In his afterword, Lowy calls this a "novel" and a product of his imagination. He then goes on to cite a string of actual events that closely parallel his imagined ones. So is it a historical novel then, or a pure figment of his imagination? Lowy plays fast and loose with this line in order to make it fit one of his themes: Nixon's the Evil Thing and his henchmen even worse. The major characters whose names have been changed all have one thing in common: they're alive. ("Don't sue me! I didn't even use your name(s)! Plus, if you do please note I'm a UVA lawyer and I bite back!")

To top it all off, he couldn't have written this thing without referencing Bud Krogh's "The Day Elvis Met Nixon" which is the actual account of the actual meeting. I guess it wasn't interesting enough the first time. And then in the ultimate act of ingratitude (and startling inaccuracy) Lowy turns Krogh into one of the most depraved slimeballs imaginable (Max Sharpe.) Anyone who's done ten minutes of research on the guy knows he's one of the few Good Guys in that administration. What's up with that, Lowy? Shame on you. ("But it's just a novel!" Baloney.)

Stylistically, we're treated to Creative Writing 201 zingers like this: "Elvis felt his entire body quivering now, like some girl had sucked on his big toe, then rammed it into a socket and the voltage was wending its way up from his tapping feet to his vibrating legs, all the way to his neck, which was now rocking back and forth from Vernon to Priscilla like of of those Rock 'm Sock 'm Robots after taking an uppercut, head teetering on a thin springy wire, back and forth, back and forth."

Ooh! It's almost like being there! I feel that way all the time! Go back to law, Lowy, you don't have to use so many active verbs in your prose and there's a judge and jury to mediate your efforts. God willing, the buying public will do the same with your book.

Shame, because the cover is terrific.

Although I have grown weary of books about Nixon era and Vietnam, I thought I would give this novel a try because of the recent Bob Kerrey revelations and the points made in "Vietnam 1960-65, A Prelude to Tragedy" about the inaccuracies of McNamera's point of view. This novel succeeds spectacularly on many levels. It pulls the major events of the era into a convincing fable about right and wrong. It is extremely thought provoking on what has happened to the American Dream. Lowy's writing style is engaging and demonstrates sharp wit with a keen sense of the ironic. A great read. Take it to the beach.

This book gave an excellent general view of Nixon's life. It was not a good source of information if you were doing a college biography, but it was good.

Okay, we'll take it for granted that the Media Age has accelerated & magnified all of these problems, but here are some of the familiar themes we find in Jaworski's memoir of the Watergate Special Prosecutor's Office: questions about the constitutionality of the Office itself, expansive jurisdiction, convictions for perjury instead of for underlying crimes, leaks, grand jury report to Congress, specious privilege claims, etc. All of the supposedly unprecedented events of recent years are all here.

Jaworski is a pretty pedestrian writer & his focus is very specific to issues that concerned the Special Prosecutor's Office; one longs for a little greater perspective. However, he leaves little doubt that Richard Nixon and his aides engaged in a conspiracy to cover up White House involvement in the Watergate & Ellsberg breakins and, in doing so, obstructed justice.

Ultimately, the most important impression that the book leaves is that America is a better place because we forced from office a man who was not fit to be President. Once upon a time in America, we cared about such matters.

GRADE: C

Mr. Bundy puts the worst possible spin on every foreign policy initiative by Richard Nixon. Whatever truth there is in this tome is buried beneath a biased account told with the sort of arrogance which got us into the war in the first place. In fact, the primary virtue of this book is to give us insight into the intellectual and character flaws of the author, one of the major architects of the Vietnam fiasco. Above all else, this is an extraordinarily uncharitable and ungentlemanly work. Thanks to Mr. Bundy, his brother and the Presidents they served, Richard Nixon held the weakest hand of foreign policy cards of any President-elect since Abe Lincoln. Whatever his mistakes, Richard Nixon tried his best and he left America in a better position than the one he inherited from Mr. Bundy and his fellow conspirators, which is something Mr. Bundy cannot claim about his own public service. Common decency should have compelled Mr. Bundy to let someone else write this book. Someone else would have done a better job than this nasty, twisted, deeply flawed work.

Bundy's book reads like a tedious chemistry textbook. While Nixon's entire administation is covered, it is in so much unnecessary detail that one is hardly able to decipher the important from the merely anecdotal. Many better assessments of Nixon and Kissinger are available in more concise and interesting forms.

The book has over 500 pages following a broadly chronological order. This has the disadvantage of addressing key issues on a fragmented basis and a reader wishing to focus on a specific area of foreign policy (e.g. detente with the Soviet Union) has to jump around and follow a snapshot approach rather than get into the meat and ongoing development of strategy. Nevertheless, Bundy provides a good overview and introduction to US foreign policy in the Nixon/Kissinger years and provides the stimulus to investigate further.

This is a complete whitewashing of Richard Nixon's political career written by an obviously pro-Nixon source. There is no attempt from the author to distance herself from Nixon or create an illusion of impartiality. Hoff is in Nixon's corner all the way and makes some incredible interpretive analyses. For example, Nixon's domestic agenda was actually "extremely liberal." Hoff makes this claim based upon Nixon's environmental agenda, but ignores his viscerally right-wing Supreme Court appointments and his Neanderthal approach to civil rights. Doesn't sound too "liberal" to me.

Hoff also makes a series of implausible and ultimately ludicrous excuses for Nixon's involvement in Watergate. Predictably, she absolves the President from much involvement and any guilt. She points the finger of guilt at a dizzying array of Nixon suborindates (all of whom went to prison). Nixon is the epitome of grace, honesty and courage in Huff's eyes, a view which will delight those who revere the 37th President. But for those who have a less charitable view of him, this will be regarded as hagiography at its apex.

This book would probably be a very interesting account if it wasn't bogged down with so many minute details that take away from the overall argument. Ms. Hoff has some great ideas but the book could realistically have been much more concise.

I've recently become a bit of a Nixon buff, reading a dozen biographies of the man, all of which portray him in very different ways, from a paranoid, racist sociopath to a misunderstood visionary. I honestly don't know where I'd place Ms. Hoff's portrayal of Nixon within those two extremes. Her book makes some excellent points, particularly in citing the frequently ignored strides that Nixon took in domestic policy. Overall, however, her odd writing style and seeming preoccupation with revisionism make the flow of the book pretty choppy, as well as all out boring in places...

In my opinion, any book on Nixon is worth it if you are trying to figure out what he was all about. The fact is the guy was so complex, introverted, and troubled that all of them will be right and wrong at the same time...

Dr. Fawn Brodie, who died in 1981, earned a reputation in her lifetime as one of the most controversial historians in America. The product of a strict Mormon upbringing, she rebelled against her faith to become an outspoken feminist and critic of all things she deemed conservative. She also pioneered a new type of historical biography - the "psychoanalytical" school of historiography. Not only did Dr. Brodie write about the lives, successes and/or failures of her subjects, she also attempted to "go deeper" and, using psychology, analyze the motivations and psyches of her subjects. At times her (then) original approach could reap handsome rewards, such as when, in her still-controversial "intimate" biography of Thomas Jefferson, she argued that he had had an affair with one of his slaves, Sally Hemmings. Many historians hotly disputed this, but her claims were proven to be true when DNA testing done a few years ago revealed that Jefferson had fathered at least one of Hemmings' children. However, there are also major weaknesses with the "psychological" approach to history, in that it is difficult to analyze someone you've never met, and can lead to mistakes. In this biography of Richard Nixon - her last book before her death - Brodie examines a man whom she admitted to "despising" long before she even began her research. And, unfortunately, this biography is littered from beginning to end with Dr. Brodie's loathing for Richard Nixon and everything connected with him. From his childhood forward Nixon is consistently viewed in the worst possible light. The book is also filled with numerous errors in judgement, as well as factual errors. For example, Brodie finds great significance in a letter that Nixon wrote as a schoolboy. Nixon wrote the letter as if he were a pitiful dog who was being abused by his "master". Brodie argues that this letter "proves" that Nixon was an abused child, and that his father probably beat him. However, research by later historians has proven that this letter was actually done as part of a class assignment, and that ALL of the kids in Nixon's class wrote the same letter - so Brodie's conclusions are obviously flawed. In another telling passage, Brodie harshly criticizes Nixon for his 1950 Senate campaign against Helen Douglas, his Democratic opponent. She accuses Nixon of "smearing" poor Mrs. Douglas as a Communist (Nixon's nickname for her in the campaign was the "Pink Lady"). What she never mentions is that the "Communist" charge was first aimed at Mrs. Douglas by her opponent in the Democratic primary, not Nixon, and that Mrs. Douglas, far from being an "innocent" victim, actually started the mudslinging by trying to accuse Nixon of being a Communist and/or Nazi-type leader! One does not have to be an admirer of Mr. Nixon to realize that this "biography" is anything but impartial or fair-minded. Indeed, later historians have regarded this book as the original "hatchet job" on Nixon, and a work which has been copied by other "Nixon haters". If you want to read a truly fair-minded (and far superior) book about Nixon, I'd recommend reading Stephen Ambrose's excellent "Nixon: The Education of a Politician" - it's much more objective, well-researched, and even-handed - instead of this hopelessly biased "psychological" analysis.

a somewhat critical discussion of nixon's personality and the theories of how he became the man who was eventually impeached. some valid points inthe book that i was unaware of before and then some points which i just sat back and sighed about

Mr. Parmet's version of the Nixon biography was very much scattered in many different directions. I did find the story of Richard Nixon quite interesting - when he bothered to talk about it. The course of the book was slow going to start with. Add in the fact there was 2/3 of too much in-depth information not necessary to the bi-line, to only 1/3 about the man himself. I found myself often losing focus throughout the book. My opinion is there has got to be a better Nixon biography out there to read, and my advice would be to find it. Don't bother with this one.

I consider this biography to be a disappointment. It is not a "true" catalogue of Nixon's life nor is it an interpretation of his presidency. Nor is it a portrait of "Nixon's America" as the title implies. Whatever this book is, it will not enlighten the reader about who Richard Nixon was or his term in office. There has to be a better book on this subject. I hope.

Perhaps a better title would be "Nixon Juxtaposed." A standard biography focuses on the person,up close and either distorting or ignoring the context. This text pulls the camera back to a distance where the lense incorporates the events and other personalities which were operating simultaneously, giving Nixon a context. And with the broader lense of context comes further revelation. "Nixon and His America" should be read after two or three "hard" biographies. When you think you know Nixon up close and in detail, step back and understand him in bas relief.
If you are of an age that you can remember Nixon as Vice President and forward, then you can participate in this book by comparing your recollections of events with this account. You may or may not adjust your perception. We are all products of our environment and the age in which we live. Nixon was no exception. He, as all of us, had many facets. "Nixon and his America" reveals yet another.

As an uninformed infant, I knew very little about the Watergate affair besides general details until I read this book. Thus, if knowing who Bebe Rebozzo strikes you as important and you don't have the patience to wade through a Nixon biography, this book is for you. The essays are obviously collected from news-paper columns, since they often feature the same litany of facts about Watergate over and over, meaning that the humore quickly wears off. The book does feature some truly witty columns however, such as an imagined conversation between Brezhnev and Kissinger.

The historical revelations that Hiss was, in fact, a spy should make this book useful as a doorstop.