2024 the best president in america review

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Who was Richard Nixon? The most amazing thing about the man was not what he did as president, but that he became president. In President Nixon, Richard Reeves has used thousands of new interviews and recently discovered or declassified documents and tapes -- including Nixon's tortured memos to himself and unpublished sections of H. R. Haldeman's diaries -- to offer a nuanced and surprising portrait of the brilliant and contradictory man alone in the White House.
President Nixon is a startling narrative of a desperately introverted man who dreamed of becoming the architect of his times. Late at night, he sat upstairs in the White House writing notes to himself on his yellow pads, struggling to define himself and his goals: "Compassionate, Bold, New, Courageous...Zest for the job (not lonely but awesome). Goals -- reorganized govt...Each day a chance to do something memorable for someone. Need to be good to do good...Need for joy, serenity, confidence, inspiration."
But downstairs he was building a house of deception. He could trust no one because in his isolation he thought other people were like him. He governed by secret orders and false records, memorizing scripts for public appearances and even for one-on-one meetings with his own staff and cabinet. His principal assistants, Haldeman and Henry Kissinger, spied on him as he spied on them, while cabinet members, generals, and admirals spied on all of them -- rifling briefcases and desks, tapping each other's phones in a house where no one knew what was true anymore.
Nixon's first aim was to restore order in an America at war with itself over Vietnam. But in fact he prolonged the fighting there, lying systematically about what was happening both in the field and in the peace negotiations. He startled the world by going to communist China and seeking détente with the Soviet Union -- and then secretly persuaded Mao and Brezhnev to lie for him to protect petty White House secrets. Still, he was a man of vision, imagining a new world order, trying to stall the deadly race war he believed was inevitable between the West, including Russia, and Asia, led by China and Japan. At home, he promised welfare reform, revenue sharing, drug programs, and environmental protection, and he presided, reluctantly, over the desegregation of public schools -- all the while declaring that domestic governance was just building outhouses in Peoria.
Reeves shows a presidency doomed from the start. It begins with Nixon and Kissinger using the CIA to cover up a 1969 murder by American soldiers in Vietnam that led to the theft and publication of the Pentagon Papers, then to secret counterintelligence units in the White House and finally to the burglaries and cover-up that came to be known as Watergate.
Richard Reeves's President Nixon will stand as the authoritative account of Nixon in the White House. It is an astonishing story.

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0031OQ0Q0
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Simon & Schuster; Reprint edition (November 13, 2001)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 13, 2001
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 3781 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 1120 pages
Reviewer: Richard A. Jenkins
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Interesting approach to Nixon
Review: Reeves uses diaries and other personal documents to sketch out a picture of Nixon's presidency that is at once familiar and novel. This will not appeal to Nixon apologists nor to those who want a stereotypical "psychological" portrait (Garry Wills' "Nixon Agonists" is the best psychological description of Nixon's development, although Wills' original take on personality development will stymie those looking for Freud-lite). Instead, we see Nixon's presidency unfold and Nixon's reaction to the events around him. Even though I've read most of the "standard" Nixon biographies, Reeves' approach was fresh to me and an interesting complement to Haldeman's diaries, which I had read a couple years ago. Nixon's isolation and inability to trust are well-documented, but to see them here is to see them anew. It was a thought provoking book, both in terms of Nixon's presidency and with respect to the political tactics and skills that are needed to win elections, which unfortunately, are not the same tactics and skills needed to provide strong leadership. As was the case with LBJ, Nixon the office seeker undid Nixon, the president, and this book makes this point more clearly than previous biographies.

Reviewer: mimi
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A WONDERFUL LOOK INTO NIXION'S WH--MUST READ
Review: Book was long but kept my interest every minute. I was in my early teens and only vaguely remember this period in history. By reading this book, I was able to not miss a minute of it.If you love history read this book. Through the book I was trying to figure out who Nixon was, since he didn't know. I guess in the end he still didn't know and I am not sure who he was either. I was totally shocked how his only interest was foreign policy. The heck with the ecomony. He wanted to be in control but left much up to two others to make decisions in matters that didn't intrest him. My opinion of Kessinger was a dignified man. I think he was but also had a childish side to him. It seemed Nixion did not like him but needed his intelligence. You won't be disappointed in this book.

Reviewer: BC
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Functional History.
Review: This is a solid work of Presidential scholarship. I appreciated its "worm's eye" view because it allows for the presentation of a great many primary source materials and documents that are invaluable for summing up the bizarre man who was President Richard Nixon. Reeves reveals a fair amount of personal bias and dislike for his subject here, but, fortunately, the intrusions of his point-of-view are not ubiquitous. Reeves seems to unquestionably believe that busing was good for blacks and it appears that he has an affinity for most government programs; a stance that is totally unwarranted. That being said, the work remains well-organized, clear and valuable. Reeves is a biographer and journalist so, unlike some of the other reviewers, I was glad that he did not share with us his psychological observations of the President. In all likelihood, they would have been ungrounded. Alone in the White House is a good, but not great, book.

Reviewer: mpli97
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Perfect Analysis of Nixon Presidency
Review: Richard Nixon’s trademark dark side (suspicions, paranoia, etc) stemmed from his powerful introversion, his sense of peace in retreating into the recesses of his mind. This book takes Nixon’s presidency day by day, with his actions and outlook being a by-product of his views of himself as a man under siege. This is the perfect book for anyone wanting an insider’s look into how one of America’s most complex politicians shaped the White House, and the nation, according to his unique, but troubled outlook.

Reviewer: John Tilelli MD
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title: The who, what, when and where but sadly not the why
Review: To those of us old enough to remember the Nixon administration, it is not surprising that a chronicle of his presidency is a series of ancecdotes that leaves us shaking our head and completely baffled. This history deftly describes the "Nixon years" in a series of events painted for us as a series of tableaux. That it does quite admirably. We see him as a moody, paranoid, and impulsive man literally with his finger on the button. As public opinion of him, never very strong, wanes and his accomplishments pale under public approbation, we see him becoming more relentlessly isolated and desperate. One might then read this as the diary of a man descending into the very deepest despair.As a chronicle, then, this book succeeds. However, the most compelling aspect of the Nixon presidency is missing; its central question. How is is possible that this man who mistrusted so deeply the workings of a free society, who resented so many of its people, become its leader, and its spokesman to the world? We see here a Nixon that resents intellectuals, the media, racial groups, religious minorities, his predecessors, his successors, all Democrates, and on and on. This is a president who had his reelection wrapped up who still felt the need to bug his electoral opponents and undermine their campaign. Here is a man who can't run a shower and forever bans soup at state dinners because he mussed his shirt. Here is a man who regards any criticism whatsoever as forever condemning its author. We want to know how this all came to pass. The fascinating part is the understanding of what forces shaped him and led this adminstration to it ignominious end. Why did he want to be president at all? Why did we elect him? Why did he self-destruct? Certainly it is more than an acciddent of the times - filling the void left by the equally tragic Johnson's abdication. No, there must be a deeper story here that is not manifest in the day-to-day business. By depriving us of any image of Nixon's childhood, his dance with the Kennedy's and his ultimate election (admittedly not the focus of this book), and dropping us into his life on day one of the administration, we miss who Nixon was and get no perspective on the actions that are so meticulously described.Maybe it was all just an accident. Maybe it was an unresolved oedipal thing, as the movie Nixon suggests. I really think nthat neither are true. It is my belief that Nixon the man is a reflection of our society, that it is somehow born of the American independant spirit. We inherit our paranoia as a side-effect of our individualism. If Nixon is alone, we all are alone. There is something in what happened to Richard Nixon that calls to us all. His tragedy should pluck at some string in our soul. The inevitable, and relentless question, "Why?" is missing herein. President Nixon: Alone in the White House is a fascinating chronicle, but the Lear in this story, the workings of the tragedy that propelled him to an inevitable end, is sadly missing.

Reviewer: James Chambers
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: The title says it all. Richard Reeves writes in a very clear and unambiguous style, and seemingly, has delved deeply into the Nixon archives and copious Oval Office recordings in order to get such a descriptive picture of Nixon's compulsive and driven character. Of all American presidents since the end of WWII, his insecurity and feelings of not matching up to the Kennedy family's popularity and wealth is very strange. His humble family background demanded that he was relentless in his determination to excel academically from his first school days to his ultimate ignominious fall from office.Utterly compelling reading.

Reviewer: andalucia
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: I bought this book, wanting a general biography of Nixon and his life. It does however focus on his period as president and has little reference to his earlier history or the motivations behind some of his 'character flaws'.The book is however extremely detailed and Reeves uses a wide variety of information / sources to build a comprehensive picture of the president and the people surrounding him. At first this detail can seem irrelevant and is slightly annoying (especially the constant references to scrawled notes on various papers) but helps to bring a multi-layered picture of a claustrophobic White House during one of the most interesting periods of US history. You do start to understand how bureaucracy, policy, and personality interact through Reeves detailed analysis of various source material. It does also start to build a more sympathetic picture of Nixon, in contradiction to the crude characterisation that is often made of the President.Reeves style does draw you in and paint a fascinating picture. I would however suggest that this book is most appropriate for a politics or history student;.

Reviewer: PaulGG
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: This gives a much fuller picture of Nixon than is suggested in the media

Reviewer: F1Hertz
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: It's a case of 'it does what it says on the tin'; the book is almost entirely focussed on Nixon's White House years and gives little information about him outside of that. On the positive side it does show there is more to Nixon than you might think and the detailing of his thought processes in a range of subject areas was interesting. Generally though I was left with a feeling this book is a clinical and somewhat rose-tinted version of events with the more controversial subjects softened in their detail, proportion and impact. Since I am comparing this book to others on a large number of world leaders and key figures of the same era, I have to give this one a low rating by comparison.

Reviewer: Pauliow
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Very well written. Richard Reeves does an excellent job of re-telling the story of Nixon's presidency. A superbly detailed account that makes you realise the insecurity of the man - Nixon trusted no one, not even Henry Kissinger, the man who was his closest confidant in government.