The Wars of Watergate: The Last Crisis of Richard Nixon (Paperback)

~ (Author) "The Age of Watergate witnessed the nation's most sustained political conflict and severest constitutional crisis since the Great Depression..." (more)
Key Phrases: imaginative dirty tricks, presidential conversations, impeachment inquiry, White House, Richard Nixon, Supreme Court (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

A big powerhouse of a book, one crackling with suspense and filled with insight into the origins, the unfolding, and the consequences of perhaps the gravest political and constitutional crisis in our history. (Michael E. Parrish - San Diego Union )

A scholarly and thoughtful account. . . . [Kutler's] serious book is frequently as tense as a thriller. (The New Yorker )

It is balance, breadth of vision, documentary research, historical context, and insight that Kutler provides—lucidly, gracefully, and far better than anyone before him. . . . This book should be regarded as the definitive reply to Nixon's attempts at rehabilitation. . . . [It] is about ethics, ends and means, and the dangers of an imperial presidency. . . . The republic owes Kutler a reward. It need not be elaborate: Americans need only to read him—and take his book seriously. (Leonard Bushkoff - Christian Science Monitor )

Kutler's book is a watershed event—the beginning of the passage of Watergate from the stuff of journalism and instant history to real history. (Thomas Oliphant - Boston Globe )

Stanley I Kutler's ambitious synthesis details the complexities of political sabotage and conspiracies to obstruct justice in evocative contexts including Vietnam and the growth of the imperial presidency. . . . Overall this study is, and will remain, the standard book on the 'underside' of the Nixon presidency for the foreseeable future. (American Historical Review )

Product Description

"The definitive account of Watergate." —St. Louis Post-Dispatch .

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Product Details

• Paperback: 776 pages
• Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co. (March 17, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393308278
• ISBN-13: 978-0393308273
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #142,511 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The most comprehensive Watergate compilation, May 8, 2003

By	C. MacNeil "Three Rivers Reviewer" (Fort Wayne, IN USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The Watergate break-in and coverup scandal that toppled the presidential administration of Richard Nixon is, maybe arguably, one of American history's watershed events. Why is clearly explained by Richard Kutler in his historically rich book that is very probably the most comprehensive and easily understood publication on the subject. Kutler begins with the approval by the president's men of the break-in at the headquarters in the Watergate complex of the National Democratic Committee and, after the plot's five burglars are nabbed, the conspiracy to cover up the involvement of the White House in the break-in. Kutler is rightly clear in pressing the point that there has never been any evidence that Nixon himself approved the break-in (that was OKed by the president's operatives). But, just six days after the June 17, 1972, break-in, Nixon ordered the coverup in the now infamous smoking gun taped conversation with chief of staff H.R. Haldeman. From the apprehension of the break-in's participants, Kutler takes us to the Senate investigative committee that gradually chipped away to lead to the articles of impeachment that were being advanced but not forwarded to the House because of Nixon's resignation. The number of participants in the Watergate affair is sheer numbing, but Kutler does a tremendous job in not getting his reader too bogged down in trying to keep the cast straight. In the end, though, the historical value of Kutler's contribution is why Watergate essentially redefined the presidency, how it altered the American public's perception of the nation's highest office and why and how the built-in safeguards against a tyrannical presidency worked. As for Nixon, it goes without saying he was a truly tragic figures whose pettiness sabotaged what could likely have been one of the most effective presidential administrations in history. Kutler concludes with a tantalizing question: assuming that Nixon did, to some extent, rehabilitate his public image in the years before his death, was that rehabilitation due to the fallen president's changing his character's fatal flaws, or was it because he simply out-lived most of what he called his "enemies?" All this and more in one of the most compelling documents in the Watergate fiasco.

26 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Watergate as History, July 17, 2000

By	Brian D. Rubendall (Oakton, VA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Most books on Watergate were written not long after the scandal broke by either journalists or by the participants. Stanley I. Cutler is one of the first to look at the scandal from a "historical" perspective. He does an excellent job of presenting the events in the proper historical context, removed as they now are from the political passions that bolied over at the time. Nixon then was a discraced figure with a core of ardent supporters. He managed to partly rehabilitate himself before his death by outlasting many of his enemies. This book shows, in all grim detail, why Nixon should never be allowed to complete his quest for rehabilitation. It shows clearly the dangers of electing a President willing and able to deliberately misuse his power.

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding political reporting, November 3, 1999

By A Customer

This is the clearest, most concise, most accesible book on Watergate I have ever come across. Its most important feature is providing the reader with a deepr understanding of Watergate beyond the mere surface aspects of the cover-up, but instead lets one understand the implications the Nixon Administartions activities had for the nation. At times, the book may seem too partisan, and the large "cast of characters" can be hard to juggle. These minor criticisms aside, it as an important book to read, particlulary for young people in light of the recent Clinton impeachment hearings, so that they may judge for themselves whether or not that scandal in fact had the gravity and import of Watergate.