With Nixon

by Raymond Price

With Nixon by Price, Raymond

Hardcover

First published November 28, 1977

Reviews

[Christopher Saunders · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fairly typical Nixon Administration memoir, penned by speechwriter Raymond K. Price (who passed away this past week). Half of the book provides an interesting insider look at the White House, particularly Price's contributions writing some of the President's key speeches (the first Inaugural Address, his major foreign policy announcements and his resignation speech), the President's relationship with the press and the battle between Nixon's liberal and conservative advisers to influence the President's domestic policies. The other half is more redundant, irritating apologia: defending Nixon's Vietnam record, savaging Watergate as a partisan witch hunt/CIA conspiracy, complaining how no one understood Nixon and everyone was, indeed, out to get him. Competently written and intermittently engaging, it's not as painful to read as most of its genre, but neither is it anything you couldn't get from William Safire's Before the Fall, a much better look inside Nixon's speechwriting staff that is, perhaps, mercifully unburdened by the need to excuse or explain Watergate.

[Mike Medeiros · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written 4 years after Nixon's resignation, this book might have been more relevant 45 years ago. Price was a main speech writer and not as privy to as much of the inner sanctum as the president's closest aides and written so long ago did not have access to all the information available since then. He may still be a Nixon apologist with the same theories about why students protested, why the distraction of Watergate wasn't worth the trade off in halting foreign policy advances and other regrets. But very little about the atmosphere of lawlessness and pressure to vanquish his enemies that led to Nixon's downfall.
There are some insights from Price's unique position but more about just recounting publicly available info about events of his years "With Nixon".

[Chris Schaffer · Rating 2 out of 5]

While it had some good interesting parts - pre-election travels of RN, trips/summits to China and the Soviet Union, the growing Watergate controversy, the final days..there was too much of Price's boring conjectures and opinions of what was going and what should have happened. It was a real struggle to finish.