Overview
During the last four years of Richard Nixon's life, Monica Crowley served as his foreign-policy assistant and political confidant - a trusted member of the small circle of advisers with whom he shared hours of daily one-on-one conversations. This is the remarkable story of the final public and private years of the thirty-seventh president, based on full reconstructions of the conversations Crowley had with him at the time. His hardheaded views on the end of the cold war, his emotional final trip to China, his powerful inside role during the 1991 Persian Gulf war, and his poignant thoughts on the legacy of Vietnam are recounted - as well as his frustrations with being out of power and with the foreign-policy failures of Presidents Bush and Clinton. With astonishing candor, Nixon also shares his final, startling thoughts on Watergate, including his assessments of all the major players in the scandal and what he would - and would not - have done differently. And he offers an uncompromising look at the way the sexual scandals surrounding the Kennedys, Bill Clinton, Clarence Thomas, and Robert Packwood have changed the politics of scandal.Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
In this plodding sequel to Nixon Off the Record (1996), Crowley, confidante, research consultant, travel companion and foreign policy assistant to the former president from 1990 until his death in 1994, records her conversations with him based on her daily diary. While her memoir contains few surprises in its admiring portrayal of Nixon as a farsighted politician and wise elder statesman, it presents him in his own authentic voice. He bristles with contempt at President Bush, whom he accuses of political overinvestment in Gorbachev, and praises Yeltsin as a progressive leader. Defending his Vietnam War policy as necessary to stop North Vietnam's expansionism, Nixon blames Congress's cutback of military funds as the reason America lost a winnable war. On Watergate, he wavers between defensive dismissal, acceptance of responsibility and blaming a press corps bent on retaliation because he unearthed Alger Hiss as a communist spy. Nixon chastises the American people for condoning Clinton's sexual infidelities, accuses Clinton of obstruction of justice in the Whitewater scandal, airs his scorn for intellectuals, expresses grief over his wife's death and discusses his wide readings ranging from Aristotle to Machiavelli.Library Journal
Readers who enjoyed Nixon Off the Record (LJ 10/1/96), Crowley's first volume based on her experiences as Nixon's foreign policy assistant from 1990 to 1994, may be disappointed by this rambling account of Nixon's final trips to Russia and the Far East and his thoughts about Watergate, Vietnam, philosophy, and family. Nixon, although a private citizen, wielded ample influence with Presidents Bush and Clinton, neither of whom he liked. Crowley shows how Nixon skillfully used the media to advance his pro-Yeltsin views (see also Marvin Kalb's The Nixon Memo, LJ 9/15/94) to counteract Bush's pro-Gorbachev leanings, but he reserved a special contempt for Clinton, the former antiwar protester who has allegedly engaged in sexual escapades as president. Crowley portrays Nixon as a leader responsible for important political successes and abuses and, less intentionally so, as an angry, bitter deposed president who blamed liberals for all social faults. For larger public libraries, purchase as demand warrants.--Karl Helicher, Upper Merion Township Library, King of Prussia, PA
Kirkus Reviews
A hagiographic account of the last years of Richard M. Nixon. As a college student, Crowley wrote Nixon a letter. Invited to meet with him, she ended up his assistant, friend, and biographer. She seems to have been as close to Nixon as anyone ever was outside his family. Here and in an earlier volume drawing on her time with him (Nixon off the Record, 1996), she allows Nixon to speak for himself through the copious and detailed notes she kept of their interactions.Nixon in the late 1980s and 1990s was frail and aged, but still very much a player in the game of foreign policy. Here we see him traveling to Russia as that nation fumbles toward democracy, to China as it tries to understand the market forces it has unleashed. He meets with world leaders, attempts to influence the leaders of the US, tries to, as Crowley puts it, "complete the comeback." Crowley is there, sitting in his study, as he thinks aloud, reminisces, philosophizes about life and death. These private moments reveal much about a man who remains an enigmatic figure. One touching scene has a lonely, widowed Nixon awkwardly heating up canned chili for the two of them. Unfortunately, Crowley may be too close to her subject. She has no criticism of him, exercises no independent judgment. Nixon still speaks of "enemies" out to get him. On Vietnam he admits no wrong. On Watergate he admits it was his fault, but only in the sense that he, being Nixon, was hated by the press and so was held to a higher standard than presidents before or after him. But when Crowley speaks, it is merely to repeat and support Nixon's views. How one receives this book will depend on how one perceives Nixon. Crowley might have helped usnavigate our prejudices but, alas, is more apologist than guide.