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Richard M. Nixon

The Memoirs of Richard Nixon Hardcover – May 1, 1978

by Richard Milhous Nixon (Author)

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Product details

Publisher : Grosset & Dunlap; First Edition (May 1, 1978)
Language : English
Hardcover : 1120 pages
ISBN-10 : 0448143747
ISBN-13 : 978-0333230213
Item Weight : 3.88 pounds

Best Sellers Rank: #238,886 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,355 in Presidents & Heads of State Biographies
- #12,417 in United States History (Books)

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110 ratings

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Corey D. Stevens

Definitely a masterpiece worth having

Reviewed in the United States on January 2, 2018

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I must admit it took me a while to get through this memoir. But after I finished I can honestly say that I gain a fresh...and positive..perspective on Richard Nixon. I am a Democrat for the most part but I can definitely say that few presidents had as much intellectual heft as Richard Milhouse Nixon. He gives detailed insights on so many issues in which he had an direct hand that I found to be refreshingly candid, particularly in regards to how he felt about other politicians. For example I loved how he did not try to make more out of his relationship with President Kennedy than it was. He freely admits that their different upbringing, political philosophy, and experiences precluded a close friendship. It’s also important to note that this memoir was published a mere 4 years after he was forced to resign the presidency. And a year after the infamous Frost/Nixon interviews! I am a diehard history buff (I usually read 4-5 books a month) and I have to say this is one of my favorite tomes. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the political scene between the 1940s and 70s.

12 people found this helpful

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Duncan Du Bois

An important and necessary read

Reviewed in the United States on September 26, 2018

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BOOK REVIEW: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (New York, 1978)
Memoirs often tend to be hagiographies. Richard Nixon’s Memoirs do not fall into that category. His 1,090 page account of his life up until his final day in the White House is a compelling read and a necessary counter to the malevolent and vitriolic campaign against his character and his family which destroyed his presidency.
While the Establishment media and academia has made, in an unqualified way, the term “Watergate” synonymous with the Nixon presidency, Nixon’s Memoirs provide copious insights on his career and achievements that have been deliberately ignored and neglected by those set on disseminating disparagement dressed up as objectivity.
Nixon’s years as Vice President show him to have been the most active and involved of any incumbent of that office in US history. The knowledge and experience he gained in foreign affairs gave him a proficiency in that field which remains unrivalled to this day. His grasp on the mendacity and guile of the communists and his appreciation of the importance of demonstrating US strength, provide a completely different context to the course of events in South East Asia as told by the Establishment media and its fellow travellers.
Whereas the purveyors of the Watergate Nixon ignore at worst and gloss over at best the domestic policies of his Administration, Nixon’s Memoirs deal in great detail with the many domestic policies he put forward. A quote from page 979 provides an outline of the issues: “The cities were now quiet, the college campuses had once again become seats of learning; the rise in crime had been checked; the drug problem had been massively attacked, the draft had been eliminated. We had submitted to Congress the nation’s first environmental program as well as major plans for national health care, education’s reform, revenue-sharing and government reorganisation.” He abolished or reduced Johnson’s Great Society programs which had caused bureaucracy and expenditure to balloon whilst delivering little by way of social alleviation. He introduced changes in local government that were the first in forty years. He called his reforms the New American Revolution. As he put it, he was determined to “break the Eastern stranglehold on the executive branch and federal government” and to promote the appointment of women and representatives of minority ethnic groups within public life (pp. 766-769). But in attempting such innovations, he faced a Congress and a Senate that were controlled by the Democratic Party and thus were either opposed or indifferent to his policies.
Nixon’s personal contact and relations with the leaders of Red China and with Brezhnev of the USSR are recounted in fascinating detail along with the tedious diplomatic manoeuvring which characterised Détente. Whilst unstinting in his appreciation of the role of Henry Kissinger, it is clear that Nixon’s overarching perspective on world affairs played a pivotal role in the shaping and unfolding of US relations with the two communist giants.
As important and pertinent as Nixon’s career is before the cumulative effects of Watergate, he devotes a third of his Memoirs to the final two years of his presidency. Referring to Watergate, he wrote: “I have sometimes wondered if we had spent more time on the problem at the outset, we might have handled it less stupidly” (p. 646). Such wistful and candid remarks, nonetheless, do not detract from the highly detailed, diarised, almost day-to-day account of the unravelling of events which ended his presidency. The chapters headed 1973 and 1974 – comprising more than 300 pages – provide an inside track on the vendetta waged by the media and the Democratic Party not only against the Nixon Administration, but against Nixon’s family, friends and Nixon himself. What pervades those pages is the unrelenting barrage of accusations, falsehoods and vitriol which they endured. Never before had an Administration been subjected to such reproach and hatred. What made it all the more difficult to bear was the utter hypocrisy of the invective. For example, the legally justifiable wire-taps of the Administration were condemned as violations of privacy. Yet Robert Kennedy had authorised widespread wire-taps without warrants which included bugging the phones and rooms of Martin Luther King. But as with issues concerning taxes, the installation of security measures on private properties and campaign funding, the accusers applied double standards. Prior violations by the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations were ignored. Yet within that pejorative maelstrom, the Executive arm of the US government continued to function – right down to Nixon’s last full day in office when he signed a veto statement against an agricultural appropriations bill (p.1,078). In reaching his decision to resign the presidency, Nixon’s main concern was that the Executive arm of government would be hamstrung for months on end if he elected to face an impeachment trial.
What is most shameful about the years 1973 and 1974 is not the fact that Nixon was heard on the tape of 23 June 1972 discussing the possibility of the CIA obstructing the FBI from pursuing the investigation of the break-in at the Democratic Party’s Watergate office. That conversation was hailed as the “smoking gun” which, Nixon’s accusers claimed, rendered him guilty of obstruction of justice. As Nixon stated in his book In the Arena (p. 31), his remark was made within the context of his concern that because some former CIA operatives had participated in the break-in, FBI involvement might prejudice other legitimate CIA operations. In their eager quest to condemn Nixon, his accusers ignored the fact that on 12 July 1972, Nixon instructed FBI head Patrick Gray to go ahead with the investigation. Thus, no obstruction of justice took place as a result of that snatch of conversation of 23 June 1972.
The most shameful aspect was the role of the media and the hypocrisy of the Democratic Party. In his time George Washington described the conduct of elements of the press as “outrages on common decency.” Following a particularly vitriolic assault on him by a Philadelphia newspaper in March 1797, Washington deplored the paper for indulging in “the most wilful, artful and malignant representations that can be imagined [which were meant] to weaken, if not destroy the confidence of the public.” Washington’s diagnosis applies precisely to what Nixon experienced and to the damage the Executive arm of government suffered as a result of the over-reach of the Congress, assisted by liberal elements in the Judiciary in wilfully eroding the right of the Executive to confidentiality by their on-going demands for documents and tapes that had nothing to do with the singular issue of the Watergate break-in. Of particular disgrace was the conduct of the House Judiciary Committee which was compiling charges of impeachment. On 27 June 1974, before a single witness had been heard or defence made, its chairman, Peter Rodino, announced that all 21 Democrats on the Committee would be voting to impeach Nixon. From that one sees the extent to which the pursuit of political ends had superseded the pursuit of justice. For all their smug, sanctimonious posturing, the so-called liberals of the Democratic Party harboured the same instincts as those who conduct kangaroo courts.
Woven into Nixon’s personal account are several hand-written copies of notes and letters from his two daughters, Tricia and Julie. Anecdotal in character, they provide insight not only to the emotional stresses to which the Nixon family were subjected, but to the fortitude and political stamina of Nixon’s daughters. The same has to be said of his two sons-in-law, Ed Cox and David Eisenhower.
Section 4 of Article Two of the US Constitution states that a president may be removed from office “on impeachment for and conviction of treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanours.” As Nixon stated in In the Arena, “No one ripped off the government, as was the case in previous scandals. Wrongdoing took place but not for personal gain. All administrations have sought to protect themselves from political fallout of scandals….In retrospect Watergate was one part wrongdoing, one part blundering, and one part political vendetta” (p. 38-39).
Richard Nixon’s Memoirs, published in 1978, is an articulate, highly readable work. His later book, In the Arena, published in 1990, is a worthwhile follow-up along with Bruce Herschensohn’s superb analysis of the power of media influence titled The Gods of the Antenna, published in 1976.
Duncan Du Bois, Ph.D, September 2018

8 people found this helpful

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Theda Bara

You don't have to love him.

Reviewed in the United States on January 21, 2014

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Last summer I embarked on a project to read the best available biography (or multiple biographies) of each American president. I wound up reading both ends against the middle to avoid boredom with the Founding Fathers. I admire them, but John Adams is so hard to love. I have a wish list just for this reading project, but instead of just dropping this autobiography of Richard Nixon in that wish list late the other night, I downloaded a sample. Because the book is over 1400 pages long, the sample was a hefty chunk of the book about Nixon's fascinating early life and I was reading for over an hour before I ran out of sample. Whether you love him or hate him, it's difficult to be indifferent. I've never read an account of his early life that holds a candle to the eloquent way in which Nixon himself describes his lean childhood and the death of a younger brother, a toddler, from a wicked form of tuberculosis that carried the child away in days, plus the lingering death of a beloved older brother, also from tuberculosis which caused Nixon's mother to leave the family in California to nurse the gravely ill brother in Arizona until he was finally allowed to come home to die. This is only one way to tell Nixon's story. It is filtered and he can be self-serving. I'm gaining insight, however, into why he was thought so remarkable as a young man in college and why he was asked to get into politics after he returned from WWII. The idea that Nixon was in any way remarkable has always been a difficult notion for me. I still do not like the man; there's not much here to like. But he tells his own story in a straightforward way with details that I think may be difficult to find synthesized into a standard biography. This is why I love Kindle. With a little effort, voracious readers can discover real gems.

15 people found this helpful

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Mark E Taussig

An interesting first hand perspective by Nixon.

Reviewed in the United States on July 24, 2017

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Here is the great thing about this book. Nixon, love him or not, was at the center of everything from the early 1950s to his impeachment and he provides a first hand look at the Alger Hiss hearings, relations with the Soviet Union during Eisenhower's administration, McCarthyism, his loss to Kennedy in 1960, and so on. He also inadvertently reveals his biggest character flaw: He takes credit for everything good and blames everyone else for everything bad. He does it in a subtle way, but it's clear that is who he was. Well written. Easy to read. History from a first hand perspective unlike what can be written by historians or others taking a third party perspective.

3 people found this helpful

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Malcolm Parkin

The real truth of the Nixon Presidency

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 24, 2015

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A staggering and gripping account of recent international history, and a revealing insight into the precise and clear mind of an excellent President who came unstuck through the misplaced zeal of others. I highly recommend this book.

3 people found this helpful

Jason Rue

Excellent Memoir

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 20, 2014

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A fine memoir from a much underestimated President who helped bring the cold War to an end. Watergate today woud not be the mega issue it was in it's time if President Obama's spying on Chancellor Merkil is anything to go by.

Carol Herron

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 4, 2017

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Very pleased

elsie

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 7, 2015

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Thoroughly enjoyed this book.

jimi252

Memoirs Delivers !

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 18, 2013

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If you are in anyway interested in the life and political career of Richard Nixon, then this is the book for you.

3 people found this helpful

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