Evan Thomas - Being Nixon

Rodney Dangerfield used to joke, "It's not easy being me."  After reading this book, I would say that it was not easy being Richard Nixon.  To say that he was a complicated man would be the least of it.  Perhaps he had the most convoluted mixture of good and bad of any US President.

Did Nixon interfere with President Johnson's efforts to give HHH good publicity in the closing days of the '68 presidential race over Viet Nam.  The author can't say for sure.  If so this surely would have been treason on Nixon's part.  Nixon had no secret plan to end the war.

Was RN in some sense autistic?

Howard Baker asked, "What did he know, and when did he know it?"  The author cannot say.

RN was physically and mechanically clumsy.  I can relate.  :)

Nixon also wondered about the events of his life that led his becoming President.  It was all so unlikely that given his origins that he would go as far as he did.  Like me Nixon was chilled by the contingencies that moved his life forward.  It all could have been totally different for him and for me.  The biggest thing was that Ike picked him to be his running mate in 1952.

"Nixon ay have just been jabbing at Garment for being a boy scout; on the other hand, Nixon did believe that deviousness was an important attribute for a successful politician."  P. 141

Nixon's main interest was always foreign policy.  He made the stupid statement that the country could run itself domestically.  P. 144

"The FBI wiretaps strongly suggest that the Nixon campaign was signaling Saigon to go slow, but they are not conclusive."  P. 180

The image of Nixon as a dark trickster fits the Nixon caricature too neatly.  P. 180

"The whole truth will never be known, but the evidence suggests that Nixon, through layers of deniability, took measures to make sure that Thieu would not agree to the peace talks in time to swing the 1968 election to Humphrey.  Johnson did declare a bombing half, and the Paris negotiations did (fruitlessly) commence, so no permanent harm was done to the peace process, which was not likely to go anywhere.  The effect on Nixon was more long-lasting.  He continued that LBJ had tried to steal the election from him."  P. 181

It seems like Nixon was constantly referencing Hiss.  P. 434

Did Pat Nixon suffer a stroke because of reading Woodward and Bernstein's "The Final Days?"  P. 523

"She (Pat) never quit."  P. 523

His favorite campaign was 1952 because the band would play "You Are My Sunshine" and it would make him think of Pat.  P. 523

He suffered a stroke on 4/18/94 and died four days later.  P. 524

"He achieved greatly, and he suffered greatly, but he never gave up."
-Henry Kissinger P. 525

"Nixon was no saint.  But the fears and insecurities that led him into sinfulness also gave him the drive to push past self-doubt, to pretend to be cheerful, to dare to be brave, to see, often though sadly not always, the light in the dark."  P. 531

The good Nixon and the bad Nixon were both the same person.  It is impossible to disentangle the two.