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The Final Days Paperback – November 1, 2005
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The Final Days is the #1 New York Times bestselling, classic, behind-the-scenes account of Richard Nixon’s dramatic last months as president. Moment by moment, Bernstein and Woodward portray the taut, post-Watergate White House as Nixon, his family, his staff, and many members of Congress strained desperately to prevent his inevitable resignation. This brilliant book reveals the ordeal of Nixon’s fall from office—one of the gravest crises in presidential history.
- Print length496 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication dateNovember 1, 2005
- Dimensions5.5 x 1.24 x 8.38 inches
- ISBN-100743274067
- ISBN-13978-0743274067
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Editorial Reviews
Review
-- Los Angeles Times
"An extraordinary work of reportage on the epic political story of our time."
-- Newsweek
"Absolutely mesmerizing."
-- Chicago Sun-Times
"Unprecedented...Mr. Nixon emerges as a tragic figure weathering a catastrophic ordeal...and weathering it with considerable courage and dignity."
-- The New York Times
"The epic political story of our time."
-- Newsweek
About the Author
Carl Bernstein is a contributing editor for Vanity Fair magazine and has written for a variety of publications. He is the author of Loyalties: A Son’s Memoir, and has coauthored His Holiness: John Paul II and the History of Our Time with Marco Politi, as well as All the President's Men and The Final Days with Bob Woodward.
Product details
- Publisher : Simon & Schuster; Reissue edition (November 1, 2005)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 496 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0743274067
- ISBN-13 : 978-0743274067
- Item Weight : 15.4 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.5 x 1.24 x 8.38 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #111,639 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #156 in United States Executive Government
- #367 in US Presidents
- #2,165 in World History (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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About the authors

Bob Woodward is an associate editor of The Washington Post, where he has worked since 1971. He has shared in two Pulitzer Prizes, first in 1973 for the coverage of the Watergate scandal with Carl Bernstein, and second in 2003 as the lead reporter for coverage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
He has authored or coauthored 18 books, all of which have been national non-fiction bestsellers. Twelve of those have been #1 national bestsellers. He has written books on eight of the most recent presidents, from Nixon to Obama.
Bob Schieffer of CBS News has said, “Woodward has established himself as the best reporter of our time. He may be the best reporter of all time.”
In 2014, Robert Gates, former director of the CIA and Secretary of Defense, said that he wished he’d recruited Woodward into the CIA, saying of Woodward, “He has an extraordinary ability to get otherwise responsible adults to spill [their] guts to him...his ability to get people to talk about stuff they shouldn’t be talking about is just extraordinary and may be unique.”
Gene Roberts, the former managing editor of The New York Times, has called the Woodward-Bernstein Watergate coverage, “maybe the single greatest reporting effort of all time.” In listing the all-time 100 best non-fiction books, Time Magazine has called All the President’s Men, by Bernstein and Woodward, “Perhaps the most influential piece of journalism in history.”
In 2018 David Von Drehle wrote, “What [Theodore] White did for presidential campaigns, Post Associate Editor Bob Woodward has done for multiple West Wing administrations – in addition to the Supreme Court, the Pentagon, the CIA and the Federal Reserve.”
Woodward was born March 26, 1943 in Illinois. He graduated from Yale University in 1965 and served five years as a communications officer in the United States Navy before beginning his journalism career at the Montgomery County (Maryland) Sentinel, where he was a reporter for one year before joining the Post.
Photos, a Q&A, and additional materials are available at Woodward's website, www.bobwoodward.com.

Few journalists in America’s history have had the impact on their era and their craft as Carl Bernstein. For forty years, from All the President’s Men to A Woman-In-Charge: The Life of Hillary Clinton, Bernstein’s books, reporting, and commentary have revealed the inner-workings of government, politics, and the hidden stories of Washington and its leaders.
In the early 1970s, Bernstein and Bob Woodward broke the Watergate story for The Washington Post, leading to the resignation of President Richard Nixon and setting the standard for modern investigative reporting, for which they and The Post were awarded the Pulitzer Prize.
Since then, Bernstein has continued to build on the theme he and Woodward first explored in the Nixon years–the use and abuse of power: political, media, financial, cultural and spiritual power. Renowned as a prose stylist, he has also written a classic biography of Pope John Paul II, served as the founding editor of the first major political website, and been a rock critic.
The author of five best-selling books, Bernstein is currently also at work on several multi-media projects, including a memoir about growing up at a Washington newspaper, The Evening Star, during the Kennedy era, which will be released in 2016; and a dramatic TV series about the United States Congress for HBO. He is also an on-air contributor for CNN and a contributing editor of Vanity Fair magazine.
His most recent book was the national bestseller A Woman In Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton, acclaimed as the definitive biography of its subject, published by Knopf.
Bernstein’s magazine journalism and web commentary continue to combine rare reportorial ability with literary skill: from “The Ballad of John McCain,” a millennial portrait of the presidential candidate in Vanity Fair magazine, to ground-breaking Newsweek/Daily Beastc ommentaries in 2011 about the pernicious influence of Rupert Murdoch on the politics, journalism and popular culture of three continents.
Since his famous essay, “The Triumph of Idiot Culture,” a 1992 cover story for The New Republic about increasing sensationalism, gossip and manufactured controversy as staples of the American press, he has proved a prescient critic of his own profession.
With Woodward, Bernstein wrote two classic best sellers: All the President’s Men (also a movie starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman), about their coverage of the Watergate story; and The Final Days, about the denouement of the Nixon presidency.
His next book, a masterful memoir of his family’s experience in the McCarthy era, is titled Loyalties: A Son’s Memoir. He is also the co-author of the definitive papal biography, His Holiness: John Paul II and the History of Our Time, which detailed the Pope’s pivotal and often clandestine role in the fall of communism.
In 1977-78, Bernstein spent a year investigating the CIA’s secret relationship with the American press during the Cold War. The resulting 25,000-word article for Rolling Stone, entitled “The CIA and the Media,” was the first to examine a subject long suppressed by both American newspapers and the intelligence community.
A lesser-known part of Bernstein’s journalistic career is his tenure as a rock-critic at The Washington Post while a metro reporter before Watergate; he continues to write (very) occasionally about rock and classical music.
Bernstein was born and raised in Washington, DC and began his journalism career at age 16 as a copyboy for The Washington Evening Star, becoming a reporter at 19.
He lives in New York with his wife and is the father of two sons, one a journalist and the other a rock musician.
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What makes this book so powerful is how it is a warning from our not so distant past about having a president and administration that acts like the president is above the law and doesn't have to answer to Congress, the courts or the American people for his actions. Nixon's actions as president nearly brought the executive branch down and paralyzed the ability of the government to function. It took two years of investigation for Congress and the courts to finally force Nixon to take responsibility for his abuse of power. Still, he was allowed to resign and retire to his home in California. The pardon by Ford allowed Nixon to escape facing justice for his crimes. It makes me wonder what it will take to finally force the current president to be held accountable for his actions during the campaign and since he took office. How long will he be able to abuse the power of his office? How much damage will he do to our Constitutional Republic before he is forced out of office? Once we discover the breadth and depth of his criminal behavior, will we finally act to prevent future abuses by a president? The executive branch has been allowed to stake out and claim a considerable amount of power since 9/11 in the name of National Security. We need the other two branches to step up to act as a check and balance at the federal level. This is true no matter which party controls the White House. We can either learn from the history detailed in this book by Woodward and Bernstein or we can find ourselves repeating the sins from our past.
This is definitely not a criticism of the writing, but potential buyers should be aware that the reading is probably going to be difficult. This small problem arises because of the huge number of characters that one must keep track of. I found myself re-reading many paragraphs just to understand, for example, who was doing or saying what with whom and what the ramifications might be. The other thing that made progress slow for me was the complicated timeline. With the machinations at the White House, the proceeding in the Special Prosecutors' offices and Judge Sirica's courtroom, the hearings at the Supreme Court, the agony of the Nixon family members, the circus at the Senate Select Watergate Committee, the House Judiciary Committee's deliberations over impeachment, the musings and communications between House, Senate, CIA, and FBI leadership, there were, understandably, many events transpiring simultaneously. Because some of these events spanned weeks, it was impossible for the authors to present everything in strict chronological order, so sorting out in my mind just when many things were happening also contributed to relatively slow progress through the book.
Unfortunately, my "used" volume purchased from Amazon was listed as being in good condition, but it fell literally apart while I was reading it. That's too bad because, even in this day of archivable ebooks, "The Final Days" is one that many professional and amateur historians might want to keep for reference.
This book picks up in mid 1974 about the time the famous tapes were an issue before the Supreme Court because Nixon had refused to turn them over. These tapes are recordings of conversations and phone calls Nixon had started recording in 1971. Nixon tried various tactics like releasing only transcripts of tapes and then only certain tapes. Finally after a fruitless battle in the Supreme Court he was ordered to release them all. It was with this final tape release the now famous "smoking gun" tape that showed he had been lying since nearly the beginning about a cover-up. It was after that his support in Congress crumbled and impeachment proceedings were being started. Rather than going thru a certain impeachment and removal from office that could take months of turmoil and distraction he resigned in August 1974.
The book has a slow pace at first as it builds up to the impending finally. It does pick up towards the end as the drama builds. Nixon spends a lot of time fluctuating whether to resign or fight until the end the last few days.
The book still feels relevant today given current political climate and talk of impeachment. This kind of gives an idea of what it may take for it to happen again. It's not quite as easy as some may think. I recommend this for political junkies and 20th century U.S. history buffs.
Top reviews from other countries
I am film literate but, even so, I never quite understood what was happening in the film of 'All the President's Men' and, after reading the book recently, I still don't get it. Read *this* however and things become clearer ... not crystal clear, but somewhat clearer. We discover the roles played by the rest of the White House team, members of Congress, senators, judges, lawyers, and the Supreme Court. What we hit - and I think this is the core of the matter - is one key transcript from the White House Tapes that made it clear that Nixon knew what was going on at Watergate and then tried to hide the fact that he knew. (Not only from the special prosecutors, but from his own people, his friends, power brokers, and family too.) He subsequently tried to withhold the transcript - because, by that stage, what was at issue was not only Nixon but the status of the American presidency. If you're looking for the fulcrum that gave the forces of light the leverage they needed, it was this transcript and his attempts to withhold it. Like any survivor - and further handicapped by his own personal demons - Nixon was no fool and knew what it took to get by in the Washington hothouse. He remained media-savvy up to the end (read 'The Making Of The President') and he was a convincing speaker: people who *heard* his debates against JFK on radio reckoned he won. But he was ultimately remote and hemmed-in by his emotional limitations; he was also tormented by mistrust and a desire to take revenge on those he felt had done him down. This book takes a day-by-day, play-by-play look at events and participants in a way that's similar to Max Gallo's 'Night of the Long Knives', which details Nazi Party revenge and murder in 1934. This book showed me that democracy as we know it was hanging by a thread at the time, and it doesn't seem to have got a lot better since. This book and Daniel Ellsberg's 'Secrets' put life under Nixon into perspective.








