I think I’ve read more
books about Richard Nixon than Abraham Lincoln, which is a bit odd. Lincoln is
often thought to be the greatest President, Nixon the worst. Certainly Nixon is
the only President forced from office due to the criminal activities exposed by
the press and his political opponents. He was paranoid, regularly lied to the
press, to the people, to allies, to the Congress and anyone else when it suited
him and assumed everyone else was doing the same. He dragged out the war in
Indo-China, expanding it to other countries while claiming to work for peace.
He was introverted and severely reduced the number of people who could contact
him directly. He had ‘anecdotalists’ follow him around to spread stories that
showed his warm side. He was without a doubt the strangest man ever to be
POTUS.
On the other hand, he
was a visionary, who created new relationships with China and the USSR. Some of
his domestic reforms are still praised. After finally getting an end to the
Vietnam War, it was rumoured he was to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
He told his aides to withdraw the nomination: creating peace was his job.
(Perhaps his conscience troubled him. In any case, I wish a more recent
President had similar integrity in this area at least.) After his departure, he
was able to recreate himself as an older statesmen with great knowledge of
international politics, a reputation that was deserved.
President Nixon: Alone in the White House by Richard Reeves is an almost day by day
account of the Nixon administration and gives a compelling picture of both the
nature of that Administration and its head. It was a different White House. A
shy introverted man, Nixon used Haldeman to keep people away from him, and
received other’s advice on paper, encouraging, up to a point, those who were
prepared to challenge his thinking. One of the few men allowed to talk to him
was Henry Kissinger. Their relationship was difficult, both intelligent men
with clashing personalities and egos. Yet between them they redrew
international relations in the midst of the Cold War, an astonishing
accomplishment by any standard.
The illegal activities
that ultimately brought him down were in place almost from the beginning. On
tape, with other people, he was crass, aggressive and stuttering. On paper, on
his own, he was thoughtful, visionary and continually trying to improve as a
man and a president. He wanted to revive the fortunes of the USA, and the prestige
of the office. In the end, he seriously damaged both.
Oddly, he neither
authorised nor was aware of the Watergate break-in until three days after it
happened. If he had then turned his people in, he could have survived. Out of
an odd sense of personal loyalty, he chose to cover up their activities
instead, with well-known consequences. The major problem I had with this book
was that it ends with Haldeman and Erlichman’s resignation, with Nixon’s own
some fifteen months in the future. It struck me as a rather arbitrary place to
stop.
Richard Nixon was a
man of contradiction, brought down by his own demons and shortcomings. Had he
listened to the better angels of his nature, who knows what he would have done,
and how he would be remembered.
