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SIX CRISES (Richard Nixon Library Editions)

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Published in 1962, "Six Crises" by Richard Nixon is easily one of the best-written and most interesting books done by a US President. This book was a bestseller and even today it is regarded as a worthwhile read, largely because of its' insights into Nixon's mind and character. Fittingly, the book isn't an autobiography or a political memoir; instead it focuses upon what Nixon considered to be the six greatest moments of his political career up to 1961. The first crisis is the infamous "Hiss Case" in 1948, which elevated Nixon - then an unknown junior Congressman - into national prominence for the first time. The case started when Whittaker Chambers, a former Communist-turned-AntiCommunist magazine editor, accused Alger Hiss, a high-ranking member of the State Department, of being a Communist spy for Russia. The case made national headlines, and Nixon - a member of a congressional committee investigating Communism in the US - used the case as a springboard to the US Senate. The second crisis occurred during Nixon's first Vice-Presidential campaign in 1952, when he was accused by the press of being a crook who took bribes. Eisenhower considered forcing Nixon to resign as his running mate, but Nixon saved his career with the famous "Checkers" speech on national television (Nixon prefers to call it the "Fund" speech). The third crisis happened in 1955 when President Eisenhower had a serious heart attack, and until he recovered Vice-President Nixon had to be the "acting President" for a few weeks - a delicate task, but one Nixon performed quite well. In 1958 Vice-President Nixon and his wife Pat made a "goodwill" tour to South America, but were attacked and nearly killed by pro-Communist mobs in Venezuela - thus the fourth crisis. The fifth crisis came a year later when Nixon went to Moscow, where he engaged in a famous debate with Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev in a mock American "kitchen" that had been set up to show Russians how the ordinary American family lived. Although the debate was heated, most observers felt that Nixon had gotten the better of Krushchev. The most interesting part of the book for me was the last crisis - the legendary 1960 presidential campaign between Vice-President Nixon and Senator John F. Kennedy. Nixon offers a well-written account of his view of the campaign. What really makes this book fascinating is what it reveals about Nixon the man - his emphasis on handling "crises", his obsession with maintaining his self-control during these crises, and the way in which he seems to place "events" above people - when talking about the mobs who attacked his limousine in Venezuela, he barely mentions his wife, who was also in grave danger - instead he focuses upon his own reaction to the attack and analyzes his own reaction to the mobs. In this book Nixon tries to present himself as a calm, cool, and rational man who always makes the best decisions - yet as his Presidency (and especially Watergate) would show, the "real" Nixon was often very different from the unemotional and logical figure presented in this work. Even so, this book is still a worthwhile read - it is very well-written and it examines several of the greatest events of a major politician's career from his personal perspective. Recommended!

Has there ever been anyone like Richard Nixon? For sheer resiliency,he stands alone in American history. No one won bigger than Richard Nixon. And no one lost bigger than Richard Nixon. And then won again. And then lost. And won again. He just kept punching and planning and working, to eventually become one of the dominant figures of the 20th Century.

The author of 9 books, 8 of them best-sellers, this is his first,and covers six major crises of his political life to 1962. This is serious history, but so well-written that it reads like an exciting novel. In it, you can see the raw steel of the man emerging through his discipline, beginnig with his first crisis as a 35-year-old freshman congressman,the prosecution of Alger Hiss, the darling of east coast liberals and the state department, as a Soviet spy.. The other crises have been well-described by other reviewers, but all were thrilling examples of courage (backed by preparation) under fire. Highly-experienced Washington veteran David Gergen, who worked closely with four Presidents, in his excellent book "Eyewitness to History" described Richard Nixon as "the toughest man I ever knew". In this book, you can see why.

Interestingly, his overwhelming love of country shines through as well. For example,the 1960 election was unbelievably close.A swing of only 11,000 votes properly distributed, and the election results would have been reversed. And there was verifiable vote fraud by the Democrats, especially in Texas and Illinois. Nixon was repeatedly urged to demand an investigation and recount. He refused. First,it would have greatly delayed the transference of responsiblity to a new administration. But secondly, as he wrote, "Then, too, the bitterness that would be engendered by such a maneuver on my part would,in my opinion, have done incalculable and lasting damage throughout the country." There speaks a Patriot. And a Man!

Also recommnended."Nixon in Winter" by Monica Crowley.

Of course, I remember, as a young man, throwing tacos at the TV during Nixon's press conference in 1973 when he placed US atomic forces on alert during the Arab-Israeli war of that year. I also recall entering the US Embassey in Paris the morning after his resignation and demanding that the Marine guard take ole Tricky Dick's picture off the wall. But who am I to judge?

After all, Nixon was right, and I was wrong on many points. Once said, it becomes easier to repeat, but most of us from that era are not politically honest enough to take a reconsideration. Watergate was a dark day, of course, but I knew CREEP was behind the burglary months before the 1972 election when it was first reported. Eventually, Richard Nixon did the right thing and resigned. Great shame was brought on the office of President. Even a generation hasn't erased it.

Chairman Mao recommended this book to me. "Not a bad book," Mao comments on Six Crises during their meeting in Peking [Beijing] in February 1972. (This is according to the libretto of John Adams's opera NIXON IN CHINA.) I mean, Mao bears the legacy of the Great Leap Forward famine of 1958, and I wore black the day he died. No one died in Watergate -- if we exclude Mrs. E. Howard Hunt's death on a United 737 that crashed at Midway Airport. (Her purse was full of hush money, you may recall.)

Mao and Nixon: what a pair! So, one looks at Vietnam today and must wonder: who won, and who lost that war? Did Nixon achieve Peace with Honor? Is it not true that his Secret Plan to End the War (announced during the 1968 election campaign) succeeded? After all, he did exploit differences between Russia and China and used that wedge to gain a Peace Treaty, less than a year after travelling to China. Even more, he opened the door to US-China Alliance, ushering in an era (with Mao and Chou) of peace between these two great nations, not to mention an era of unparalleled growth and prosperity for the Chinese people.

Nixon wrote some awesome books. Six Crises is an awesome book. Nixon was right about Hiss. The Venona papers have proved that. Truman had a Soviet Spy in his Cabinet, a man (Harry Dexter White) who gave the printing plates to Stalin which allowed the Soviets to counterfeit the US Occupation currency in Germany. These are facts. (Read Norman Friedman's The Fifty Year War.) Of course, Truman wasn't a spy, but a patriot who fought Stalin hard. It was a tragic era.

In Pop Culture (unfortunately) the only clear legacy of those days is Tricky Dick. Maybe, after another generation has passed, we can begin to get the entire Cold War in perspective, and (just maybe) Nixon can be seen for the man -- the statesman -- he truly was.

My favorite crises are Hiss, Checkers, Caracas and Khruschev. But the entire book is great history. I give it six stars. Here, in these dark days of Iraq, you have to wonder: what would Nixon have done?

Despite the widespread opprobrium with which he was long (and understandably) held, Richard M. Nixon's contributions to America are far more complicated than many of his virulent detractors would have you believe. One such contribution can be found in "Six Crises", a fascinating exploration into the early career of a man whose political career would help define the course of mid-twentieth century American history. His chapter on "The Hiss Case" reads like the high-stake best detective stories (and his assertions have been verified by the Venona cables more than three decades since the book's publication); "The Fund" serves as an interesting look at how Richard Nixon the man handled what was (until Watergate) the greatest political crisis in his career; "The Heart Attack" explores how Vice President Nixon coped with temporarily holding the reins of national power while his Commander-in-Chief's suffered several brief incapacitations due to health problems (a heart attack, ileitis, a stroke); "Caracas", in what is by far the best chapter in the book, details how Vice President Nixon calmly handled a life-or-death situation when angry Communist mobs threw rocks at him, spat upon him, physically assaulted him, attacked his car, and nearly overturned his limousine in an effort to light it on fire; "Khruschev", in which Richard Nixon made a famous voyage to the Soviet Union and engaged in compelling dialogues with Premier Khruschev about the differences of life in the USSR and the USA; and finally "The Campaign of 1960", which - due to its baldly partisan approach to Nixon's first presidential campaign - transforms what was once a fascinating and relatively nonpartisan glimpse into this stage of Nixon's life into a bitter polemic about Nixon's defeat at the hands of Senator John F. Kennedy in 1960. Five out of six isn't bad, though.

"Six Crises" is Richard Nixon's first book. Although he believed that it would be his last, we are fortunate that he surprised himself and wrote nine more. Originally published in 1962, it covers six leading events in the author's life up to that time. Nixon chose to characterize these events as "crises" because of responses that they called out of those whom they challenged. In the introduction he shares with the reader the lessons which he draws from the role in crisis management of confidence, coolness, courage and experience.

The Six Crises which Nixon highlights in his book are The Hiss Case, The Fund, The Heart Attack, Caracas, Khrushchev and the Campaign of 1960.

The Hiss Case was Nixon's first big step on the national stage, in which his subcommittee of the House Un-American Activities Committee investigated Whittaker Chambers' claim that Alger Hiss had been a Communist. This section of the book reads like a mystery thriller in which Nixon gives his candid assessment of the principals involved and the reputations of each. He makes it clear that Hiss started with a much more impressive persona than his accuser, Chambers. He relates in detail the evidence and the analysis to which the subcommittee subjected it in trying to determine how far to take the investigation and what to make of its findings. The reading of the narration of this crisis leads the reader to appreciate the internal struggle with which each committee member wrestled in doing his duty of protecting the national security. Nixon concludes, probably rightly that, without the publicity of the Hiss Case he would not have been placed on a national ticket in the 1950s and, therefore, not been nominated for president in 1960, but that without the enemies he made during the case, would have been elected president that year.

The second crisis, The Fund, arose during the 1952 campaign for vice-president. Press reports reported that Nixon had a fund for personal use derived from private donations. The claim was made that wealthy backers had contributed money to enable Nixon to live far beyond his legitimate means. Nixon explains the provisions of the fund, that being that the money was placed in the hands of a trustee, accounted for, and used for what would now be considered non-stop campaigning. He points out how others, including Adlai Stevenson, had similar funds, although few with as stringent controls as Nixon's. The controversy was to take a tremendous toll on Nixon as he struggled to understand the nature of the crisis and devise and execute a plan to respond to it. The response was the famous "Checkers" speech which saved his place on the ticket. In this section of the book, Nixon introduces the reader to the behind the scenes struggle within the campaign and some of the deliberate references in the speech which saved his career. For anyone with an interest in American politics, this chapter alone makes the book a worthwhile read. An amusing feature is to be reminded, in our era of instant communications, of just how limited communications were in 1952.

The third crisis was Eisenhower's heart attack of 1955. In this section, Nixon lumps the heart attack in with Eisenhower's stroke of 1958 and the related question of the decision to keep Nixon on the ticket in 1956. This section is significant because it is the time when the issue of presidential disability was most clearly faced. It is true that the issue arose after Garfield's shooting and after Wilson's stroke, but, in my opinion, the faster pace of world affairs in the 1950s forced Nixon and other administration officials to respond to the situation more directly than in during prior or subsequent occasion. Acting over a period of months, with virtually no legal guidance, Nixon and the cabinet traversed constitutional terra incognita with courage and experience which enabled the government to continue to function.

With the section on Caracas, the book shifts from domestic to foreign issues. The overriding foreign policy issue of the day was Communism. In this section, Nixon relates how he confronted the challenge of communists during his 1958 tour of South America. This is the trip in which he and Pat were harassed by student agitators in Peru and attacked by mobs in Caracas which placed their lives in jeopardy. Nixon shares with the reader his assessment of the political pressures which lead to the incidents related in the book and his responses to them. His comments about the South American figures with whom he dealt display a degree of candor rarely seen in political memoirs. The degree to which the vice-president of the United States was left on his own, the indignities to which he was subjected and the real risk of murder by a mob seems impossible in this era of heightened security.

The fifth section deals with Nixon's 1959 trip to the Soviet Union during which the famous "Kitchen Debate" with Khrushchev took place. In this section Nixon outlines President Eisenhower's hopes for the trip and the strategy which Nixon devised and executed to attempt to realize them. The candor and detail provided make this section an essential part of a thorough understanding of the Cold War sparing of that time.

The last crisis is the 1960 campaign. This section is essentially a memoir in which Nixon gives his reminiscences of the main events and issues of the campaign. Again, the candor with which he relates his own actions and impressions is rare among political memoirs.

This book is, essentially, an excellent vice-presidential memoir. Nixon was a hero of mine when I came of age politically so I enjoyed every page. Even for one taking a more neutral view Nixon, this book provides a valuable insight into some of the major events in this crucial period of American history.

Ronald Reagan kept multiple copies of two books on his book shelves, at home, in his private office, and in the White-House. One was Witness by Whittaker Chambers, and the other was Six Crisis by Nixon. He would often give away copies of both books to people he was explaining his policies to.

The first three chapters are most important.

"Six Crises" was written by Richard Nixon after being VP for Dwight Eisenhower and after losing the Presidential election very narrowly to J. F. Kennedy. He thought he had retired from politics and this book was frank about the challenges that he had faced in Washington.

In retrospect, Nixon was a statesman rather than a politician ... the only statesman in America since Theodore Roosevelt and we are waiting for the next. With Henry Kissinger nixon wrought changes in American international policy that, despite Reagan, Clinton, and George W. Bush, will hold us in good stead in the years to come. He recognized that it was useless being a policeman for the world ... that's not a single nation's role. He also recognized that China would be the emerging giant who would eventually supplant the U.S. as the most pwoerful country in the world and that dialogue being better than dogma, it was important to have China as an ally not an opponent.

This book is a refreshing statement of his opinions after he had formed his international thesis but before he was able to put it into practice. It is very much wortwhile. Indeed, it should be required reading for anyone student of American history.

John Graham
Author of 25 short books including a biography of Richard Nixon. All are available on Amazon.com. Seach for the book 'Versmissen' to find the whole listing.

I have not read all of Nixon's books, but I have got to say that this is one of the best.
The six episodes that compose the book are six important history facts that the author describes fully and in the meantime explains the reader the effect that they had inside him . Nixon shares with the reader his thoughts, feelings towards them in a very sincere way. Then the historical happenings themselves are told in a precise way as regards main facts and details as to let the reader immerge in the situation.
And last but not least, of course, there is the worthy way of the former President to write.
Highly recommended.

Somebody points out in a previous review that there were illegal voting activities by Democrats in 1960, and that Nixon showed his true class by refusing a recount.

The real reason Nixon refused a recount was that any investigation would have shown just as much vote juggling by the GOP in the southern part of Ohio (Taft Republicans) as with the northern part in Cook County (Daley Democrats).

Fair is fair, and truth is truth: let's use all the facts, not just some.

Tells the story of 6 crises which happened at a very unstable time. Worth reading, even if you don't like Nixon.