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Friends of Richard Nixon, The Paperback – January 1, 1976

3.0 out of 5 stars 2

cops, robbers and prosecution

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Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Ballantine Books; First Edition (January 1, 1976)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 351 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0345252268
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0345252265
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.15 pounds
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.0 out of 5 stars 2

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George V. Higgins
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Customer reviews

3 out of 5 stars
3 out of 5
2 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Reviewed in the United States on July 30, 2012
I have not read George Higgins' highly acclaimed crime novel, The Friends of Eddie Coyle. I suspect, if I had, and had I liked it, I might have better appreciated his take on Watergate, The Friends of Richard Nixon. Though, since I didn't particularly like the latter, it's possible I might only have better understood the style, while still not caring much for it.

Higgins likes to be clever. This book oozes clever. It screams, "Look how witty I am. I am clever." Here is ONE sentence on page four:

"To those bereaved by the works of murders; to those raped, robbed, mugged, dispirited by the loss of their possessions, or enraged by the violation of their children, or unalterably convinced that untrammeled traffic in dirty books, pictures and films will certainly proliferate rapists and child molesters: to that vast popular majority which fears that legal cession of a monopoly on the use of force, to the government, under the social contract, is not in fact a matter of unanimous consent, too - sedulous attention to the rights of those accused is not a welcome course of conduct."
Throughout, Higgins' book cries out, `I'm a good Boston lawyer and let me tell you about those bad White House people from California. And know lots of big words, too.' I'm no Nixon fan, but Higgins' writing makes one think of the `Eastern Establishment' types that Nixon was always railing against.

He just can't resist using a difficult word or meandering sentence when a simple word or short sentence will do. It's like an obsession.

Higgins was a lawyer, including a US Attorney for Massachusetts and there's no denying his insights into the system bring something to the table; they certainly give a unique look at Earl Silbert, who was the US Attorney for DC and led the initial Watergate investigation. He paints a more positive picture of Silbert's efforts than most.

But, literally every page has at least one sentence like this: "It constituted recognition that the existence of additional defendants, one of them placed fairly high in ostensibly respectable circles, implied the possibility that one or more unidentified people might have it in mind to balk the orderly processes of justice."

Higgins should have spent less time trying to write highbrow prose and just put together sentences that a reader didn't have to parse and try to understand. His opinions on the justice system and law enforcement are sometimes insightful and sometimes just condescending. I enjoyed some parts of this book, but on the whole, found it to be annoying. And that's not usually a good thing to say about a book.
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Reviewed in the United States on October 30, 2005
A lawyer in the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office, reporter, and best-selling author of fiction (The Friends of Eddie Coyle is perhaps his best known work), George V. Higgins wrote two articles on Watergate for The Atlantic in 1974. In 1975 he adapted those articles into the book length `The Friends of Richard Nixon.' Drawing heavily on court transcripts and congressional testimony, relying equally heavily on his audience's familiarity with the major - and some minor - Watergate figures and the Mafioso organizational structures as represented in the then-popular `The Godfather' movies, Higgins brackets his story chronologically from the beginning of the Watergate cover-up to President Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon.

In contrast to some later histories, there's an appealingly lively immediacy to Higgins' account that compensates for its loose and sometimes unfocused approach. Higgins great strength is his familiarity with the law and criminal prosecution. He succeeds in getting into the head of the original cover-upper, John Dean, at least to the extent of framing the challenges faced by the young Counsel to the President . `Since Dean did not now who was responsible,' Higgins writes, `he was constrained to assume that everybody was responsible and act accordingly.' It didn't hurt, Higgins notes, that Acting Assistant Attorney General Henry Petersen, who was prosecuting the Watergate burglars, was naïvely reporting to Dean on the progress of the case. `With those advantages,' Higgins observes, `a thoughtful baboon could obstruct justice. For a while.' [`Friends of Richard Nixon' is filled with such trenchant observations. My favorite is Higgins take on Judge John Sirica's harsh sentence of G. Gordon Liddy. Higgins didn't like Sirica (`A nice guy if you like martinets') and felt he overstepped his role many times. To Higgins Liddy was a `standup guy' and a kook who seemed to realize better than anyone that the fix was NOT in and took it like a good soldier. Higgins goes to great length explaining how criminal trials operate, and he convinces us that Sirica's sentencing of Liddy - meant to scare the other Watergate burglars into perhaps copping a plea and cooperating with the investigation - was harsh in the extreme. `... five (years) would've done that. The seven to twenty was for getting Sirica (expletive deleted by reviewer) off, seven for doing it, fourteen more for doing it on purpose.'] Liddy didn't have a lot of respect for Maximum John Sirica, either.

Higgins' final chapters deal with the Senate Watergate Committee, the House Judiciary Committee that was chaired by Peter Rodino, and the post-pardon legal landscape. Higgins' entertaining opinions aren't bolstered by much description - a profile of Senator Sam Ervin in 1975 probably would have been superfluous, anyway. Thirty years on, though, they kind of hang out there in an unsatisfying vacuum. This book is weakest the farther it strays from the legal give and take, the challenges faced by prosecutors and defense attorneys, and especially the fragile construction of an impossible conspiracy.
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