Nixon: The Triumph of a Politician

Rating:
Summary: Calling All US Politics students
Review: Ambrose's style is excellent for the US politics student. He covers all fields of policy but centers, quite rightly, on Vietnam. Ambrose is very perceptive about Nixon the man, without being too sychophantic he is fair on the guy -- though maybe not always very complimentary. The book is very nicely balanced and the chronology does not flow perfectly so that Ambrose is able to concentrate on policy areas rather than conducting a simplistic and boring narrative.

Rating:
Summary: Character Matters
Review: As usual, Stephen E. Ambrose is flawless in this middle edition of the Nixon trilogy. The book is quite long and detailed to a fault. The detail includes huge quantities of actual quotes, painting a picture of Nixon about as clear as one can get on any man.

The picture I got was of a man not well suited for the presidency. Intelligent, clever, creative, bold, knowledgeable on world affairs, yes. But he also had character flaws. Over-sensitive almost to the point of paranoia, Nixon was driven by an obsession to be President more than the desire to be presidential. His statement in the later David Frost interview that, "If the President does it, it's not illegal," is very telling. The ends justified the means. He had the ability to rank goals above consequences, and almost everything he did was for the acquisition or preservation of political power.

The best example is Vietnam. He took four years to end a war he knew early on could not be won. His delays were to search for ways to avoid being the first American President to lose a war, and to prevent the staining of American honor. Both of which would have cost Nixon reelection in 1972. Ambrose makes the point that half the names on the Vietnam War Memorial are from the period of Nixon's futile attempts to foil Hanoi and fool America. People should never have to die to protect a politician's legacy.

I see Nixon and Clinton, representing both political parties, as two good examples of why character matters when we vote. For some reason, the presidency attracts extreme or narcissistic personalities whose motivations are more for glory than good. After reading Ambrose's book, the simple question, "Why does this person want to be president?" will rank higher in my mind.

Another eye-opener in the book was the lesson in political science. Nixon was neither an appealing candidate, nor a rallying ideologue. He scraped his way to the top because he was the consummate partisan politician. Ambrose shows a glimpse of the American political system's underbelly: maneuvering, manipulating, prevaricating, waffling, and backstabbing. He makes it easy to forget that despite the warts, our republican democracy is still the best system in the world.

The irony and enigma of Nixon is that he also opened up China, warmed the Cold War with the Soviets, began nuclear disarmament, and other worthy and statesman-like accomplishments. The book, like Nixon himself, will mean different things to different people. --Christopher Bonn Jonnes, author of BIG ICE

Rating:
Summary: Hard to find, but a great read
Review: If you are like me, you found Ambrose's first volume at a used book store or online for a reasonable price. Now you are looking for volume 2 and experiencing sticker shock. Don't worry, if you are patient, you can obtain a copy of this book at a reasonable price. Check Amazon and other online sites regularly and you'll eventually obtain a good reading copy for $30 - $50 dollars. And while the final volume is also hard to find, it's more abundant that the second.

Now to the book. Ambrose provides a fair look at Nixon. He points out both his great strengths and weaknesses. The seeds of Nixon's destruction are evident throughout this book. In fact, Watergate itself occurs in this volume. The scandal occurs in the final volume.

If you wish to learn about Nixon and politics in the post World War II era, you'll be hard pressed to find a better source than Ambrose's three volumes.

Rating:
Summary: A man to whom nothing mattered except power!
Review: Stephen Ambrose's second volume of Nixon:
"Triumph of a politician" is just as good as
volume one.
This is the heart and soul of presidential politics.
Surely we have the politicians we deserve, but some of them
are complex, confusing, ruthless, criminal, fascinating,
moving, grand and great - which kind of make it hard
for us poor voters. Nixon was all of that! as is so
clearly demonstrated in this
portrait of the Nixon presidency.

In 1962 Nixon held his famous last press conference
after losing the California gubernatorial contest.
The reporters wrote his political obituary.
Five years later he had held hundreds of press
conferences and was on his way to becoming president!

He won the presidency over Humphrey in 1968
partly by the not very statesman like behavior of
namecalling and allegations about Humphreys neglect of
national defense and his softness on law and
order and his willingness to spend the country into
bancruptcy. Or perhaps he almost lost because
of these wild charges?

I think the book explains how it all happened.
Even the parts that are really unexplainable.
Fascinating.

-Simon

Rating:
Summary: Good bio / bad man
Review: The American political system at its worst! This view of Nixon reveals a despicable man, doing whatever he could do to discredit his opponents, manipulate whoever he could, lie, and cheat to get elected. Hard-working, brilliant, but disgusting. Nixon even tried to undermine peace attempts in Vietnam just before the 1968 election. All that said, the incumbent president wasn't much better, as those peace attempts were really lies propagated by the LBJ administration to influence the election in Humphrey's favor. The 1968 campaign was absolutely horrid and unforgivable. What was different between Nixon and LBJ is Nixon's paranoia and vindictiveness.

It's interesting how Ike never really endorses Nixon, even when his grandson married Nixon's daughter. Finally, from his hospital bed Ike endorses him before the 1968 election, but even then it was lukewarm. Ambrose - who wrote an Eisenhower biography as well - contrasted the two. He says Ike loved life and loved people, while Nixon was distrustful of people, and gave in to hate. Ike brought people together; Nixon tore people apart. Ambrose cites a diary entry from Ike's secretary during Ike's administration: "The Vice President [Nixon] seems more like someone acting like a nice man more than a nice man".

The author commented how much different the Nixon administration may have been had Nixon had his first choice - Bob Finch, a genuine nice person - as his running mate. As it was Nixon surrounded himself with clones, all vindictive and paranoid. All fed his paranoia and anger and goaded his wrath. Their daily orders - delivered via comments in the margins of Nixon's daily news summaries - were very telling (and extremely interesting).

Nixon's foreign policy accomplishments - the settlement with North Vietnam, the opening to China and détente with the Russians - were indeed exceptional. But could these events have happened sooner had Nixon not circumvented his own State department in order to increase the histrionics and guarantee the credit for himself? Also, regarding the China and Russian initiatives, the author poses an interesting rhetorical question - who could have done it but Nixon, since he did not have to deal with a Nixon critic!

This is the middle book of a Nixon trilogy, so you don't get the childhood and Congressional years, or "Nixon in winter", but you get to know the man, and it is depressing.

Rating:
Summary: The rise of Nixon
Review: The second volume of Ambrose's three-volume biography of Richard Nixon covers the period from Nixon's defeat in the 1962 gubernational election in California to his re-election as US President in 1972.

In his refreshingly frank Foreward, Ambrose states that "I confess that I do not understand this complex man". And indeed that problem of assessment runs throughout the book - Nixon, and his first Administration were full of contradictions, big pluses and minuses, which make an objective view very difficult.

Ambrose's analysis of Nixon's time "in the wilderness" until his nomination as the Republican candidate for the Presidency in 1968 was particularly interesting: not so much a time of drift as of recovery and preparation. The man's sheer drive and ambition must have been huge.

The nightmare of Vietnam looms large in this book, quite rightly. Looked at in hindsight, Ambrose reveals the utter absurdity of US policy at the time - all the more tragic as lives were being sacrificed even though there was no clear goal and real hope of victory had long since gone (if indeed it had ever been a realistic ambition).

Ambrose takes care not to neglect domestic politics, US-Soviet and Sino-US relations, and describes the beginnings of Watergate. At the end, I reflected that whatever nostalgic image we are presented of the 1960s, society was in fact deeply divided. Ambrose writes with great unease about the duplicity of all of the politicians of the time and condemns equally the excesses of the protesters. The summer of love? Perhaps not.