"It's the cover-up." Nixon in the White House.

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.