Customer Reviews

Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full

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This is pure conjecture, but I wouldn't be too surprised if this turns out to be how Conrad Black actually does write his biographies.

Step 1 - Pick a giant.
Step 2 - Write a first draft praising the giant's achievements and qualities.
Step 3 - Write, from scratch, a second draft attacking the giant from all sides, finding his every fault, his every weakness.
Step 4 - Tone down both drafts.
Step 5 - Combine both drafts in strict chronological order, mixing the praises with the criticisms.

And what we get is a very fair, very balanced biography, in this case of Richard Nixon, perhaps the first definitive one volume biography of the 37th President of the United States.

It is one thing to criticize those in power and quite another to wield it power oneself. Black has wielded power and this gives perspective and considerable authority to his work.

Like his biography of Franklin Roosevelt, this biography of Nixon should rank as one of the great works of critical praise. To pick the obvious example of Watergate, Black evaluates Nixon by concluding his "conduct was blameworthy, but the response to it was extreme". An accurate judgement for an event that "resulted in no theft, no injury, no property damage, no useful espionage".

And yet Black is often mystified by Nixon's "failure to grasp the realities of ... the political problems" especially given Nixon's known political saviness. In general, however, Black is praiseworthy. He lauds Nixon's trip to China, he corrects the record and enthusiastically credits Nixon with ending America's involvement in the Viet Nam war. Black's stance reflects the historical importance of the Nixon presidency.

The biggest surprise for me was learning how pro-civil rights Nixon had been. Of all presidents except for Bill Clinton, whom Toni Morrisson called America's first black president, Nixon was the most respecful of civil rights and of the lives of African Americans. This mindset resulted directly from Nixon's egalitarian Quaker upbringing as black friends came and ate supper at the Nixon table just because that's what you do with friends. He sacrificed considerable political capital on civil rights principles; he made no gains, nor expected any, from a black electorate committed to Johnson's War on Poverty and Great Society programs and he lost the support of many southerners who loved everything about him except his civil rights stance. (Clearly an instance of the political courage JFK wrote about but himself failed to muster.)

From a literary point of view, Watergate brings great irony to this book. Just as Black cannot understand how a man of Nixon's intellect and vision could have so completely misjudged the effects of Watergate, it equally boggles the mind how a man as superlatively intelligent and accomplished as Conrad Black could have misjudged the effects of his own actions with respect to his own legal worries. I suppose he should have found and burned the security video tapes showing him carrying out boxes of incriminating documents.

While excellent, the Nixon biography isn't quite as good as Black's Roosevelt biography, and not without one or two annoying defects, the most dismal of which are the dozen or so references to Wagner's Ring operas that Black attended (and funded in part!) in Toronto while writing the book. But that's a quibble, and we should blame a weak editor for not having forced Black to remove these quotes.

Vincent Poirier, Dublin

The length of "Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full" (1,152 pages) should surprise no one. Richard Nixon served in both houses of the U.S. Congress and was elected Vice President of the United States- all before the age of 40. No one has appeared on a national ticket more often (5 times, equaled only by FDR), nor held national office longer (13-1/2 years).

No single book can tell the whole story. However, Conrad Black's biography of Richard Nixon has many virtues to recommend it. It is very well written. The rhythms, diction and idioms of Black's Anglo-Canadian English lend a freshness to the text without calling attention to themselves. Black sometimes uses a turn of phrase that is a bit unusual to the American "ear"-- yet after a split-second it seems absolutely right and true. At his best, Black is capable of sentences that rival Gibbon's, though he is never less than clear and engaging, with flashes of humor and irony. The book is well-documented, but could use closer editing here and there. (In a couple of places, brief "quotes" from famous speeches by FDR and Nixon are, in fact, paraphrases- though the meaning remained unchanged.)

A particular strength of this biography is that it lends proportion and perspective to the various periods and issues of Nixon's long career. Black gives fresh accounts of all-but-forgotten events, such as the Nixons' physical courage when attacked by violent mobs on their state visit to Venezuela in 1958. Black also provides some insights into the important relationships of Nixon's professional life- Eisenhower, the Kennedys, Kissinger and others- without resort to psychoanalytic pretensions or lurid speculation. The book's final pages form a summary of Nixon's career- more generous than some accounts, though not less accurate.

Finally, Black's approach is refreshingly free of the tiresome "good guys vs. bad guys" approach. Nixon was a complex and driven man whose successes and failures changed the world. Contrary to common belief, his ethics were not always distinguishable from- and in some areas, were superior to- the ethics of his contemporaries in either party. The book is generally free of academic priggishness, shallow moralizing, and partisan demonology. All this, and Black's willingness to praise the characters and accomplishments of public figures regardless of political persuasion, give this book a healthy dose of uncynical humility.

I have been reading Presidential biographies over the last few years beginning with Washington and just completed this one on Nixon. This one by Conrad Black is an excellent read (his one FDR is also excellent)!

The author takes the approach of giving you detailed information and facts and allows you to decide whether decisions and actions were good, bad, indifferent, etc.

Certainly Nixon abused his presidency, but so did the other Presidents in the 1960's (JFK and LBJ), and Black doesn't let that fact go unnoticed.

If you are looking for a quick summary of Nixon's life and presidency this is not the book for you. If you are looking, however, for an exhaustive biography of Nixon this is the book for you.

I was once told by an expert on Richard Nixon that to get a fair biography of President Nixon you needed to find ones that did not try to be psychological and ones written by Brits. Previously Jon Aitken Richard Nixon: A Life fit that bill but it is outdated already. Conrad Black's new book does fit this bill today. He is a Brit and he presents the facts and historical context of Nixon fairly.

Recently Dallek wrote an excellent book on Kissinger and Nixon, but as good as the book was it was held back by the authors obvious dislike of both men. Still a great book but biased a bit for me.

Black has filled the void with an up to date, well written, well researched, and fair and balanced.

Yes the book is a bit long, but quite worth the read.

Black is not afraid to be critical of Nixon, but lots of authors do that, what I liked about this book is that it was not afraid to show the good things Nixon did, which many authors do not like to do.

I really liked this book despite its length and with a British author it provided a bit of neutrality that many American books on Nixon lack.

the author has his own problems, but if you want to understand the period covered by Nixon, it helps to have a full narrative without all the analysis. the new yorker has opined that this effort is essentially an apology, but in the years since Nixon's flawed presidency, we are able to see that so much of what Nixon wanted was just right, even as he also made some terrible decisions and surrounded himself with a few crooks.

it is an easy though exhausting read (lots of pages) but for those of us under 70, it captures so much that after the reader is done, then he can reassess the more venomous acccounts. for example, nixon's childhood here seems less about the creation of neurosis, than simply a hard one, but his parents really did love him.

but then we have watergate. oh well!

The moment I finished reading this book, the image of the late USA President came to me when he left office and waved to the crowd his last Good-bye. Nixon looked hesitant and undecided like a man relieved of an overwhelming burden. His Good-bye expressions were made indicating how far he had worn out of his Office; his eyes refused to meet the camera.
Perhaps what is quite revealing is that Nixon policies and behaviors were formulated to keep pace with `Détente `. There has been a wave of publicity unparalleled in contemporary American foreign policies relating to the appointment of Henry Kissinger in September 1973. Never before has a President and a Secretary of State had such interest by Newsmen and Biographers alike. Both names were associated with secret channels notably in Vietnam, Arab/Israeli conflict, and of course - Detente. I can safely say that Nixon, in particular, was less a friend of the media until Watergate blew its hurdles in the face of the world and the legend `'impeachment" was then born. What followed invoked a cauldron of aggressive and sympathetic editorials. Hostile comments were destructive in character and reflected envy.
I am convinced these 1000+ pages transpire feelings of persecution centered more upon the Office and less upon the Person whom many have loudly hated and secretly admired.
Mr. Conrad Black could picture the late President of the United States of America at his best moments slouched back in his chair, his long legs stretched out above the table in the deceptively thoughtful pose caricaturists had made famous in their media.

Conrad Black's biography of Roosevelt offered a new perspective on an historic figure only now being reevaluated by historians. In this equally powerful book, Black provides a unique view from a man who has wielded power, has been hated by his enemies (some of whom have offered hateful "reviews" here) and who is literate and accomplished. This is a unique perspective. I have avoided Nixon biographies since most have been biased and the story is too recent to be properly evaluated. I voted for Nixon each time he was on the ballot. I was disillusioned by the Watergate crisis and then learned in later years how much of it was contrived. Black's discussion of Nixon's formative years is insightful and sympathetic. His description of the political history is astute. His theories of the Vietnam tragedy are interesting although I disagree with some of his conclusions, such as the futility of the Malaya strategy which has been advocated by Col Nagl's book and is now showing results in Iraq. Black veers into the theories of Harry G. Summers, which have been attacked by others in recent years. Still, this is one version of the strategy that Nixon might have followed and is well described in the book. It is painful to read of some of Nixon's foibles, as I wished him well and think what might have been. I think this will be a standard source for years and Black's own legal troubles, much of which are similar to Nixon's as they are the actions of enemies, give him a unique perspective on that part of Nixon's life. His discussion of the Nixon and DeGaulle relationship was totally new information to me. I cast my first vote for Nixon in 1960 and never regretted it. I never met Nixon although I know people who knew him and his family. He was an extremely complex man and this biography does a good job of telling that story. I highly recommend it.

I enjoyed Conrad Black's biography of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and thought his bio about Richard Nixon would be worth reading. The subject matter is certainly interesting (both the man and the times of Richard Nixon) and I think Black is an engaging writer. This had the potential of being a solid contribution to understanding Richard Nixon from a generally but not completely sympathetic perspective.

Unfortunately, there are some huge mistakes in this book that show a complete lack of research and/or basis in fact. Two of the most glaring errors are as follows. On page 1007, he briefly mentions Jimmy Carter becoming frontrunner for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 1976. Black makes the incredible, frankly unbelievable claim that Carter's "main rivals" were Edmund Muskie and John Glenn. WHAT!!??? Neither Muskie nor Glenn ran for the 1976 Democratic nomination. Carter's main opponents were Henry Jackson, Morris Udall, and later on, Jerry Brown and Frank Church. George Wallace was also a significant contender. How Black came up with Muskie and Glenn is totally beyond me. Can anyone explain this?

Another whopper, a really bizarre one, comes on page 1049, where he states that Nixon had "great empathy for [Ronald Reagan's] decline in his eighties as an Alzheimer's sufferer." Nixon was a smart man, but Reagan was not publicly diagnosed with Alzheimer's until after Nixon died. How would Nixon have known about Reagan having Alzheimer's? Did he suspect something? Did the Reagans tell him privately in early 1994? This was just strikes me as a really weird claim by Mr. Black.

I caught several other astounding mistakes when Black discussed election results and the like. Anyone with access to Wikipedia could have come up with accurate figures, not to mention The Almanac of American Politics.

These amazing mistakes make me wonder what else Black got wrong in this book. And I wonder what Black got wrong in his biography of Franklin D. Roosevelt as well.

My first involvement in political affairs was, at the age of 5, urging my mother to vote for Nixon, as I made my way off to school. Since then, Nixon has loomed large in the landscape of Orange County. We all knew he lived in San Clemente, but he was a specter: he made few appearances and was overshadowed by Reagan's influence. Reagan, of course, defines California Republicanism, but Nixon shaped the California Republican party before Reagan appeared on the scene. Nixon represented the scrappy, lower-middle class strivers, seeking recognition on a public stage. Nixon was their spokesman, the underdog who could pound his finger on Kruschev's chest, while they busily built their businesses in Whittier and Downey, while others worked for the aerospace companies in El Segundo and Long Beach. Thus, it was with great enjoyment that I read the first 500 pages, which spoke about a California, which I knew little about: the immediate post-War era. And, it is surprising that a Lord from the English parliament, like Conrad Black, would be so passionate about re-creating this era in Nixon's life. In short, what would seem the least compelling about Nixon's life, his move from local congressman, to Senator, to 8 years in the VP role, is the most compelling part of the Nixon story, and gives a greater appreciation of his intellect and humanity.

It has been commented upon that this is a "rehabilitative biography," and that Conrad Black tries very hard to "clean up" Nixon's sinister image. While Black does comment on a few mistakes, which Nixon made, in foreign policy and domestic issues, he does not admit to Nixon having any ethical lapses, at least until Watergate. In fact, if one is to believe Black, Nixon is nearly the cleanest politician of the era, especially in comparison to Kennedy and Johnson. I am unable to judge this. It goes against so much of what I've been taught. But, I am willing to give Nixon the benefit of the doubt after reading Black's thorough defense of the man.

This was a great read. I was thrilled to discover that Conrad wrote a fair and even-handed biography of the late President. (I enjoyed Nixon's memoirs, too, so lengthy tomes aren't a problem for me, as they might be for a few of the reviewers.) I liked the book's emphasis on Nixon's persistence and ability to remain on the political scene for so many years, despite media prejudice and pumped-up mobbings. Nixon had to perform on one of the most volatile stages of American history, and this book made it clear that he managed to stay on it, decade after decade.