Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power

Working side by side in the White House, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger were two of the most compelling, contradictory, and powerful figures in America in the second half of the twentieth century. While their personalities could hardly have seemed more different, both were largely self-made men, brimming with ambition, driven by their own inner demons, and often ruthless in pursuit of their goals.

Tapping into a wealth of recently declassified archives, Robert Dallek uncovers fascinating details about Nixon and Kissinger's tumultuous personal relationship and brilliantly analyzes their shared roles in monumental historical events—including the nightmare of Vietnam, the unprecedented opening to China, détente with the Soviet Union, the Yom Kippur War in the Middle East, the disastrous overthrow of Allende in Chile, and the scandal of Watergate.

From one of our most distinguished historians comes an epic biography of two unlikely leaders who came together to dominate American and world affairs.

Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger were two of the most compelling, contradictory, and important leaders in America in the second half of the twentieth century. Both were largely self-made men, brimming with ambition and often ruthless in pursuit of their goals.

Tapping into recently disclosed documents and tapes, Robert Dallek uncovers fascinating details about Nixon and Kissinger's tumultuous personal relationship -- their collaboration and rivalry -- and the extent to which they struggled to outdo each other in the reach of foreign policy achievements. He also brilliantly analyzes their dealings with power brokers at home and abroad, including the nightmare of Vietnam, the brilliant opening to China, détente with the Soviet Union, the Yom Kippur War in the Middle East, the disastrous overthrow of Allende in Chile, and growing tensions between India and Pakistan, while recognizing how both men were continually plotting to distract the American public s attention away from the growing scandal of Watergate.

Authoritative, illuminating, and deeply engrossing, Nixon and Kissinger gives us a new understanding of just how important and consequential these two men were in affecting world history.

The New York Times - Michiko Kakutani

What Mr. Dallek has done, and done remarkably deftly, in this volume is focus on the relationship between the two men, and the ways in which their personal traits their drive, their paranoia and their hunger for power and control affected their performance in office and informed their foreign policy decisions. Each was given to impugning the other s emotional stability: President Nixon would ask his aide John Ehrlichman to talk to Mr. Kissinger about getting therapy, while Mr. Kissinger would frequently refer to his boss as that madman, our drunken friend and the meatball mind.

Robert Dallek is the author of the number one bestseller An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963, among other books. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. He is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the Society of American Historians, for which he served as president in 2004-2005. He lives in Washington, D.C.