency would not have a happy ending.
Reeves provides the reader with unique access to Nixon’s presidency; he seems to capture every significant moment as though he was in the room at the time – and was capable of recording everything for posterity. Along the way Reeves occasionally injects his own assessment of Nixon’s character into the narrative but he generally allows the reader to draw his or her own conclusions from the historical record.
Readers familiar with Nixon will value the insight provided into this brooding president’s character as well the debates concerning various foreign and domestic policy matters. Reeves’s discussion of Nixon’s decision to end convertibility of the US dollar into gold and implement wage and price controls was surprisingly interesting as was his review of Nixon’s historic trip to China in 1972.
What is missing from this fascinating survey of Nixon’s life between 1969 and 1973 is any meaningful coverage of his pre-presidency, a serious analysis of his last months in office and anything about his nearly twenty-year post-presidency. And because Reeves fails to follow Nixon closely to the end of his presidency (though there is an Epilogue which captures highlights) he is unable to step back and consider Nixon’s place in history.
But even while it focuses on his first four years in the White House, Reeves’s book often flies so close to the ground that it can be hard for readers unfamiliar with Nixon (or his era) to understand the “big picture.” And because Nixon’s daily routine was often chaotic, the narrative tends to bounce quickly from topic to topic with little time to explore the intricacies of any one issue.
Overall, Richard Reeves’s “President Nixon: Alone in the White House” is a uniquely instructive – and thoroughly fascinating – review of Nixon as president. But because it is not comprehensive (and fails to exhaust even his presidency) it is neither an ideal introduction to Nixon “the man” nor a complete study of his White House tenure. Nevertheless, for readers familiar with this obsessively paranoid man and his illuminating background, Reeves’s book is uncommonly valuable.
Overall rating: 4 stars
May 24, 2020
For novice history buffs looking for an introduction to Richard Nixon, there probably isn't a better choice than Richard Reeves' President Nixon: Alone in the White House. A former reporter-turned-historian, Reeves (who authored similar books on JFK and Reagan) crafts a breezy, well-written and engaging narrative of Nixon's presidency; almost a day-by-day account in spots, from his inauguration in January 1969 to April 1973, when his top aides Bob Haldeman and John Ehrlichman resigned and Watergate consumed his administration. Reeves displays a gift both for cutting to the bone of complex issues and decision making (his discussions of Nixon's economic reforms, response to antiwar protests and contradictory civil rights policies are particularly engaging) while offering penetrating analyses of the personages involved. Nixon has long been a psychobiographer's delight, yet Reeves allows the man to speak for himself: his Nixon becomes sometimes brilliant, insightful and forward-thinking, just as frequently bitter, petty, repulsive and vulgar; always insecure, lonely and unable to trust anyone. Neither a complete biography nor a wholly comprehensive look at his presidency, nonetheless it offers a more telling look into the 37th President's life, times and actions than many broader volumes.
August 6, 2014
This is a very thorough overview of Nixon's first term in office. The author glosses over most of Nixon's second term, describing it as being swallowed up by the Watergate affair.
I first heard about this book when listening to the author talk about it on NPR. He described how he was able to get access to a huge amount of Nixon's personal notes. Apparently, Nixon would sit around through much of his presidency writing notes to himself on yellow note pads. By gaining access to Nixon's personal notes, Reeves says that he was able to get inside of Nixon's head more than previous biographers. And his conclusion? Nixon had a basic weakness: he believed that other people's natures were as flawed as his own. So before his various enemies got him, he had to hit them first.
The subtitle of the book also indicates another basis thesis of the author. Nixon, according to Reeves, only interacted directly on a regular basis with a small circle of people; Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Kissinger, and Buchanan. Secretary of State Rogers, in fact, would find out about major foreign policy decisions when the general public found out. This climate of secrecy permeated everything he did, and Nixon could not stand it when information leaked out to the public. This paranoia, of course, led to the infamous "plumbers" and ultimately his downfall.
In addition to probing Nixon's mind, this book covers all of the major policy decisions of Nixon's first term. And by the end, the reader gets a thorough sense of the important long-term impact of the Nixon presidency. Foreign policy, according to Reeves, was Nixon's primary interest. Domestic policy, in Nixon's view, was important primarily for one reason: the election of 1972. This is why Nixon cared more about opinion polls than any other data about life in the United States. His general disengagement with domestic affairs, along with his obsession with his reelection, helps to explain why it is so difficult to see any coherent Nixon agenda when it came to domestic affairs. He largely let Congress run the show, and in my view, we have not had an administration as liberal as Nixon since.
I first heard about this book when listening to the author talk about it on NPR. He described how he was able to get access to a huge amount of Nixon's personal notes. Apparently, Nixon would sit around through much of his presidency writing notes to himself on yellow note pads. By gaining access to Nixon's personal notes, Reeves says that he was able to get inside of Nixon's head more than previous biographers. And his conclusion? Nixon had a basic weakness: he believed that other people's natures were as flawed as his own. So before his various enemies got him, he had to hit them first.
The subtitle of the book also indicates another basis thesis of the author. Nixon, according to Reeves, only interacted directly on a regular basis with a small circle of people; Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Kissinger, and Buchanan. Secretary of State Rogers, in fact, would find out about major foreign policy decisions when the general public found out. This climate of secrecy permeated everything he did, and Nixon could not stand it when information leaked out to the public. This paranoia, of course, led to the infamous "plumbers" and ultimately his downfall.
In addition to probing Nixon's mind, this book covers all of the major policy decisions of Nixon's first term. And by the end, the reader gets a thorough sense of the important long-term impact of the Nixon presidency. Foreign policy, according to Reeves, was Nixon's primary interest. Domestic policy, in Nixon's view, was important primarily for one reason: the election of 1972. This is why Nixon cared more about opinion polls than any other data about life in the United States. His general disengagement with domestic affairs, along with his obsession with his reelection, helps to explain why it is so difficult to see any coherent Nixon agenda when it came to domestic affairs. He largely let Congress run the show, and in my view, we have not had an administration as liberal as Nixon since.
July 30, 2014
Another good behind-the-scenes look at a presidency by Reeves. And, no presidency had more going on in the shadows than Richard Nixon's. Reeves details the isolation and rampant paranoia of Nixon - a man who would at times communicate with his wife via memos, obsess over his "enemies" - of which he had many, backstab people, lie, and try to ruin others' careers simply because he could. Nobody here comes off looking good: Nixon, Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Dean, Mitchell, Colson, Kissinger, Rogers, Agnew, etc... The book is littered with phrases such as "Nixon was furious", "Nixon blew up", and "Nixon was screaming about...."
Reeves does a great job at really getting at Nixon's devious and manipulative personality. He talks about Nixon's relationships with the major players in his administration, how Nixon literally hated meeting with people so he usually was able to have Haldeman handle the dirty work for him, and how he became a prisoner of his own delusions. He does also show Nixon's brilliance in finally ending the Vietnam War, creating the opening to China, and concluding the SALT Treaty with the Soviet Union.
A few things that I did not like: I thought that, at times, the narrative seemed oddly detached - Reeves would mention a decision that was made but not talk about why it was made (example: selection of L. Patrick Gray to become Director of the FBI); Nixon's family was almost an afterthought, with only fleeting mentions of his wife Pat and his two daughters; and sometimes dates did not match up. Also, while Reeves gives a justifiable reason for this, he effectively ends the in-depth look of Nixon's presidency on 4/30/73 even though Nixon remained in office for another fifteen months after that.
Reeves does a great job at really getting at Nixon's devious and manipulative personality. He talks about Nixon's relationships with the major players in his administration, how Nixon literally hated meeting with people so he usually was able to have Haldeman handle the dirty work for him, and how he became a prisoner of his own delusions. He does also show Nixon's brilliance in finally ending the Vietnam War, creating the opening to China, and concluding the SALT Treaty with the Soviet Union.
A few things that I did not like: I thought that, at times, the narrative seemed oddly detached - Reeves would mention a decision that was made but not talk about why it was made (example: selection of L. Patrick Gray to become Director of the FBI); Nixon's family was almost an afterthought, with only fleeting mentions of his wife Pat and his two daughters; and sometimes dates did not match up. Also, while Reeves gives a justifiable reason for this, he effectively ends the in-depth look of Nixon's presidency on 4/30/73 even though Nixon remained in office for another fifteen months after that.
January 30, 2015
A huge, exhaustive look at Nixon’s first term of office, Reeves’ book is a compelling day-by-day look at the making and unmaking of a presidency, often at the same time. It’s an interesting read.
When Nixon rolled into the Oval Office in 1969, he brought in a handful of loyalists whose jobs were to insulate him from stuff he deemed un-presidential. If people wanted to talk with him, they had to go through Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman first. So right from the get-go, maybe Nixon’s presidency was doomed: he didn’t trust his staff, loathed the media and had nasty, paranoid edge. He assumed everyone else did, too.
The Nixon that emerges out of the pages of this biography is one of a guy who couldn’t trust people and assumed everyone was as paranoid, cynical and prone to backstabbing as he was. He’d lie to one person, tell another lie to a second and wait to see which lie got into the media first. He had a whole cabinet at his disposal but trusted just a handful of people: namely Henry Kissinger, Haldeman, John Mitchell and John Ehrlichman.
So he plotted, plotted and plotted. At his direction, journalists had their phones bugged and conversations were secretly recorded. Even before Gordon Liddy proposed operation Gemstone – more on that in a second – the Nixon White House reads like something out of Machiavelli or Game of Thrones, a place where everyone plotted how best to stab someone in the back. Indeed, things got nasty early on, when the White House helped cover up the murder of a Vietnamese agent by CIA agents, a move Nixon personally pushed along and helped inspire Daniel Ellsberg to leak the Pentagon Papers.
Eventually because of that and other leaks, a second and more infamous cast of characters comes into play: Liddy, Charles Colson and The Plumbers. These people were assigned to find and fix leaks in the White House, to stop people from talking to the press and to deal with what the White House deemed enemies. In one particularly insane passage, Liddy pitches a program he called Gemstone to Mitchell and John Dean:
“I have secured an option to lease a pleasure craft docked in the canal directly in front of the Fontainebleau Hotel. It is more than 60 feet long, with several staterooms, and expensively decorated in a Chinese motif. It can also be wired for sight and sound… we can, without much trouble, compromise these officials through the charms of some ladies I have arranged to have living on the boat.” (pg 430)
Mitchell and Dean both think the plan is insane, but regardless Liddy is kept on anyway, and soon plans are hatched for bugging prominent Democratic leaders.
It’s easy to focus on the seamy side of this book, but Reeves covers the triumphs of Nixon’s Presidency, too. He goes in depth on how Nixon reopened relations with China, the long and arduous peace talks with North Vietnam and the SALT treaty with the Soviet Union.
In many of these foreign deals, Kissinger played a key role, often operating under only Nixon and in total secrecy from everyone, including Secretary of State William P. Rogers. The more I read, the more Kissinger reminded me of Nixon, too: paranoid, often near hysteria and constantly plotting against others. Unlike Nixon, though, he loved attention from the media, which eventually gave him a pass on some of the stuff he does in these pages, like ordering the bombing of Cambodia.
The book more or less focuses on Nixon’s first term, ending with the President admitting defeat and wandering off to soak in a hot tub in April 1973. A brief epilogue covers the final months of his presidency in brief.
Reeves does an admirable job cutting through the many, many documents Nixon left in his wake. There are hours of tapes, thousands of notes and even annotations on his news summary, just to mention what Nixon was behind. And while the book is detailed, only occasionally did I find the sheer mass of information overwhelming.
More often, it read like a screenplay, cutting between Nixon in Moscow and Liddy breaking into Larry O’Brien’s office, two currents representing the highs and lows of Nixon: his success in foreign affairs and his paranoid tendencies that ultimately brought him down.
It’s also worth noting the book is well-researched, with a good 50 pages of notes, a lengthy bibliographic essay by Jonathan Cassidy and had interviews with everyone from Nixon and several of his cabinet officials (although John Connelly is an interesting omission, if not a surprising one; he passed on Caro, too).
A final note: between the lines, Reeves sketches out what we could call the post-Nixon era. As President, Nixon looked to cater to what he called the Silent Majority. The way he went out to make the Republican Party more like that of southern Democrats, the way he relentlessly attacked the media and the way he tried to unite working class people against students, intellectuals and journalists seems like the beginning of the playbook used by everyone from Reagan to Sarah Palin, with varying degrees of success. Nixon: he haunts us still. (I believe Rick Perlstein’s Nixonland covers this in better detail; I haven’t had a chance to read it yet).
Although it’s maybe a little too much at once for people looking for a concise look at the Nixon presidency and it ends a little sooner than I’d have liked, President Nixon is a well researched and compelling read about his first four years. Recommended.
When Nixon rolled into the Oval Office in 1969, he brought in a handful of loyalists whose jobs were to insulate him from stuff he deemed un-presidential. If people wanted to talk with him, they had to go through Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman first. So right from the get-go, maybe Nixon’s presidency was doomed: he didn’t trust his staff, loathed the media and had nasty, paranoid edge. He assumed everyone else did, too.
The Nixon that emerges out of the pages of this biography is one of a guy who couldn’t trust people and assumed everyone was as paranoid, cynical and prone to backstabbing as he was. He’d lie to one person, tell another lie to a second and wait to see which lie got into the media first. He had a whole cabinet at his disposal but trusted just a handful of people: namely Henry Kissinger, Haldeman, John Mitchell and John Ehrlichman.
So he plotted, plotted and plotted. At his direction, journalists had their phones bugged and conversations were secretly recorded. Even before Gordon Liddy proposed operation Gemstone – more on that in a second – the Nixon White House reads like something out of Machiavelli or Game of Thrones, a place where everyone plotted how best to stab someone in the back. Indeed, things got nasty early on, when the White House helped cover up the murder of a Vietnamese agent by CIA agents, a move Nixon personally pushed along and helped inspire Daniel Ellsberg to leak the Pentagon Papers.
Eventually because of that and other leaks, a second and more infamous cast of characters comes into play: Liddy, Charles Colson and The Plumbers. These people were assigned to find and fix leaks in the White House, to stop people from talking to the press and to deal with what the White House deemed enemies. In one particularly insane passage, Liddy pitches a program he called Gemstone to Mitchell and John Dean:
“I have secured an option to lease a pleasure craft docked in the canal directly in front of the Fontainebleau Hotel. It is more than 60 feet long, with several staterooms, and expensively decorated in a Chinese motif. It can also be wired for sight and sound… we can, without much trouble, compromise these officials through the charms of some ladies I have arranged to have living on the boat.” (pg 430)
Mitchell and Dean both think the plan is insane, but regardless Liddy is kept on anyway, and soon plans are hatched for bugging prominent Democratic leaders.
It’s easy to focus on the seamy side of this book, but Reeves covers the triumphs of Nixon’s Presidency, too. He goes in depth on how Nixon reopened relations with China, the long and arduous peace talks with North Vietnam and the SALT treaty with the Soviet Union.
In many of these foreign deals, Kissinger played a key role, often operating under only Nixon and in total secrecy from everyone, including Secretary of State William P. Rogers. The more I read, the more Kissinger reminded me of Nixon, too: paranoid, often near hysteria and constantly plotting against others. Unlike Nixon, though, he loved attention from the media, which eventually gave him a pass on some of the stuff he does in these pages, like ordering the bombing of Cambodia.
The book more or less focuses on Nixon’s first term, ending with the President admitting defeat and wandering off to soak in a hot tub in April 1973. A brief epilogue covers the final months of his presidency in brief.
Reeves does an admirable job cutting through the many, many documents Nixon left in his wake. There are hours of tapes, thousands of notes and even annotations on his news summary, just to mention what Nixon was behind. And while the book is detailed, only occasionally did I find the sheer mass of information overwhelming.
More often, it read like a screenplay, cutting between Nixon in Moscow and Liddy breaking into Larry O’Brien’s office, two currents representing the highs and lows of Nixon: his success in foreign affairs and his paranoid tendencies that ultimately brought him down.
It’s also worth noting the book is well-researched, with a good 50 pages of notes, a lengthy bibliographic essay by Jonathan Cassidy and had interviews with everyone from Nixon and several of his cabinet officials (although John Connelly is an interesting omission, if not a surprising one; he passed on Caro, too).
A final note: between the lines, Reeves sketches out what we could call the post-Nixon era. As President, Nixon looked to cater to what he called the Silent Majority. The way he went out to make the Republican Party more like that of southern Democrats, the way he relentlessly attacked the media and the way he tried to unite working class people against students, intellectuals and journalists seems like the beginning of the playbook used by everyone from Reagan to Sarah Palin, with varying degrees of success. Nixon: he haunts us still. (I believe Rick Perlstein’s Nixonland covers this in better detail; I haven’t had a chance to read it yet).
Although it’s maybe a little too much at once for people looking for a concise look at the Nixon presidency and it ends a little sooner than I’d have liked, President Nixon is a well researched and compelling read about his first four years. Recommended.
Currently reading
September 3, 2008Like some zombie that's overstayed its welcome, old ski-nose (or was that Bob Hope, I get the two confused) just keeps coming back for more. Dirty tricks, brain-dead ideologies, and banal hypocrisy are all part of the Republican Party's arsenal these days. Nixon's vision of a Republican-controlled New South still bleeds Red. And his prediction that the superior "Yellow Race" would eventually come out on top over the black-and-white versions? Hey, did you happen to check out where that American flag you flew on Labor Day was made?
Even if the reader thinks they know enough about Dick Nixon to thoroughly hate him, they'll find even more fun grist for the mill in these pages. How many of you out there knew that Nixon himself was scripting and orchestrating the Nixon the Man campaign that aimed to soften his public image? (his memo of a script to Pat: "He is so thoughtful of all of us. He is always planning little surprises and little gifts for us. When he gets some good editorials or comments, he [will] have them Xeroxed and sent over to the house to us so that we can have a bright spot in the day too.) The classic Nixon "salty" language and off the cuff anti-Semitism is very well represented ("That little Jew [sausage] sucker is the same guy who screwed us in the Eisenhower administration ... Washington is full of Jews ... Most Jews are disloyal ..."). And how Nixon wanted to deal away Taiwan to what used to be "Red China" to him is a study in under poker handed diplomacy (he tells them "we are trying to find language which will not give [the opposition] the opportunity to gang up and say in effect that the American president went to Peking and sold Taiwan down the river ... [we have] to be clever enough to find language which will meet your need yet does not stir up the animals.")
So dig in, Nixon buffs, and get ready to wallow in the contempt you so deserve. Extra bonus: a paranoid Henry Kissinger nearly has a seizure worrying about some Secretary of State named Rogers.
Even if the reader thinks they know enough about Dick Nixon to thoroughly hate him, they'll find even more fun grist for the mill in these pages. How many of you out there knew that Nixon himself was scripting and orchestrating the Nixon the Man campaign that aimed to soften his public image? (his memo of a script to Pat: "He is so thoughtful of all of us. He is always planning little surprises and little gifts for us. When he gets some good editorials or comments, he [will] have them Xeroxed and sent over to the house to us so that we can have a bright spot in the day too.) The classic Nixon "salty" language and off the cuff anti-Semitism is very well represented ("That little Jew [sausage] sucker is the same guy who screwed us in the Eisenhower administration ... Washington is full of Jews ... Most Jews are disloyal ..."). And how Nixon wanted to deal away Taiwan to what used to be "Red China" to him is a study in under poker handed diplomacy (he tells them "we are trying to find language which will not give [the opposition] the opportunity to gang up and say in effect that the American president went to Peking and sold Taiwan down the river ... [we have] to be clever enough to find language which will meet your need yet does not stir up the animals.")
So dig in, Nixon buffs, and get ready to wallow in the contempt you so deserve. Extra bonus: a paranoid Henry Kissinger nearly has a seizure worrying about some Secretary of State named Rogers.
December 20, 2018
If this absolute behemoth of a book were written about any other person, it would be unreadable. Thankfully, the author chose one of the most paranoid, Machiavellian, isolated, and fascinating Presidents. What emerges from this meticulously detailed portrayal of Nixon's presidency is the sense that Nixon was more of a politician than a human. Here was a guy who wrote memos to his wife and daughters and was always willing to sacrifice anything for political expediency. And yet, even Nixon's worst critics have to admit that his administration holds an extraordinarily impressive record. This book offers an exhaustive look inside Nixon's presidency as it scores some of the largest triumphs while undermining fundamental liberties.
June 26, 2021
Solid work with a clear (and compelling) thesis that actually carries through the entire bio.
April 18, 2010
"There was one last piece of business concerning the session (with Chairman Mao). The President's men asked the Chinese photographers to cut Winston Lord out of their pictures before they were given to the press. That way they could tell the State Department that the Chinese had insisted that only the Preident and Kissinger come to Mao's house."
"President Nixon had memorized his toast, and that had caused a strange scene in the American party between Dwight Chapin, the White House advance chief, and Charles Freeman Jr., a State Department interpreter. Chapin assigned Freeman to do the translation at the dinner and Freeman asked for the text. Chapin said the President would speak extemporaneously. But Freeman knew that this was not true, he had worked on a draft of the remarks – and he knew the President was going to quote Mao's poetry. Chapin again refused to give him the text and Freeman said, "If you think I'm going to get up and ad lib Chairman Mao back into Chinese, you're out of your mind."
"This is an order from the President," Chapin said, but Freeman refused again. So a Chinese translator, with the text, was doing the translation as Nixon spoke:"
"As the two men wound down their first conversations, Nixon asked for a favor: could Brezhnev mention the idea of the joint declaration of principles as his idea when Secretary Rogers joined the talks? Neither Nixon nor Kissinger had told Rogers about the declaration, so they wanted it to seem a Russian surprise."
"The next morning Kissinger asked Haldeman for advice on his deteriorating relationship with the Presiedent. The chief of staff suggested that he stop speaking and leaking to the press, citing an Osborne column in the current 'New Republic' discussing where Kissinger ended and Nixon began. Kissinger said he never saw Osborne. Haldeman pulled out the magazine and began to read direct quotes attributed to Kissinger, who then said, "Well, he called me ... on the telephone.""
"the logs showed that he (Kissinger) had talked for hours with columnist Joseph Kraft. Nixon told Colson to call Kissinger and confront him with that. Kissinger, who knew nothing of the logs, told Colson: "I wouldn't talk to that son-of-a-bitch."
"He had just hung up from talking to him and then he said he didn't," Colson told the President."
"President Nixon had memorized his toast, and that had caused a strange scene in the American party between Dwight Chapin, the White House advance chief, and Charles Freeman Jr., a State Department interpreter. Chapin assigned Freeman to do the translation at the dinner and Freeman asked for the text. Chapin said the President would speak extemporaneously. But Freeman knew that this was not true, he had worked on a draft of the remarks – and he knew the President was going to quote Mao's poetry. Chapin again refused to give him the text and Freeman said, "If you think I'm going to get up and ad lib Chairman Mao back into Chinese, you're out of your mind."
"This is an order from the President," Chapin said, but Freeman refused again. So a Chinese translator, with the text, was doing the translation as Nixon spoke:"
"As the two men wound down their first conversations, Nixon asked for a favor: could Brezhnev mention the idea of the joint declaration of principles as his idea when Secretary Rogers joined the talks? Neither Nixon nor Kissinger had told Rogers about the declaration, so they wanted it to seem a Russian surprise."
"The next morning Kissinger asked Haldeman for advice on his deteriorating relationship with the Presiedent. The chief of staff suggested that he stop speaking and leaking to the press, citing an Osborne column in the current 'New Republic' discussing where Kissinger ended and Nixon began. Kissinger said he never saw Osborne. Haldeman pulled out the magazine and began to read direct quotes attributed to Kissinger, who then said, "Well, he called me ... on the telephone.""
"the logs showed that he (Kissinger) had talked for hours with columnist Joseph Kraft. Nixon told Colson to call Kissinger and confront him with that. Kissinger, who knew nothing of the logs, told Colson: "I wouldn't talk to that son-of-a-bitch."
"He had just hung up from talking to him and then he said he didn't," Colson told the President."
November 5, 2016
An excellent account of Nixon's time in the White House, or, as the author observes, largely out of the White House as he apparently avoided the place during his time in office. It seems a reasonably balanced account but Nixon still comes across as venal and something of a buffoon. Probably worth following up with Bob Woodward's "The Final Days" which goes into a lot more detail for the final period of the presidency. The main theme, as suggested by the title, is how Nixon cut himself off from all but a very small group of close advisors and how much damage this did to his attitudes and performance. It seems to have been inevitable - resulting from his ungregarious personality. It's amazing how people who seem the opposite of the personality type you would expect manage to rise to the top in environments where personal relationships would seem to be key...
April 9, 2007
This is such an impressive, comprehensive biography of Nixon during his years in the White House. You will marvel at Reeves's ability to weave events out of the thousands of minutes of conversations and endless documents he had to review to write this chronicle. From his work comes an interesting though not all that surprising take on Nixon as somewhat of a recluse whose own closed-offness led him to shun potentially worthy advice and act on or try to act on sometimes vindictive whims. Sound familiar?
Oh, and Nixon swore like a member of the Sopranos.
Oh, and Nixon swore like a member of the Sopranos.
January 26, 2009
Excellent bio of Nixon. Although Reeves is an establishment liberal, he approaches Nixon with an open mind and gives him his due. The fascinating part is that much of what the press reported and subsequently reported concerning the Nixon White House Horrors is verified independently by Reeves.
February 5, 2011
Fascinating account of what went on in the Nixon administration. It's a period of history I knew very little of.
April 19, 2013
Excellent work by Reeves, definitely worth reading for a better grasp on this largely mistunderstood president.
December 8, 2018
I discovered this author by accident and read a book he wrote on President Kennedy (Profile in Power) and thought it was a wonderful read, so I had no problem snapping this one up on Richard Nixon. The style of writing is the same in both books; the two men, as most know, radically different.
This is not a biography. Like its ‘Kennedy’ counterpart, this retrospective focuses on Nixon’s years in the office as president. The narrative starts during his inauguration in 1969 and finishes in April of 1973 as his administration was rapidly decomposing due to the Watergate scandal. The narrative highlights the more well-known events of the Nixon administration, good and bad, and does seem to get bogged down in places when talking about things like price controls and inflation. It’s a bit hard to stay interested when digesting such things.
There have been many books written about Nixon, and one of the things that makes this book stand out a bit from the rest is the focus on the word in the title - “Alone”. Sadly, Nixon truly was a loner, and whereas this characteristic can aid certain people in certain occupations, being the leader of the free world really isn’t one of them. Nixon was great when it came to things like formulating world policy, but having to stand around at a cocktail party and make small talk about things such as the weather was a nightmare for him. There were times when I read about his aloofness and I actually howled out loud with laughter. We read about, for example, when Nixon was planning the White House Christmas party, and he purposely made sure his schedule would prevent him from actually being there during the festivities.
Of course, he had been a politician for a very long time, and his remoteness made an awful lot of people not like him over the years. Again, not a good thing for a politician. Because of this, the man developed a very unhealthy paranoia of those around him, and he methodically made daily decisions in the White House to purposely try to harm his enemies. These decisions were highly immoral and, many times, illegal. He would pour over daily summaries of the day’s news with a pen as he scribbled notes in the margins for his team to “fix these issues” at all costs. When we read about this behavior, it really isn’t a surprise that his team actually tried to burglarize the Democrat headquarters with the aim of simply bugging the telephones.
This book is not an attempt at mudslinging. It really does give the man credit where credit is due. It mostly dismisses him from most of the responsibilities of the Viet Nam war, and provides glowing praise of the man during his summits with Communist China and Brezhnev’s Russia. The man truly could have gone down as one of the greatest had he not been such a paranoid recluse. There were, however, other disturbing signs as well. The book portrays him to be a bitter racist (‘we shouldn’t focus on the blacks, they can’t help us win any elections’) with a particular animosity of Jews. Maybe such behavior was more common 50 years ago, but it’s still quite sickening to read about it.
The book does its due diligence as the Watergate scandal slowly breaks and festers, yet I never really felt the emotional connection to the tragedy while reading. This is probably because I’ve read so many books about Watergate, where the reader had more time to focus on the actual situations. Since this book is all encompassing, the tragedy never seems to sink through the skin. In fact, for some reason, this book stops in April 1973. I’m not sure why. I wish the author would have carried his narrative through until Nixon’s resignation 16 months later. Why did this book stop when it did? It could be because the focus during this time was so narrowly on the administration coming apart, that the sources for this time were few and far between. There’s a brief ‘afterwards’ in the book that quickly summarizes the latter events, but I felt a bit cheated. I wish Richard Reeves would have cut down on much of the mundane comings and goings in the early years and filled that space, instead, with the last 1 ½ years of Nixon’s tumultuous administration.
This book really isn’t that necessary for one who may have read a lot about Richard Nixon, but it succeeds where it should, and truly shows the tragedy of the man’s character of being isolated, paranoid, untrustworthy, and simply alone. One gets the feeling that had Nixon not been these things, he truly could have been one of the greats. Instead, he’s arguably one of the worst.
A tragedy indeed.
This is not a biography. Like its ‘Kennedy’ counterpart, this retrospective focuses on Nixon’s years in the office as president. The narrative starts during his inauguration in 1969 and finishes in April of 1973 as his administration was rapidly decomposing due to the Watergate scandal. The narrative highlights the more well-known events of the Nixon administration, good and bad, and does seem to get bogged down in places when talking about things like price controls and inflation. It’s a bit hard to stay interested when digesting such things.
There have been many books written about Nixon, and one of the things that makes this book stand out a bit from the rest is the focus on the word in the title - “Alone”. Sadly, Nixon truly was a loner, and whereas this characteristic can aid certain people in certain occupations, being the leader of the free world really isn’t one of them. Nixon was great when it came to things like formulating world policy, but having to stand around at a cocktail party and make small talk about things such as the weather was a nightmare for him. There were times when I read about his aloofness and I actually howled out loud with laughter. We read about, for example, when Nixon was planning the White House Christmas party, and he purposely made sure his schedule would prevent him from actually being there during the festivities.
Of course, he had been a politician for a very long time, and his remoteness made an awful lot of people not like him over the years. Again, not a good thing for a politician. Because of this, the man developed a very unhealthy paranoia of those around him, and he methodically made daily decisions in the White House to purposely try to harm his enemies. These decisions were highly immoral and, many times, illegal. He would pour over daily summaries of the day’s news with a pen as he scribbled notes in the margins for his team to “fix these issues” at all costs. When we read about this behavior, it really isn’t a surprise that his team actually tried to burglarize the Democrat headquarters with the aim of simply bugging the telephones.
This book is not an attempt at mudslinging. It really does give the man credit where credit is due. It mostly dismisses him from most of the responsibilities of the Viet Nam war, and provides glowing praise of the man during his summits with Communist China and Brezhnev’s Russia. The man truly could have gone down as one of the greatest had he not been such a paranoid recluse. There were, however, other disturbing signs as well. The book portrays him to be a bitter racist (‘we shouldn’t focus on the blacks, they can’t help us win any elections’) with a particular animosity of Jews. Maybe such behavior was more common 50 years ago, but it’s still quite sickening to read about it.
The book does its due diligence as the Watergate scandal slowly breaks and festers, yet I never really felt the emotional connection to the tragedy while reading. This is probably because I’ve read so many books about Watergate, where the reader had more time to focus on the actual situations. Since this book is all encompassing, the tragedy never seems to sink through the skin. In fact, for some reason, this book stops in April 1973. I’m not sure why. I wish the author would have carried his narrative through until Nixon’s resignation 16 months later. Why did this book stop when it did? It could be because the focus during this time was so narrowly on the administration coming apart, that the sources for this time were few and far between. There’s a brief ‘afterwards’ in the book that quickly summarizes the latter events, but I felt a bit cheated. I wish Richard Reeves would have cut down on much of the mundane comings and goings in the early years and filled that space, instead, with the last 1 ½ years of Nixon’s tumultuous administration.
This book really isn’t that necessary for one who may have read a lot about Richard Nixon, but it succeeds where it should, and truly shows the tragedy of the man’s character of being isolated, paranoid, untrustworthy, and simply alone. One gets the feeling that had Nixon not been these things, he truly could have been one of the greats. Instead, he’s arguably one of the worst.
A tragedy indeed.
May 2, 2018
It’s no secret that the Nixon presidency has captivated and fascinated me. Even as a kid living through it, I was drawn to it in the way all of us are drawn to a train wreck or some other horrific inevitability we can see coming and can’t see how to change.
I don’t pretend to have vivid memories, especially of the first full term. Of course, I recall that funky-sounding call to the lunar surface, and I have vague memories of my Scoop-Jackson-style-Democrat parents fuming about wage and price controls. (The parents were convinced the controls were imposed only after Nixon was sure prices were at their highest so his corporate cronies wouldn’t get too damaged by the exercise.) I have vague memories of a postal strike because I worried about whether I’d get my precious cassettes from NLS. But on balance, the first term was only a vague blur.
This book changes all that. This is almost a day-by-day, sometimes a minute-by-minute account of a portion of the Nixon presidency. Reeves points out here that Nixon, a consummate loner, preferred nothing more than his privacy in room 175 of the Old Executive Office Building—a place to which he often retreated to avoid the cabinet, the press, even his family. This is a portrayal of a man whose feet were planted firmly in two distinct worlds. There’s the inspirational Nixon—the guy he wrote about in the third person in his diaries with seemingly endless lists of attributes he wanted to emphasize to the public; and there’s the warped twisted user Nixon, who shamelessly manipulated those around him and whose paranoia was contagious, to say the least. Before his tenure ended, Nixon’s aides were spying on him and on one another. Apparently, Kissinger tapped Nixon staffer phones with the same casual way in which Nixon tapped theirs.
Nixon’s love of Woody Wilson comes across here numerous times as well. If you read this, you’ll understand why. Both men had their share of racist views. Nixon couldn’t just write about Jews; he wrote about goddamn Jews. Privately and even in the occasional cabinet meetings, according to this book, Nixon referred to Kissinger as “the Jew boy” or “my Jew boy.” But the two men came to depend heavily on one another. Their mistrust of one another was mutual, but their dependence on one another was equally real.
It isn’t my intent to disrespect the good things that were a result of his presidency—and there were good things. But I was fascinated by the intensely lonely man who could play the politician while in very real ways isolating himself from those closest to him.
This is not a Nixon biography. Indeed, it covers his presidency from roughly Inauguration Day 1969 to April 30, 1973. That was the day on which Nixon apparently realized that Watergate had taken on a life of its own and was no longer something he could control. So you get nothing about the pre-presidential man, and you see nothing of his post-presidency two decades or so. But this is a gripping story. Even the gold standard debates and the wage-and-price controls will be a fascinating read.
I was intrigued by the kind of manipulation in which significant numbers of the Nixon staff seemed to engage—even sending fake letters to editors taking a specific position or denouncing someone else for a position with which Nixon disagreed. He seems almost fanatical here about ensuring that the public saw him as a hard worker. He encouraged staffers to stress the fact that he took five-minute lunches.
Reeves spent plenty of time with diaries and tapes, and he offers a portrait here of a calculating intelligent man who deliberately isolated himself from others while playing the part of the affable working-class politician.
I don’t pretend to have vivid memories, especially of the first full term. Of course, I recall that funky-sounding call to the lunar surface, and I have vague memories of my Scoop-Jackson-style-Democrat parents fuming about wage and price controls. (The parents were convinced the controls were imposed only after Nixon was sure prices were at their highest so his corporate cronies wouldn’t get too damaged by the exercise.) I have vague memories of a postal strike because I worried about whether I’d get my precious cassettes from NLS. But on balance, the first term was only a vague blur.
This book changes all that. This is almost a day-by-day, sometimes a minute-by-minute account of a portion of the Nixon presidency. Reeves points out here that Nixon, a consummate loner, preferred nothing more than his privacy in room 175 of the Old Executive Office Building—a place to which he often retreated to avoid the cabinet, the press, even his family. This is a portrayal of a man whose feet were planted firmly in two distinct worlds. There’s the inspirational Nixon—the guy he wrote about in the third person in his diaries with seemingly endless lists of attributes he wanted to emphasize to the public; and there’s the warped twisted user Nixon, who shamelessly manipulated those around him and whose paranoia was contagious, to say the least. Before his tenure ended, Nixon’s aides were spying on him and on one another. Apparently, Kissinger tapped Nixon staffer phones with the same casual way in which Nixon tapped theirs.
Nixon’s love of Woody Wilson comes across here numerous times as well. If you read this, you’ll understand why. Both men had their share of racist views. Nixon couldn’t just write about Jews; he wrote about goddamn Jews. Privately and even in the occasional cabinet meetings, according to this book, Nixon referred to Kissinger as “the Jew boy” or “my Jew boy.” But the two men came to depend heavily on one another. Their mistrust of one another was mutual, but their dependence on one another was equally real.
It isn’t my intent to disrespect the good things that were a result of his presidency—and there were good things. But I was fascinated by the intensely lonely man who could play the politician while in very real ways isolating himself from those closest to him.
This is not a Nixon biography. Indeed, it covers his presidency from roughly Inauguration Day 1969 to April 30, 1973. That was the day on which Nixon apparently realized that Watergate had taken on a life of its own and was no longer something he could control. So you get nothing about the pre-presidential man, and you see nothing of his post-presidency two decades or so. But this is a gripping story. Even the gold standard debates and the wage-and-price controls will be a fascinating read.
I was intrigued by the kind of manipulation in which significant numbers of the Nixon staff seemed to engage—even sending fake letters to editors taking a specific position or denouncing someone else for a position with which Nixon disagreed. He seems almost fanatical here about ensuring that the public saw him as a hard worker. He encouraged staffers to stress the fact that he took five-minute lunches.
Reeves spent plenty of time with diaries and tapes, and he offers a portrait here of a calculating intelligent man who deliberately isolated himself from others while playing the part of the affable working-class politician.
might-read
April 8, 2020Starred Review in Booklist --https://www.booklistonline.com/Presid...
Syndicated columnist Reeves plunges into the mountains of written material and tapes generated by “a presidency . . . documented with a compulsion that will probably never be repeated,” adds interviews and oral histories, and emerges with a nuanced, immensely sad portrait of Richard Nixon at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Alone is the title’s key word: unlike most politicians, before or after him, Nixon was a loner, as introverted as the shyest wallflower at a high-school dance. Nixon believed his allies and adversaries on the national and international scene operated as he did: trusting no one, seeking always to manipulate. It was this approach, Reeves suggests, that produced “a chaos of lies” at the White House. Reeves’ narrative is chronological, from Nixon’s inauguration in January 1969 to April 1973, when he realized that he had lost control over the Watergate scandals. (A prologue describes the process of packing up Nixon’s Oval Office desk in August 1974, as he prepared to leave the White House.) In between are Vietnam and crime in the streets, affirmative action and the end of the gold standard, Chile and the antiballistic missile treaty, the opening to China and, of course, Watergate. A fascinating study of the brilliant, profoundly flawed man elected to lead the nation through a troubled time. — Mary Carroll
Syndicated columnist Reeves plunges into the mountains of written material and tapes generated by “a presidency . . . documented with a compulsion that will probably never be repeated,” adds interviews and oral histories, and emerges with a nuanced, immensely sad portrait of Richard Nixon at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Alone is the title’s key word: unlike most politicians, before or after him, Nixon was a loner, as introverted as the shyest wallflower at a high-school dance. Nixon believed his allies and adversaries on the national and international scene operated as he did: trusting no one, seeking always to manipulate. It was this approach, Reeves suggests, that produced “a chaos of lies” at the White House. Reeves’ narrative is chronological, from Nixon’s inauguration in January 1969 to April 1973, when he realized that he had lost control over the Watergate scandals. (A prologue describes the process of packing up Nixon’s Oval Office desk in August 1974, as he prepared to leave the White House.) In between are Vietnam and crime in the streets, affirmative action and the end of the gold standard, Chile and the antiballistic missile treaty, the opening to China and, of course, Watergate. A fascinating study of the brilliant, profoundly flawed man elected to lead the nation through a troubled time. — Mary Carroll
March 18, 2025
An Engaging and Well-Structured Account of Nixon’s Presidency
Richard Reeves’ President Nixon: Alone in the White House is a fascinating and well-organized look at Nixon’s time in office. One of the book’s greatest strengths is how Reeves introduces and explains the key figures in Nixon’s administration. Many historical accounts assume readers already know who these individuals are, but Reeves takes the time to provide context, making it easier to follow the complexities of Nixon’s presidency.
Rather than focusing too heavily on Watergate and Nixon’s downfall, Reeves spends much of the book examining his policies and leadership—his handling of Vietnam, his approach to fighting communism, and various domestic issues. The day-by-day structure of the book adds to its immersive quality, giving a sense of how Nixon governed in real time.
Reeves also highlights Nixon’s extravagant spending on his homes, his deepening paranoia toward the press, and his shifting relationships with Congress and the public. His writing is clear and engaging, making even the more detailed policy discussions accessible. For anyone interested in Nixon beyond just Watergate, this book provides a balanced and insightful portrait of his presidency.
Richard Reeves’ President Nixon: Alone in the White House is a fascinating and well-organized look at Nixon’s time in office. One of the book’s greatest strengths is how Reeves introduces and explains the key figures in Nixon’s administration. Many historical accounts assume readers already know who these individuals are, but Reeves takes the time to provide context, making it easier to follow the complexities of Nixon’s presidency.
Rather than focusing too heavily on Watergate and Nixon’s downfall, Reeves spends much of the book examining his policies and leadership—his handling of Vietnam, his approach to fighting communism, and various domestic issues. The day-by-day structure of the book adds to its immersive quality, giving a sense of how Nixon governed in real time.
Reeves also highlights Nixon’s extravagant spending on his homes, his deepening paranoia toward the press, and his shifting relationships with Congress and the public. His writing is clear and engaging, making even the more detailed policy discussions accessible. For anyone interested in Nixon beyond just Watergate, this book provides a balanced and insightful portrait of his presidency.
August 2, 2024
An interesting read based on voluminous documentation from the Nixon White House, not only tapes but lots and lots of written material created by Nixon himself and by everyone who attended any meeting with the President. The downside was that there was so much material and many names involved; I sometimes got lost if I wasn't paying very close attention. After a while, I skipped around to get what was going on based on certain historical events, such as space flights, Nixon's trip to China, the Vietnam peace talks, and of course Watergate. I was aware before reading this of Nixon's brilliance as a strategist. I was struck the other night while reading of his prediction of China as an economic powerhouse. Some 50 years ahead. Wow.
April 12, 2020
This is a startlingly detailed account of Richard Nixon's presidency, but very rarely does it drag.
What is striking is how something like the Watergate scandal that brought Nixon down seemed almost bound to happen. Very early on, dishonesty and distrust were the order of the day in the Nixon White House. From that, the Watergate break-in and cover-up were almost natural follow-ons.
Recommended.
What is striking is how something like the Watergate scandal that brought Nixon down seemed almost bound to happen. Very early on, dishonesty and distrust were the order of the day in the Nixon White House. From that, the Watergate break-in and cover-up were almost natural follow-ons.
Recommended.
June 9, 2020
A meticulously researched fly-on-the wall account of Nixon’s first term of presidency that gives a highly detailed examination of his psyche whilst in office. To say he was a complicated, lonely and troubled man would be putting it mildly, and this examination of his tenure in the White House, and his eventual disgrace in exiting it, is a compelling read.
January 4, 2025
Nixon clings to what is familiar until the last moment. Then, when the evidence overwhelms him or something happens in his gut, he decides to act, and nothing stands very long in his way. He abandons his philosophy, his promises, his speeches, his friends, his counselors. He marches out of one life into a new world without any apologies or looking back.
THE LAST GREAT AMERICAN PRESIDENT
THE LAST GREAT AMERICAN PRESIDENT
July 31, 2020
Well researched account of Richard Nixon's presidency, covering all aspects of his successes and failings. Reeves provides outstanding insight into Nixon's struggles with ending the Vietnam War, engaging with China, Watergate, and other key topics.
August 26, 2023
Engaging account of Nixon's first year, with an emphasis on his isolation and introversion.
The high points were detailed accounts of the groundbreaking foreign trips to China and the USSR.
There's little literary flair here - but the result is certainly authoritative.
The high points were detailed accounts of the groundbreaking foreign trips to China and the USSR.
There's little literary flair here - but the result is certainly authoritative.
August 15, 2023
Exceptional. My only gripe with this book is that it ends far too early. I would have loved if this book followed the Nixon presidency all the way to the end.
June 2, 2015
As its title indicates, 'President Nixon' is about the years in the White House, focusing on the campaigns for the office, the recognition of Peoples' China, detente with the USSR and withdrawal from Vietnam--and, surprisingly, not all that much about the final stages of the Watergate investigations leading to resignation. In the course of this the characters of both Nixon and his staff, the culture of the White House, are revealed in such a manner that Nixon's fall appears almost tragic.
Unsuprisingly, Nixon comes across as a profoundly flawed person, a paranoid, chronic liar. Somewhat surprisingly, Henry Kissinger comes across as even worse--as a fawning megalomaniac. Both of them, of course, were functional sociopaths, blithely ordering wholesale murders in a pointless war.
Unsuprisingly, Nixon comes across as a profoundly flawed person, a paranoid, chronic liar. Somewhat surprisingly, Henry Kissinger comes across as even worse--as a fawning megalomaniac. Both of them, of course, were functional sociopaths, blithely ordering wholesale murders in a pointless war.
July 31, 2007
This is a day by day account of Mr. Nixon's Presidency, based on the government's own documentation. The reader can see the "ordinariness" and pettiness of the man, and also watch his mental state deteriorate as the pressures of his role collide with the massive ego that drove him to the position in the first place. It's interesting to see that the majority of the current "neocon" leadership was either already active in Nixon's administration , or was appointed by him. That's your Perots, Rumsfelds, Bushes, Wolfowitzes, and on and on. A scary, intense read.
April 5, 2008
Richard Reeves is a fair author. Having read his previous book on President Kennedy, I was interested in his take on Nixon. This book is not a bio, nor is it a political history per se. Rather this book, like the Kennedy and Reagan books, weaves a path through the first four years of Nixon's presidency. The age old question will always remain: how a guy as smart as Richard Nixon, and he was smart, got caught up in a bevy of intrigue, black ops, and paranoia.
November 3, 2014
Fascinating day by day study of the Nixon administration. The president comes across as a very odd man with some good political instincts. It emphasizes foreign policy, clearly Nixon's primary area of interest, with the visits to Russia and China and the cynical winding down of the Vietnam War prominent in the story. It demonstrates how Nixon concentrated power in the White House and basically ignored the Cabinet departments. No one looks good in this story, which presents a portrait of an amoral administration populated by egotistical and often childish figures. Definitely worth reading.
April 7, 2023
Buckle up for a rollercoaster ride through the enigmatic world of President Nixon! "Alone in the White House" unleashes a tsunami of vibrant, unexpected perspectives that transport you into the kaleidoscopic corridors of power. Unravel the secrets of a president known for his paradoxical nature, as this book zaps you with lightning bolts of revelation. It's like exploring a cosmic labyrinth with surprises at every turn. A whirlwind of historical awesomeness awaits – don't miss your chance to dive into this mind-bending, five-star extravaganza!
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