Still, Gellman does sugarcoat some things Nixon does, and appears to draw some charitable conclusions without any backup. It is an interesting read, and a portrayal of what by any accounts is a remarkable journey from unknown to Vice President.

More troubling is that Gellman almost seeks to exonerate Nixon from two of the most mudslinging and tawdry campaigns of all time: his 1946 run for Congress against the hapless, though decent Jerry Voorhis, and his inhumane hatchet job against Helen Gahagan Douglas in 1950. Nixon's brutal character assassination of Douglas in conveniently skirted, or excuses are made for RN. Because Gellman frequently falls into the habit of glossing over Nixon's destructive impulses, the book never reaches any grandiose literary heights.

Nixon has been the subject of much nonsense, particularly of the psycho-babble genre. Gellman thankfully doesn't attempt any of this and the book is a better product for it. Ultimately, this is a readable, balanced (overly balanced!) portrait of a young man driven by demons and a lust for power. For anyone wishing to understand Nixon in his 30's, this is an essential study.

Nixon was not a public's darling. His Watergate involvement, his resignation, the "Tricky Dick" image is what most Americans (and the world) remember about the former president. This unfortunate reality is due to the fact that many authors only dare to write about the negative side of the person. But not Irwin Gellman.

THE CONTENDER is a passionate, remarkably intelligent and unmatched account of Richard Nixon's other side- the "other Nixon" every student of politics, whether of the Left, Centre or Right, should understand and appreciate.

Gellman's book is intelligent, impressively researched, and written in a readable manner. The portrayal of the subject is stimulating, balanced and sensible, a portrayal that will surely provoke many readers.

First of all, it was not a story or an analysis. Read Haldeman's prior book, THE ENDS OF POWER for that sort of thing.

Second, the DIARIES were more like a 5 1/2 year daily memo pad, talking about the day to day operations, from the mundane to the high charging.

Put that in your blowhole and smoke it!

Dean brings us inside the "vetting" process used by the White House staff and Justice Department to select nominees to the Court. Dean floated the name of Rehnquist to several in the administration, including then Attorney General John Mitchell, as a possible conservative candidate for the Court as Dean had worked with Rehnquist in the Justice Department and learned of the Rehnquist's strict constructionist interpretation of the constitution. What was fascinating was that Rehnquist while toiling away at the Justice Department was tasked with "vetting' the other possible Court nominees chosen by the White House. Sounds much like the recent scenario of the selection of Dick Cheney as Vice President.

The book details the other nominees Rehnquist beat out for the coveted position. If anyone believes that politics plays no part in the selection of the members of the Court, then this is required reading. At times humorous and at times self-serving, this book is well worth the purchase. If you are not a Court watcher don't worry, you don't have to be to appreciate this book. Dean is a good writer and the text flows easily. Add "The Rehnquist Choice" to your summer reading list - you will gain an appreciation of the importance of Presidential nominations to the Court.

Mr. Dean was a lawyer working in the White House. Thus, he was privy to many of the machinations of the Nixon Administration. If Mr. Dean is liable to be suspected of repenting or exaggerating his role, he may be at least presumed to be an authority.

One of Mr. Dean's overarching points is that Mr. Rehnquist was appointed to the Court nearly accidentally. The naive reader will be startled to see how little thought went into the selection, how late in the process that thought came about, and how few second thoughts were lavished on the selection once it was made.

In addition, the reader will be amused by the cavalier banter that passed for analysis between Nixon and his various sounding boards. Dean has reproduced dialogue from the White House tapes, so the quotations appear to be authoritative.

The "might have beens" are too delicious to spoil in this review. Dean deftly introduces each possibility with a capsule description so that readers who did not pay much attention in 1971 may appreciate who was who.

No one should be surprised to read that Nixon was prejudiced against blacks, Jews, and women, but the vehemence with which Nixon spews stereotypes startles even thirty years later.

Dean concludes that Rehnquist, in 1971 and 1986, fibbed his way thorough difficulties. The splendid irony that the fellow who presided over Clinton's trial in the Senate in 1999 had perjured himself onto the Court and into the Chief Justiceship is hardly news. To believe Rehnquist's denials concerning challenging minority voters in Arizona in the 1960s or concerning his memorandum urging the justices to uphold "separate but equal" as good law required muscular denial. [Dean does not raise the matter of the restrictive covenant on Rehnquist's property.] Those familiar with these issues will find very little new. However, those new to the matter will find in the "Afterword" a concise but articulate discussion of why Rehnquist's denials were unbelievable.

What readers may not gather from Dean's prose, however, is that, in a roundabout way, the system worked. Stymied by the American Bar Association [which found Nixon's first few candidates to be unqualified or unimpressive] and stung by mass media attacks on Nixon's attempts to appoint mediocrities, Nixon felt compelled to go for a little stature with predictable ideology. Rehnquist was a predictable conservative. He was also many cuts above the sorts of people with whom Nixon wanted to saddle the Court.

John Dean waited for the release of these tapes and along with his personal recollections during the time period has written a book that deals with the selection of Rehnquist and Lewis Powell as United States Supreme Court Justices. Its not pleasant reading for those naive enough to believe that Presidents seek out the most qualified people for appointments. Rather, the book exposes the process used by President Nixon to select two supreme court justices as frought with politics, bigotry, and regionalism. Nixon's bigotry about Jews, prejudice against easterners, and nasty language make this a book that someone who is very sensitive should not read.

The real shocker here is that before picking Powell who was a superbly qualified justice, Nixon first selected two candidates who could not even win acceptance as "qualified" for the Supreme Court by the American Bar Association Committee on the Federal Judiciary. Nixon stubbornly tried to get these individuals appointed until it became absolutely clear it was hopeless. Only at this point, did a real candidate like Powell get nominated. Nixon further abused the process by sending names to the ABA of other people he knew would never win approval.

Rehnquist had good paper qualifications to sit on the Supreme Court. However, it was known early on he was extremely conservative. He may have lied about statements he allegedly made expressing approval of racial segregation in schools. Dean presents the case for this. Its up to the reader to judge.

In the end, we are left gasping at the twisted and bizarre process which put Rehnquist on the Supreme Court. Even those who support Rehnquist and other conservative justices should wish for a better process to select judges. Hopefully, one day we shall see such a process and never see another President like Nixon again.

Mark

In his book THE MORALITY OF LAW, Lon Fuller drew an eloquent distinction between the morality of duty and the morality of aspiration, a distinction that applies to nations as well as to individuals. In times of war, a premium is placed on the morality of duty, the absolute necessity of doing what is required, of doing right in the limited sense of not doing what is wrong. (p. 12).

Most people function pretty well without having a war on their minds, but for people like Nixon, it seems to be the main move capable of convincing the world that his country is doing anything. This book was written after Russia had ceased to be an enemy in a real sense, but he still treats it as a major example of what politics is all about.

It is also important that we never put our chips on just one man, even one as powerful and able as Yeltsin. Our concern should be not the man but rather what he stands for. We stuck too long with Gorbachev. As long as Yeltsin has a foreign policy that serves the interests of peace and a domestic policy that serves the intersts of the Russian people, he deserves our support. (p. 47).

Nixon helped make Henry Kissinger great by entering into diplomacy with America's enemies, recognizing that if certain enemies could maintain a policy which serves the interest of peace, Nixon was willing to deal with those enemies openly, regardless of how many millions of their own people some leaders like Mao might be responsible for killing. I didn't find anything in this book which describes any American president's acts of war as bad, but the policy of American presidents since Nixon has deteriorated to the point that any nation's embassy might be struck by an American bomb, as the French embassy in Libya was struck during reprisals for something while Ronald Reagan was president, without causing a great clash of civilizations. Generalities such as this book contains don't capture the context which allows ideas to become authentic when they become a basis for a real action.

If people who hate America read this book, they are sure to see that America doesn't recognize other nations as sovereign powers, but only allows them to have leaders who serve American interests. If George W. Bush's words in response to the attacks on America on September 11, 2001, are used to promote the utter devastation of every nation that is harboring some killers, we are in danger of having a philosophy that has all the problems associated with the riddle responsible for the death of Homer. For what the great philospher of war thought about that, see THE ART AND THOUGHT OF HERACLITUS, An edition of the fragments with translation and commentary by Charles H. Kahn, Page 39 and pages 111-2.

Tom Wicker, whose career as reporter, Washington bureau chief for the New York Times, and then columnist overlapped Nixon's political career, has thus written a book which though awfully weak as biography has some interest as a kind of weird rehabilitative essay. His quest requires him to minimize Nixon's truly reprehensible behavior as President. Instead, it indicts them. To his credit, Wicker does acknowledge that the growing centralization of power in the hands of the Federal government created a situation in which corruption was inevitable.

Meanwhile, Wicker also betrays rather extensive squeamishness about some of the particulars of Nixon's foreign policy. He argues that Nixon should have gotten out of Vietnam much quicker, should have ditched the Shah of Iran and shouldn't have tilted towards Pakistan during its dispute with India. He bemoans our involvement in the toppling of Salvador Allende in Chile. And he thinks the pace of negotiation with the Soviets should have been quicker. The general case here seems to be that Nixon was okay on the big stuff, thawing out the Cold War, but not quite good enough. That's fairly timid criticism.

It is only on domestic policy that Wicker is completely enamored. He goes so far as to adopt Daniel Patrick Moynihan's assessment that the Nixon Administration was "'the most progressive' of the postwar era." In particular, he likes the way that Nixon used his powers to desegregate Southern schools.

In the end, the quality that Wicker seems to admire most in Nixon is, appropriately enough, the same one that people admire in Bill Clinton : the awesome capacity to sustain political damage and live to fight another day.

where Wicker tries to psychoanalyze Nixon, particularly his paranoia and his willingness to cut ethical corners. Since the book is really more of an essay than a biography, this exercise might have had some limited value had Wicker discussed why it was that people of his ilk, Eastern journalists, had such a hard time loving Nixon. The mere suppositions about the demons that drove Nixon don't have much value on their own. Wicker is absolutely correct, though it's hard to believe he's thought out the implications, that the sheer size and inordinate power of the Cold War presidency and government made corruption and scandal inevitable.

Thinking that Nixon was a conservative I marvel that he signed a capital gains tax increase. Nixon won the '68 election narrowly. He reached out and brought in or tried to bring in Democrats like Pat Moynihan (achieved) or Scoop Jackson for defence (not succesful).

He must have loved his country or else he would have challenged the 1960 election result.

I highly reccomend this well-written book to all students of history, politics or America.

This book does a good job of summarizing Nixon's accomplishments, failures, and foibles. The excessive quoting makes it sometimes tedious to read. In addition, it seems as though the book only scratches the surface on a much disparaged president.

The reader watches young Nixon grow up in a relatively prosperous family. Despite the future president's claims of poverty, the family sent to sons to college and owned a car during the depression. There were limits to the Nixons' finances. Richard was smart enough to win admission to Harvard, but his family could not afford to send him East. Despite the death of two brothers, Nixon's home was a supportive, nurturing environment. Yet, as hone high school friend noted, Richard was "admired rather than liked."

After the war, Nixon and his wife, Pat, dreaded returning to small town life. As a result, the interest a group of community leaders showed in him as a candidate to take on Congressman Jerry Voorhis was a godsend. According to Morris, this election marks the start of red-baiting in American politics and in Nixon's career. Voorhis and Nixon would later downplay the role of red-baiting in this election for very different reasons. Morris argues that this first campaign is the start of an inverse relationship ethics and political success in Nixon's career. That is, the higher Nixon rose in politics, the less he cared about the methods he used to get there. While this assertion might be true, Nixon in 1946 was nowhere near the cutting edge of mudslinging that Morris would have us believe. In his shorter and much better biography of Nixon, historian Stephen Ambrose points out that Senator William Knowland, a man Morris sees as a Paragon of virtue, was actually far dirtier than Nixon ever was against Voorhis.

Encouraged by his congressional victory, Nixon gravitates more and more towards the anti-Communist right wing. He eagerly sought and gained a seat on the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Morris clearly exaggerates Nixon's influence when he contends that a freshman congressman had enough power to intimidate Hollywood into making anti-Communist films and artistically inhibiting filmmakers for a decade. Nixon and HUAC soon hit pay dirt when they stumbled upon on one of the few incidents of a communist actually holding a high position in the U.S. government. The FBI leaked to the committee the testimony of Whitaker Chambers, an editor with Time-Life, in which he accused former State Department official Alger Hiss of spying for the Soviet Union. That these accusations were taken seriously Morris argues is a sign of how strong the anti-Communist witch hunt was in America. Chambers had made the charges before, but only at a time when red-baiting was acceptable political tool would they be taken seriously. Morris contends that Hiss was innocent of the charges hurled at him, but the evidence he offers simply does not support his case. In addition, a good deal of material declassified in the last ten years here and in the former Soviet Union shows Hiss was as dirty as his detractors claimed.

Intoxicated with his success, Nixon decides to run for the U.S. Senate against Helen Douglas. Once again he uses his favorite tactic and once again he destroys another respectable career. In a moment of pure hyperbole, Morris characterizes this race as "the most notorious, controversial campaign in American political history." In making this statement, he ignores the Presidential elections of 1824, 1876, 1968 and U.S. Senate Races in Texas in 1948 and in North Carolina in 1984. The Nixon-Douglas race did, however, contribute to some of the better political one-liners in history. Nixon said Douglas was "pink right down to her underwear" and Douglas called Nixon "Tricky Dick." Only in 1952 with the slush fund controversy would Nixon get a taste of his own medicine.

There are many problems with this biography. The first is its length. Morris could have easily trimmed 200 pages without damage to his narrative. Ambrose covers the same period and 10 additional years with 250 fewer pages. Another problem is his habit of making over arching indictiments against Nixon. The biggest shortcoming, though, is Morris's portrayal of his subject. He sees Nixon as a crude, ambitious, paranoid politician with few scruples. That Nixon had these traits is beyond question. Morris unfortunately overlooks the complexity of Nixon's personality. Nixon had the capacity to be generous, thoughtful and compassionate. The portrayal in this book is most unrewarding.

Summers has done quite a bit of research and links quite well the major partners in Nixon's campaigns and in addition the men that eventually help run the country. There is so much about Nixon's personal flaws and self gain obsession there is a question of balance. On the one hand I am amazed at the amount of detail that links Nixon to win at all costs campaign men, illegal money contributions even from mobsters, a long association with Howard Hughes, money laundering through Beebe Rebozo's bank, Swiss bank accounts, Nixon's plan to screw Johnson's peace initiative to win the election, his over compulsion with dirty tricks. It's hard to conclude otherwise that Nixon was a bad man more caught up with his own style of government. However, at times when the author goes back to Nixon's HS days its almost seems impossible for anyone retrospectively to say anything nice about Nixon other than his earnest desire to succeed. You almost expect someone to say "I remember Nixon when he was in diapers, even my dog didn't like him!" A question to be explored upon a broader canvas is how bad was Nixon compared to other politicians. Was illegal fund raising rampant and typical of the candidates in that era? Is it still happening today? After all, Nixon even on tape seems to say the other guys are doing it too. And the author concludes that Robert Kennedy was bugging Nixon while he served as his brother's Attorney General which Nixon discovers.
During the presidency, Nixon finds out the Joint Chief are spying on Kissinger (The Radford Affair).

Besides the illegal contributions, the most devastating part of the book deals with not so much Nixon's development of the plumbers but in his post Watergate obsession to deal with Watergate instead of running the country. Summers does a great job of accounting of Nixon's whereabouts in the final 18 months of his presidency where according to the logs, Nixon spends a great deal of time on the California coast or Florida with Beebe. In addition, the critical tapes show Nixon totally focused on Watergate In addition, Summers states quite emphatically that Nixon without his secret psychotherapist was unstable due to the use of Dilantin, alcohol and sleeping pills. The latter part almost sounds like Elvis' final hours as Nixon is portrayed as a mentally compromised man who could no longer govern. It's a pretty frightening portrayal and if the Nixon Summers describes is accurate, then Al Haig and Henry Kissinger did a disservice to the country in not working to ease Nixon out of power. In Summers' portrayal, the final period of Nixon's presidency almost reminds me of the movie "Dave" where the Chief of Staff tries to take over the government by not disclosing that the president had a stroke. While reading these parts of the book I was hoping that this was overstated because if not, Nixon was not lucid over the final 12 months of his presidency.

A book worth reading but a little more balance on how Nixon compared to his political adversaries would have been helpful, gosh Tom Dewey supported Nixon and he appeared to have similar fund raising issues. And didn't Nixon do more than just break down the cold war barriers a bit with Russia and China? Did he have any interest in domestic issues at all?

Now if Summers would do a book on John Dean. Dean acts extra clean since he bailed out first. Is a hit man any nicer because he cut a deal?

"Arrogance" is a full biography crafted around a collection of psychological insights into the subject -- it is a tale of one soul's journey through 20th century American Politics -- a tale of predictable disasters. It is so much more than Watergate, though readers knowledgable of Watergate detail will find much here that is new, and demands integration into one's Watergate fact file. But since Nixon materials are scheduled to be opened by various archives well into the second quarter of the 21st century, we probably will need more Summers-like books, books that synthesize new materials either as additions or corrections into the detailed analysis of Nixon.

But in year 2000 Summers adds it up as follows: Nixon as a kid learned telling the truth frequently led to a whipping, telling lies avoided that possibility. He learned to stuff his emotions so deep, they never really matured. He came to doubt his parents evangelical Quaker piety -- but he never explored so as to replace it with a mature value and belief system. He was ripe to be caught by that place where the American Mafia and American Business intersect, and need presentable political actors. In 1946 they needed a vet, good education, someone with a velvet fist to bust the labor movement, someone who would serve interests so long as he was well paid, (under the table mind you). Nixon got and took the offer -- and Summers details the whole long list of transactions that salt Nixon's rise...all the way to the post resignation annual visits to his secret Swiss Bank Accounts.

Much has been made in the press of the possible physical abuse of Pat Nixon at her husband's hand -- the sources are interesting, but not convicting. Nonetheless, the narrative is filled with instances of psychological abuse, a profound story of attachment disorder. One wonders why no one speculated about this during the long Nixon public career?

Summers provides the basis for raising the question needing debate -- how was it that a political party selected this flawed person for leadership? Just reading through the sources one understands Nixon's intimates knew something of the truth -- but they nominated him twice for Vice President, and three times for President -- we need to comprehend why. His own psychologist seemed to know in 1951 that he could not handle stress, but professional ethics of course kept him from speaking out. His profound problems with truth and trust were apparent to his political allies -- but they turned away from the responsibility to act. Summers does not ask these questions, but readers ought to consider them.

As in his previous book about "Jaye" Edgar Hoover--pun intended for fans of "The Crying Game"--Summers has used a sensational but semi-corroborated allegation as a publicity hook for an otherwise exhaustively researched and important book. But if this is what it takes to get people to read about such dangerous men--Hoover with rentboys at the Plaza Hotel, or Nixon beating his wife--then more power to the authors. Regardless, these allegations are consistent with everything else we read about in the books. Unfortunately in the case of Nixon, it seems as though it was the evil that was interred with his bones, not the good. Thanks to Summers and Swan for exhuming it.