Customer Reviews

The Strong Man: John Mitchell and the Secrets of Watergate

5 star:		(34)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The author, James Rosen, has written a painstaking reproduction of the events that occurred during the Watergate hearings and trial. This book is a meticulous and detailed recitation that Mr. Rosen has set forth in this very well-written book.

Mr. Mitchell is deserving of criticism for his role in Watergate and suffered the consequences of a conviction for his activities. The book is not a proclamation of Mr. Mitchell's innocence, but an exposition of his role and raises questions of the complicity of others who were also convicted.

Having served as one of Mr. Mitchell's defense counsel, I found the book to be an accurate recitation of the events of the Watergate affair.

This is a very well-written book, scrupulously researched, and challenging in its conclusions. The Strong Man should change our understanding of the Watergate scandal.

This is a very smart and incisive book. It is recommended as one of the best Watergate books yet written. NO... IT IS THE BEST. It is carefully and motivationally written. I cannot speak to all the facts of the book. No one could, but I can rely on James Rosen as a good faith journalist - his accounts of the Kent State shootings and other issues I do know about are accurate, aware and alive.

I was, for example, a student at Kent State during the ridiculous and tragic events of 1970 and during the late 1960s. My tenure as eye witness to history and as a student of politics and human behavior spanned the entire pregnant period from 1966 to 1973 when the Second, Failed or Red American Revolution came and went.

Rosen has a keen, circumspect and balanced understanding of the events that shows he is not biased in either his view of history or his world view. His approach is scientific and he is a slave to his facts not to his ideology - whatever it may be. In the instance of his views on the Second or Red Revolution in the USA, he established his bona fides with me. I have confidence that the rest of his reporting and thinking is similarly well founded. If a journalist follows his facts to the bloody end like James Rosen, he can only be celebrated.

I am still reading and evaluating the book, so I am going to keep adding to and revising this review as I go along. I will come back later and mop up and synthesize my thinking. I see no harm whatever in a provisional review. THE BOOK IS GREAT -- very eye opening.

More to follow.

Rosen hits the mark. He avoids the threat of getting bogged down in details and boring the reader, but writes the reader into the book. Rosen's book is a must read if not to experience elegant writing, then to be a part of the chronicling of our time.

The scenes where young Marty watches her psychotic, alcoholic mom self-destruct were devastating. I usually don't read nonfiction, but this has the cinematic flow that I associate with great novels. And it's pretty funny considering how heavy the material is.

This is a wonderful book. I was in graduate school in Washington DC during the whole Watergate episode. I like many others had been waiting for a book that had new research and possibly new revelations.

The Venona tapes that cast a new light on the McCarthy episodes were secret for about fifty years after the fact. I now read that in the trial of Aaron Burr the evidence that Willkinson was a paid Spanish agent was not revealed for about a hundred years. I wonder if even after thirty years there is still undisclosed evidence about Watergate?

When politics is involved it seems to take a very long time for basic facts to bubble to the surface.

James Rosen has written the defining biography of the Watergate era. This incredibly detailed and painstakingly researched book is worthy of a Pulitzer. Rosen's writing is eloquent, informative, and impossible to put down. His observations are spot on. Reading this reminds me very much of the late David Halberstam who was one of America's greatest authors. This book is a must have for any political junkie. Mitchell was a truly fascinating character who was without question one of the most brilliant political minds of the twentieth century. Anyone who could take Richard Nixon who had self imploded politically, and get him elected twice to the White House is worthy of serious study. Rosen has written a brilliant book about an fascinating character.

This is a great read. It really is because it provides a much needed insight into one of the key figures of the Nixon era. Mitchell played a key role in the Nixon presidency, it can't be denied, but has been neglected by the existence of a sound biography. Rosen provides the needed insight into this figure. What one obtains from reading this book is that Mitchell was more complex than he appears in other works. For example, Mitchell stood against Nixon in some key junctions in constitutional history, as well as preventing Nixon from causing more problems. We also see how Mitchell deals with being sentenced to jail, and how he dealt with the aftermath. One also gains awareness into the fact that Dean lied, and that provided more reason to convict him with this false evidence

I was a student at the time of Watergate and this book will open your eyes. John Mitchell is shown to be a man you never really knew and if he were here with us today you would want to be associated with him.

One of the best books I've read all year. By taking the focus away from Nixon, an entirely different story emerges. One in which a new tragic figure takes center stage and redefines many of our preconceptions of the Watergate and its cast of characters. A great read.

RLS