President Nixon

From Barnes & Noble

Has there ever been a more controversial -- or complex -- president than Richard Nixon? Richard Reeves, who gave us President Kennedy: Profile of Power (chosen by Time magazine as the best nonfiction book of 1993), is back with a piercing look at this enigmatic man, who squandered his intelligence on bigotry and hate and ultimately destroyed his presidency. There's no one better than the gifted Reeves to shed new light on the man about whom Bob Dole said, "The most extraordinary thing about his presidency was not the way it ended, but that it happened at all."

From The Critics

Reeves' biography of Nixon portrays the former president as a complex and brilliant man, a visionary ultimately destroyed by his own insecurities and self-imposed isolation. Reeves discusses Nixon's personal weaknesses and the demise of his Presidency by Watergate, but he also highlights Nixon's leadership capabilities. The book offers a superb account of the notorious American president who will forever remain a subject of fascination and debate.
—Glenn Speer

Publishers Weekly

Syndicated columnist and biographer Reeves (President Kennedy: Profile of Power) presents an authoritative worm's-eye view of Nixon's insular presidency, wherein even secretaries of state and defense were out of the loop on foreign policy, and Nixon himself couldn't be bothered with domestic policy except as a chess match for power. A tightly chronological abundance of details reveals how secrets, lies and isolation pervaded Nixon's administration. He lied even about things as trivial as his work habits; wrote memos to his family instructing them on how to portray him as a warm family man; preferred dealing only with Haldeman, Ehrlichman and Kissinger, while hiding from and distrusting most of his staff long before Watergate; and extended his enmity for "the establishment" to include business leaders, congressional Republicans and the Pentagon, even accusing the latter of conspiring against his desire to crush North Vietnam. Reeves impressively demonstrates that Watergate grew directly and naturally out of the fundamental characteristics of Nixon's administration. Unfortunately, dogged adherence to his avowed aim "to reconstruct the Nixon presidency as it looked from the center" obliterates much-needed context and reflection. For example, Reeves never critically questions Nixon's evidently cynical exploitations of racism, often recast in neutral terms, nor considers the subsequent historical consequences. He alludes to Nixon's fascination with Disraeli, but never explores how this affected his outlook. This richly detailed miniature, crabbed and claustrophobic, leaves undone the task of placing its subject in perspective. (Oct. 1) Forecast: Reeves is highly respected, as evidenced by thesale of first serial rights to Newsweek (on sale Aug. 27) and a booking on the Today Show (Sept. 24). He will do an eight-city tour. Despite its flaws, this inside look at Nixon will fascinate many and, with a first printing of 65,000, should do very well sales-wise. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

"This would be an easy job if you didn't have to deal with people," President Nixon noted on more than one occasion. Reeves (President Kennedy: Profile in Power, LJ 9/15/93) dissects the Nixon presidency by investigating selected, important dates of his administration, which reveal him to be more of a crises fomenter than manager. Nixon, according to Reeves, isolated himself like no other president and used his gatekeepers H.R. Haldeman, John Erlichman, and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger to circumvent the Cabinet, Congress, and the public. The author makes effective use of Nixon's memos and diary, newly declassified records, and entries from the Haldeman Diary, some of which appear here for the first time, to present an unflattering portrait of a short-tempered, foul-mouthed president obsessed with his reelection and blaming others, often Jews, for problems of his own making. The book concludes when he stopped keeping a diary, in April 1973. Among the most fascinating matters are Nixon's triumphant 1972 opening of China, including meeting with a dying Chairman Mao, and the diplomatic infighting between Secretary of State William Rogers and the tantrum-throwing Kissinger. Reeves skillfully employees the same day-to-day approach that worked so well in his study of Kennedy. Highly recommended for most public libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/01.] Karl Helicher, Upper Merion Twp. Lib., King of Prussia, PA Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A useful account of Richard Nixon's tumultuous tenure as chief executive. Presidential chronicler and journalist Reeves (Running in Place: How Bill Clinton Disappointed America, 1996, etc.) has done his homework well for this study of Nixon's years as president, consulting mountains of recently declassified documents and interviewing Nixon cohorts and confidants such as John Dean, Richard Helms, William Safire, Pat Buchanan, John Ehrlichman, and Egil "Bud" Krogh. For all his hard work, Reeves doesn't give us much that other biographers and analysts haven't already provided, including evidence of Nixon's raging anti-Semitism, his near-pathological paranoia and propensity for lying, and his dislike of the eminently dislikable Henry Kissinger. Still, it's good to have that evidence in one volume, especially one as well-written as Reeves's, and even more so given the curious tendency of pundits and historians in the last decade to sign off on Nixon's own post-presidential efforts to depict himself as one of America's great statesmen, never mind the unfortunate tactical errors in such matters as Watergate and Vietnam. Reeves gives appropriate nods to Nixon's very real accomplishments in foreign policy, including his rapprochement with China-which, Reeves documents, occupied Nixon in the earliest days of his first term, though it would not come to pass for several years. Kissinger, who was in the habit of dismissing antiwar protestors as a pack of spoiled children, and who did not brook criticism even from his nominal superiors ("He's a devious bastard," Nixon remarked of his primary foreign-policy adviser), comes in for a well-deserved drubbing. Reeves treats others in the Nixon WhiteHouse with a kind of detached respect, even as he recounts their escapades in selling ambassadorships and subverting the Constitution. Those who survived the Nixon era will shudder anew; younger readers will find this a lucid survey of a strange time.