Listen with an open mind

Being a teenage and "twenty something " during the Vietnam war and Nixon years, I hesitantly chose to this book. With deliberate objective listening, I was surprised to feel a sense of empathy for this troubled and misguided man. Even with that strained understanding, I still cannot muster enough empathy to overcome my contempt for some of his decisions and actions. If you can be open minded, it is worth a read or listen and may even enlighten on the importance of character and shared values in those we elect.

14 people found this helpful

Well balanced and proportioned

John Farrell has written a well-documented and reasonably balanced biography of one of our most controversial presidents. He covers everything from the lemon farm and the "house my father built," through Watergate and on to Nixon's rehabilitation and death. In between he gives a full accounting of Helen Gahagan Douglas, Jerry Voorhees, Alger Hiss, Dwight Eisenhower, and the Plumbers. He maintains an admirable sense of proportion throughout.

Richard Nixon is one of my hobbies; I lived through his terms both as Vice President and President, and devoured Watergate books in the years since. And I have to give Farrell credit for rectifying some of my ideas about Nixon. As evil as some of his actions were - John Dean couldn't have selected a more damning set of quotes from the Watergate tapes than Farrell provides - he comes across here as a human being rather than a mythological beast.

I found only one passage where Farrell's sense of balance seems to leave him. He attacks the prosecution of Nixon's top aides - Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell, and others - as the corrupt product of a kangaroo court, charging collusion between prosecutors and judge, and decrying the jail sentences that were handed down. What kind of justice system, he asks, would send somebody like Donald Segretti to jail and let John Dean off the hook? Yet Segretti and Dean both pled guilty and both spent four months in prison. That seems pretty fair to me.

Dan Woren provides a brisk narration, maintaining the pace and engagement throughout. I enjoyed it a lot. I'll mention one small point - a point that many audiobooks about Nixon get wrong, but that Woren gets right. Gordon Strachan was a minor player in Watergate, but he deserves to have his name pronounced correctly. His last name rhymes with "brawn," not with "bacon."

21 people found this helpful

Rich detail, well told always, gives great insight

This is a masterpiece. Every sentence seems crafted to give the most useful info in the most listenable phrasing. As a listener through several books on Nixon, this one best told the story and explained the context of each event. The portraits of each person are compact but well done to convey what the listener needs to know. Would give 6 stars if I could. The narrator is serviceable and, as the hours go by, wears well on the ears.
Aside from crafting the best phrasings, the author came up with some definitive evidence on the Chennault affair, before Nixon's first election as president, in which Nixon (as a mere candidate, communicating through Anna Chennault) made a pitch to South Vietnamese President Thieu to scuttle the deal then-President LBJ was cooking up with all parties in the Vietnam conflict, to create a path to de-escalate the war. This was done cynically and quite possibly illegally to serve Nixon's electoral strategy. (Shades of the tussles pending now in DC about 2016 pre-election Trump and Russia.)
I have long viewed Nixon's as perhaps the most useful individual's story in decoding USA's political and geopolitical history from about 1950 to 1975. This book more than lived up to its possibilities in completely fleshing out the story.

5 people found this helpful

liberal skew.

had promise that it could be good but the deeper you get into it the worse the liberal bias comes out. just wanted a biography not a hatchet job.

4 people found this helpful

A page-turner with depth

This biography is thorough and fair, yet leaves the reader as puzzled as ever about Nixon's personality. I don't think the man will ever be explainable beyond a conclusion that he was amoral and incapable of empathy, and childhood losses don't seem to really explain that. He seemed to have moments of caring and a sense of fair play...but then would turn on a dime and calmly eviscerate a political enemy. I can't say there were many new facts in this book - except for the unconscionable dealing with North Vietnam that extended the war 3 more years and cost 20,000 additional lives so Nixon could get elected. But the book flows and the darkening of his character continues inexorably.
Reader is wonderful except for a couple of mispronounced words and a very odd tic of saying long vowel sounds in a strangulated way; reminded me of Bullwinkle of Rocky and __. It became distracting for me because the reader has a resonant and pleasant voice, and he reads with much expression, keeping the story moving. But then there will be a phrase like "green fees" (think Bullwinkle) and I cringe.

3 people found this helpful

A Decent Summary but No Great Insights

This book is a perfectly fine summary of the life and career of Richard Nixon. It is pretty even-handed in its treatment, noting and highlighting both his accomplishments and his terrible flaws. But if you are looking into deeper insights into what made the man, one of the most strange and fascinating characters in 20th century American politics, tick, you'll have to look elsewhere.

Maybe I've just been spoiled by Robert Caro's incredible multi-volume biography of Lyndon Johnson, in which you truly get to know the man and all the many people who surrounded him, what he wanted, why he behaved the way he did, what motivated him, etc. Yes this is just one volume and Caro's, possibly one of the best biographies of all time, is 4 volumes with a 5th on the way, but I was really hoping for more.

And if we are going to compare the two biographies, the different treatment of the 1957 civil rights bill is, to say the least, interesting. To hear Farrell tell it, Nixon was a driving force behind the bill and Johnson did everything in his power to stop it. To hear Caro (who is often extremely critical of Johnson) tell it, Nixon and Eisenhower cared very little about the bill and Johnson's many compromises, manipulations, and cloakroom deals are the only reason the bill passed the Senate. Needless to say, Caro's telling is far more convincing.

Anyway, if you are looking for a decent telling of the facts of Nixon's life, this book will serve.

2 people found this helpful

Sympathy for the Devil?

I inherited my father's contempt for President Nixon, but Farrell's biography gave me new found appreciation. Not a whitewashing of sins, but placing politics in the context of an entire life.

2 people found this helpful

A Fine Biography

Mr. Farrell has written an excellent biography of President Nixon using fairly recently declassified tapes and notes, particularly from Bob Haldeman and John Ehrlichman. He does a nice job of painting the early Nixon and his evolution from brilliant politician (his Checkers speech was groundbreaking) to criminal megalomaniac. In all, he was always the same, but Farrell gives perspective to Nixon's criminal behavior (the taping and illegal hounding of enemies by presidents did not start with Nixon in any respect) and his accomplishments (China opening in spite of his anti-Communist past and that of the Republicans), the Russian SALT treaty, environmental preservation, savior of Israel after the coordinated attack. This is all of course balanced by Watergate (yes, it was far more than the coverup), interference with Johnson's Viet Nam negotiations thanks to Henry Kissinger, the bombing of Cambodia, the failure to pursue the end of the Vietnam war for nearly 8 years costing tens of thousands of American lives and his knowing support and ultimate betrayal of South Viet Nam. He knew full well that Peace With Honor was nonsense, but ultimately he had no further political use to extend the war. The quoted statements and notes are often chilling and Farrell does a fine job of describing the family, upbringing (California Quaker), prejudice (Ivy league, Alger Hiss) health and financial pressures that drove Nixon to become our most famous criminal, disgraced president.

5 people found this helpful

Captivating

What a heck of a life. He was a real person and I believe he was more than misunderstood and horribly underestimated. He meant well and was more than a descent President. He deserves far more honor than he received. Other Presidents that proceeded him would have done well to try to emulate some of his descent moral and family values. This is the stuff that a Statesman should be made of.

1 person found this helpful

Absolutely fascinating

I was in my early 20s when all this was happening. Never thought I would Revisit this subject and find it so very very interesting.