Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America

As a dyed-in-the-wool liberal who has studied Nixon to death, I was really looking forward to reading this book. 50 pages in and I have to put it in the 'to be donated' pile.

The prose is contorted, requiring that I go back to re-read many a sentence a second (or third) time to try to interpret what the author was trying to communicate. There are factual errors left and right. The author's slanted point of view leads to many statements that are more propaganda than fact.

One of the books I looked forward to most and was most disappointed by. Don't waste your money.

Where to begin? I am not a fan of Richard Nixon although I am a conservative. But leaving that aside. This book is difficult to read and appears to not have been well edited. Also sources for many of the more outrageous quotations are not included. Beyond that the bias in incredible. Its so obvious that the author is an extreme liberal who looks down upon average Americans and anyone who has not been to an elite university and shares his political views. I suggest if you want to read about this era you find one of the many excellent works which although they might have a liberal bias at least do not descend to level of a screed and propaganda which is basically what this amounts to. He goes out of his way to excoriate any and all Republicans except a few moderates such as John Lindsey. If you want to read something great on this era read Ted Sorenesons book "Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History" its not about Nixon although it covers this era. But it shows how you can be a liberal and tough on the opposition while at least being objective.

This is more of the same character assassination and libel that the popular media has been publishing for 40 years. You really need to do deep research to avoid pseudo-histories like this one. Perlstein repeats more of the kennel-fed garbage that we have heard for years. Sadly- these books harm our nation very much as they distort reality. I could write 50 pages but let me post a rejoinder to just a few of the absurdities that Perlstein pushes.
A. Nixon had one of the most accomplished domestic programs in history. We can start with converting former biological war centers into cancer research centers and ending- yes ending the "war on drugs"- a media invented term. Nixon's focus on treatment was revolutionary.We can also discuss the commitment to sickle-cell research (most powerful commitment to date). Environmental initiatives were outstanding as well. Where next? Perlstein distorts Nixon on schools as well. Nixon did more for school desegregation than any president in history. Perlstein thinks Nixon's opposition to busing was the same as promoting segregation- which was totally the opposite of Nixon's position. Nice try. The only Southern Strategy Nixon had was to free the schools from segregation which he did starting in 1970. (see op ed by George Schultz). I can go on for a while...
B. I think Perlstein calls Nixon the most divisive president ever. Huh? Nixon took office after the disaster of 1968 with over 100 American cities in flames- race and anti- war riots. The nation was coming apart and LBJ was broken- big part of his "Great Society" in flames too.
Nixon inherited Johnson's war that had over 500,000 men and women in Vietnam. Nixon never promised to "cut and run" in that war but he did begin to take out troops almost right away. There was no secret plan- a media invention. By the end of his first term our POWs were headed home, our men were out of Vietnam and all provincial capitals were in the hands of the South (only to be sold out by the criminal 94th US congress in 1975). I think the election results in 1972 speak for themselves. The silent majority was behind the President- and how.
Let me put one more myth to rest (see Winston Lord). We could not have gotten a better deal in 1968 than we got in 1973. Lord (who was there) notes we got a better deal. I could go on but...

It is time we stop giving free passes to people who publish books that perpetuate the "get Nixon" agenda. The distortions have gone on too long. The media is a big part of the problem. We once spent an entire semester picking apart the problems with this book. It is a poor effort. I wish I could go on. I do not see much value in this book - to historical accuracy. Pick up "The Greatest Comeback" for a starter and then get "An American Amnesia" by Herschensohn.

Assessment:

Perlstein has provided wonkish biography, variegated character study, cultural critique, and political forensic analysis in this retrospective of Richard Nixon's ascension within the politically and socially fractured United States of the 1960s that devolved into a trajectory of self-destruction that culminated in Watergate. No anti-Nixon screed; *Nixonland* fairly notes the corruption, dishonesty, and stupidity of both left and right during this polarized era; self-righteous and blustering leftist radicals receive no less disdainful treatment than G. Gordon Liddy.

However, in documenting Nixon's toxic blend of harbored resentment, paranoia, sociopathy, and its disturbing mutual accommodation with a predominantly middle- and working-class white electorate primed for backlash against the racial and cultural progressivism of the 60s, Perlstein cannot help but show us Americans an ugly side of ourselves whose Nixonian roots are undeniable and still sending up tubers into the American political garden. (Just look at the electoral map of the last presidential election in which we elected our first black president.) Whether we want to admit it or not, there's probably a little Dick Nixon in all of us.

The closest thing to a hopeful implication I received from reading the book is that, at our worst (and Nixon was certainly one of its exemplars) we Americans, bitterly divided along an overlapping lattice of race, class, and ideology, determine political supremacy through a refined and hallowed tradition of cheap shots, back room plots, defamation, distortion, demagoguery, and unabashed lies, but at least we're not rotating juntas through political murder--yet.

Summary (relatively long and detailed; it was a huge book):

The story begins with the apparent "consensus" of modernity, tolerance, and technocratic confidence that appeared to emerge in the US in 1964 with the landslide victory of Lyndon Johnson and Democratic majorities in both houses in the mid 1960s. Republicans appeared fractured and weak as Goldwater "extremists" became dismissed by academics and the media as a fading fringe. Education reform, civil and voting rights legislation, and Great Society technocracy appeared to set a new, inevitable trajectory for American public policy. However, the Watts riots and a growing involvement in Vietnam were harbingers of the imminent collapse of these facile assumptions about the American prospect.

In the shadows of this brewing storm was former vice-president Richard Nixon, once the odds-on favorite to inherit Dwight Eisenhower's position in the oval office, but who had lost to Jack Kennedy in 1960 by a heartbreakingly narrow margin despite initially leading in the polls. Victory for someone whom Nixon viewed as a philandering, privileged, prep school pretty boy --engineered in large part by the political skullduggery of his father Joseph--was the ultimate microcosm of Nixon's personal narrative and sociology: Kennedy was the national political manifestation of the exclusive and snobby "Franklins" of his college days. He, Nixon, (who had started his own rival social club of the excluded also-rans called the "Octogonians"), was the champion of the outsiders, the Average Joes whose nascent resentment of intellectual and cultural elitism represented a massive cache of potential power if it could be tapped by the right man. Nixon was it.

Presumed to be politically retired after his failed bid for the California governorship in 1962, Nixon bided his time. Even though Goldwater's far-right 1964 presidential campaign foundered, a new generation of saavy Republicans such as unlikely future California governor Ronald Reagan (and to a more blatant extent, George Wallace types in the South) were demonstrating the power of subtle appeals to the visceral resentments and fears of the white middle class: E.g., the Civil Rights movement as a cover story for black urban crime and welfare dependency; a generation of liberal college students and anti-Vietnam war activists regarded at best as naïve dupes for Soviet style Bolshevism and at worst collaborators in its totalitarian machinations; a presumably unprecedented degree of sexual depravity, drug abuse, and godlessness among American youth; the perception of many middle class whites that school and neighborhood integration was being forced upon them by a leftist, possibly Communist influenced, liberal elite. These creative appeals to the inner "Octogonian" in "mainstream America" served as what modern political scholars call "wedges" to wrest an largely Democratic electorate into the Republican camp. They were most thoroughly articulated in Nixon's later memo (as president), ""The emerging republican majority", which outlined how the "silent majority" could be tapped as a political cash cow by appealing to law and order and "pro-America" issues.

Nixon also capitalized on the impossible dilemma LBJ faced during his term in office, as far left anti-war protestors and impatient black civil rights activists splintered the Democratic Party and set Johnson on the path to being the only sitting president not to win his party's nomination, forcing his resignation. Even though Nixon himself recognized the futility of Vietnam, he alternately abused Johnson as insufficiently tough on Communism or overreaching American involvement. (He got a boost from William Saphire of the New York Times, who published a scurrilous Nixon portrayal of LBJ's proposed peace deal with the Hanoi as a "withdrawal", which it wasn't.) In contrast, progressive Republican George Romney, who articulated the closest thing to an honest, coherent, and rational program of withdrawal, was annihilated in the Republican primaries. Harping on the issue of looming inflation, which was largely beyond Johnson's control, Nixon assailed the sitting president as part of his effort to rehabilitate his own public image and make a surprise comeback to win the 1968 presidential election. In contrast, Democratic rival Hubert Humphrey was gashed by Democrats' association with black rioters and extreme leftists going out of their way to instigate police brutality--and getting grotesque manifestations of it that often left innocent bystanders beaten or murdered, in spades--as per the 1968 Chicago convention debacle and numerous other outbreaks of unrest.

But it wasn't a cakewalk. Nixon coldly recognized that he likely benefitted from the assassination of Bobby Kennedy, whose "messy" politics and charisma, and familial legacy of heroism might have constituted a presumed mythical unifying force for the Democratic Party and possibly the nation. With Kennedy out of the picture, it looked clear to Nixon that the Republican nominee would be poised to win. (He despised the Kennedys; president reveled in the Chappaquiddick scandal involving Ted Kennedy and the dubious death of Mary Jo Kopechne.) Furthermore, despite outmaneuvering his rivals leading up to the Republican national convention in Florida, Nixon had to re-acquire the southern delegation away from Reagan, a last-minute entrant in the nomination race. He outmaneuvered Reagan to secure the delegates by promising deference to states rights on issues such as school integration (this lead to subsequent squabbles with congress over a couple of supreme court nominees--southern reactionaries hostile to integration and with histories of open racism) and a hawkish posture on Vietnam. Through subsequent skillful campaign management under Haldemen, Nixon is able to simply run out the clock against Humphrey and would have won easily in '68 were it not for third party candidate George Wallace siphoning 20 percent via the Dixiecrat vote, most of whom would have pinched their noses and voted for Nixon in a two-man race.

Once in power Nixon was fixated on projecting himself as not caring how he appeared even though he was obsessed with it. His staff and cabinet instantly became an Orwellian melodrama where everybody distrusted everybody else; Nixon obsessively wanted subordinates (especially Kennedy's leftovers from NSA) spied on. This mentality sowed the seeds of increasingly covert and cynical operations to undermine his political enemies, which would reach its apex--and Nixon's nadir--in Watergate.

As president he continued his own rendition of the radical notion of "heightening the contradictions" for political gain. With the backdrop of campus takeovers by radical blacks and antiwar protestors, the trial of the Chicago 7, and the shooting of student demonstrators by national guardsmen at Kent State, Nixon continued to publicly appeal to the inner Orthogonian in mainstream Americans, exemplified in the "silent majority" speech. The ugly American political divisions that made this a winning strategy were illustrated in events such as the unlikely alliance of New York businessmen clubbing hippie protestors with construction workers in Manhattan streets after the Kent State riots and other cases of reactionary violence against leftists.The irony was that despite this public rhetoric, Nixon actually showed some ability to effectively govern, as exemplified with the Family Welfare Act, which in essence tweaked AFDC payments to reward more work, and which was popular legislation as it appeased progressives, states' rights advocates, and incorporated the moderate ideas of DP Moynihan from his report on dysfunction in the black community.

Nixon was epically unprincipled, even sociopathic. Calculating no consideration but his own political interests he decides to flout basic economic principles and prepare for wage and price freezes right before the 72 election. Furthermore, although he had always privately argued that Vietnam was essentially unwinnable, he briefly dabbles with the idea that one massive concerted surge might finish the North and VC irregulars, granting him a Pattonesque triumph (Perlstein makes a brilliant analysis of why Nixon would identify with the character George Patton after he first viewed the movie starring George C. Scott) despite the sniveling protestations of the cringers and peace freaks. As a result, he got us involved in a wholesale military debacle in Cambodia and Laos. Less Nixon's fault was the timing of the release of "The Pentagon Papers" showing that US presidents going back to Truman had been lying habitually regarding our level of involvement and the real stakes in Vietnam; Nixon decides to personalize the attack instead of trying to portray himself as a victim of circumstance. Unable to conceive a motive any more noble than his own depraved ones, Nixon and his operators attempt to uncover whatever dark passion has motivated the leaker, war hero Daniel Ellsberg (was he a secret communist?), and discredit him through its discovery. It never dawned on them that Ellsberg's motive might have been patriotism and devotion to the truth.

It only gets worse. A rogues gallery including G. Gordon Liddy (a maverick FBI agent dismissed for being a "loose cannon" and who as an assistant prosecutor once shot a gun during court room closing testimony) become "The Plumbers"--out to sabotage liberals through various means of skullduggery, such as trying to cajole the media into "uncovering" that Kennedy was responsible for the CIA-endorsed assassination of Diem when really the architect was Ambassador (and Republican) Henry Cabodt Lodge all along.

What Democrats couldn't understand (and this regard the story is consistent with the observations of Drew Weston in *The Political Brain*), was that a large part of America identified with Nixon's paranoia about change, anxieties about race and crime, and apparent cultural degeneration -"a tangle of fear and piety"--and the sometimes brutal methods of reasserting cultural norms--such as the deadly suppression of the Attica prison riot, were not regarded as inhuman but as necessary for societal stability ("law and order".) Cultural backlash such as the Rat Pack going mainstream and conservative stars like Merle Haggard ("I'm Proud to be an Oaky from Muskogee) symbolized the appeal of Nixon's message to many.

Nixon, despite all his rhetoric about belief in the free market, follows through with the plan to blatantly violate his own avowed principles because he thinks the 90 day wage and price freeze will help reelection. The irony is that he's willing to do something that is bad for America in the long run, to help himself in the short run, because he thinks he's the only thing that can save America in the long run.

The "rat f**ing" by the Committee to Reelect the President begins in earnest with the `72 primary season. It starts with the Florida primary and the use of numerous methods of skullduggery to set the Democrats against each other in the hope of getting Wallace nominated (to splinter the Dixiecrats from the liberal wing of the party), but of course not elected president. Even with the emergence of Eugene McCarthy as an antiwar candidate harnessing the passion of young people while simultaneously tapping working class angst, the Wallace/McGovern/Humphrey democratic nomination drama takes a huge twist after the assassination attempt on Wallace. (Instantly Nixon thinks in terms of spin and exploitation, coaxing Colson out to Milwaukee to plant pro-McGovern/ leftist-radical literature in the gunman's apartment while the FBI awaits their warrant, although by then it was too late as the crime scene was secured.)

The Watergate burglary (part of the CRPs ongoing program of infiltrating and compromising Nixon's Democratic rivals) is discovered before the '72 presidential election, and even as the story begins to slowly materialize, Nixon hatchet men like RNC Chairman Bob Dole are already attempting to spin the narrative of Nixon as the victim of an activist Washington Post defaming an honest president for sinister political motives. The whole ugly story is still nascent and never has any impact in '72. With Wallace gone and the president taking the angry Dixiecrat vote for himself, he wins by 20 points and McGovern only wins Massachusetts. Even as he gloats over this last victory over the "Franklins", Nixon still finds time to grouse: Why weren't his coattails enough to win more seats in the Senate and House, where he would face Democratic majorities in the first part of his second term? He also demeans the very voters whose Orthogonian ordinariness he always tapped for political gain: They are sheep, needing a strong figure like himself to make the difficult choices to save the future of a nation--a mission he never doubted was his and whose pursuit justified any means perceived necessary.

Perstein rightly stops at this point; Watergate has been bludgeoned into triviality by numerous other treatments, and the purpose of *Nixonland* has been served. In his afterward he summarizes the successful Nixon strategy of wedging middle and working class white Orthogonians and points out its ongoing relevance not just to understanding the deep seated cultural currents of the 1960s, but how they resonate in the politics of the moment. We're still living in Nixonland.

NIXONLAND: THE RISE OF A PRESIDENT AND THE FRACTURING OF AMERICA by Rick Perlstein is interesting a well-written history of the culture class that defined the 1960's.

There is a lot packed into this book. In fact, for long stretches it reads like a news article written under a deadline with no time for insight, background or analysis.
Nevertheless, Mr. Perlstein brings up several facts which were completely new to me.

The most interesting of these is that Robert F. Kennedy encouraged, even goaded, Johnson into finishing what his brother had started in Vietnam. Mr. Perlstein writes, "Robert F. Kennedy delivered his maiden Senate speech in 1965 urging the president to hint his bother's commitment to Vietnam..." (pg. 80). Anyone who has read [[ASIN:0375713255 The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Vol. IV (Vintage)]], would know that there was absolutely nothing in Johnson's psyche that would have allowed him to disregard such opinions by anyone in the Kennedy crowd, muchness Bobby himself. According to Mr. Perlstein, Bobby drove this message home both in public speeches and in at least one private meeting with Johnson. These accounts are omitted from the several biographies of John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy as well as the one I have read on Johnson. (Caro's multi-volume biography of Johnson has not progressed to the point that this would have been included). Assuming Mr. Perlstein is correct, those would seem to be pretty large omissions.

NIXONLAND deals in large part with the bundle of neuroses that made up Richard Nixon. Mr. Perlstein portrays him as not emotionally well-balanced, which I think was true, but still I do not think Mr. Perlstein quite finds the objectivity he's looking for in dealing with Nixon. For instance, he writes a lot about Nixon's role in the Alger Hiss case. But he never makes it clear that, despite all the negative reaction to Nixon's actions and his dogged pursuit of Hiss, history has proven that he was right. Hiss was a spy, a very high level and effective spy.

Another event that shaped what the Nixon presidency was unaccountably ignored by Perlstein: The stealing of 1960 presidential campaign. That election was decided by less than one vote per precinct. Both Illinois and Texas, by razor thin margins, went for Kennedy. Had they instead gone for Nixon, Nixon would have won an Electoral College victory. Historians have established that the elections in both of these states were stolen for Kennedy/Johnson. (For an understanding of how Johnson stole Texas elections and an excellent read see: [[ASIN:067973371X Means of Ascent (The Years of Lyndon Johnson)]]). I think this one fact contributed, as much as any other single fact, to the what the Nixon White House became. Yet strangely, Perlstein, who doesn't flinch or shy away from other unseemly pieces of this story, never even mentions that such a thing was alleged, let alone that it was almost certainly true.

In the end, I felt like Mr. Perlstein focussed too much on the minutia of what was happening on the fringes and gives such things too much weight in driving the narrative. Obviously there was a strong, active and pervasive anti-war movement in the 19960's and early '70's, but in each presidential campaign during that time the pro-war candidate won the election. (The 1972 campaign offered voters the most stark contrast they would have between a pro-war and an anti-war candidate and the pro-war candidate won one of the most decisive, lopsided victories is presidential history.) Yet this point gets lost in Mr. Perlstein narrative and therefore the picture is, to that degree, skewed.

I don't think I will read NIXONLAND again and therefore I could not gave it more than three stars. Nor can I write that I "enjoyed" reading it the first time, but I did learn a lot and will almost certainly read any future books written by Mr. Perlstien.

Long ago I had read enough Nixon/Watergate books for a lifetime, and probably enough about the 1960s, but for its first half Nixonland is a thrilling new take on the era because of the perspective it takes-- Nixon in exile, relentlessly (and unmistakably brilliantly) plotting his return to power, ruthlessly sabotaging LBJ on Vietnam and civil rights, nimbly exploiting the rise of the silent majority while keeping deniability about support for its most racist and unsavory elements (George Wallace had those locked up), carefully negotiating his way around rivals such as Ronald Reagan and Nelson Rockefeller so as to ensure that if they ever had their moment, it wouldn't be 1968. It's as compelling as watching Michael Corleone scheme his way around the Mafia world, but what gives it resonance-- makes it not merely another damn Nixon book-- is that it's not really about Nixon, but about Nixon as the perfect reflection of the way the times are changing and becoming more reactionary, which he in turn understands better than anyone how to exploit. It sounds complicated-- Nixon is the mirror of the silent majority which was the mirror of the hippie/peace movement-- but it makes for a brilliant perspective in practice.

Then Nixon is elected and the book settles in for a day by day, reactive and fairly jaundiced account of the Nixon administration, and something is lost-- the rest of America, actually. There's a great story to be told about how conservatism evolved during the 1970s completely under mass media radar, culminating in Reagan's election when it appeared seemingly out of nowhere, and the story would fit Perlstein's earlier themes about how blindsided 60s liberals were, but it's only half told here. And tales of infighting with Walt Hickel and Melvin Laird don't really seem all that exciting by comparison. (Maybe there's another Perlstein book on the way, about conservatism in the Reagan era, that will cover all this.)

Still, I can't say I can think of a better book on this time, because so many are still caught up in the ideological fights of the time and unable to see clearly. Perlstein is clearly liberal, and his portrait of Nixon is tinged with brimstone (did he really do nothing in office that wasn't two-faced and paranoid?), but even so, this has the feel of a fresh and clear-eyed take on the era. And on ours; it was impossible to read it and not be struck by how much LBJ's collapse in support resembled Obama's from 2008 to 2010, and for many of the same reasons. Those who hurl accusations of racism at the Tea Party should read this to see what racism actually sounds like in all its ugliness, but there's no doubt that the middle class revolt in '66-8 and the present one had roots in the same thing-- rebellion against big-government elites who were willing for OTHER people to make any sacrifice, including of the value of their homes and their sons in war, for what they thought was right. And if Nixon went from brilliant campaigner to insulated live-and-die-by-the-news-cycle type, well, he's not the last president to do so. It's one of the best books you could read on the present, too-- and even a hopeful one, since it reminds how much more peaceful our politics are even at their loudest and meanest, compared to the Summer of Love's.

Frequently interesting and overwhelmingly detailed. A pain to read at times, but an okay analysis of cultural resentments in the 1960s and early 1970s. End seems abrupt. Instead of continuing to describe Nixon's fall, the author inserts a sudden summary and concludes with the 1972 election outcome. That was disappointing.

Read this book if you want to understand why the Mob and their hate elected Trump!!!! I read this way before the 2016 election, even before the Republitards primary was a done deal. I predicted that Trump would win the whole thing. Rick Perlstein was partly responsible for my prediction. Trump was born in the Nixon times. I own over 1500 history/military tactics/political books. Perlstein put all of the missing dots together. Usually when I read a book of this type, I yell Mother#&@*%@# every few pages or so and my wife asks me "What did you read now?!" lol This book was so full of hidden little gems, I was muttering under my breath every two sentences. I couldn't put this book down. I was waking my wife up at 3am with my little mutterings. lol The one that sticks out is that Nixon hired that Goebbels clone Roger Ailes when he was 26 working on a morning show. Guess who got conveniently fired from FakeNews and went and worked on the Trump campaign? Yep, you guessed it. Read this book!!!

The 'good news' is that 'Nixonland' provides a detailed and often interesting accounting of Richard Nixon's rise to, and fall from, power. The 'bad news' is that 'Nixonland' overly focuses on 'the man,' and not enough on 'the system.' The result is simlar to blaming eg. Jack Welch, CEO Extraordinaire of G.E., for starting the offshoring boom that has taken millions of jobs away from Americans, while weakening the earning and benefits of most still employed and undermining government revenues. The real culprit, however, in undermining America's economy, is Wall Street financial system that compels such action lest one be taken over by a competitor who does. Similarly, an inherently combative two-party system wrapped inside Free Speech protection of falsehoods and half-truths, and assembled for consumption by an electorate repeatedly demonstrated ignorant of basic facts and history, is the underlying cause of political abuses.

Specifically, author Perlstein seemingly would have readers believe that America was unified behind LBJ, and that RMN then came along to split that consensus and create the non-stop vituperacy that dominates politics. Actually, America's political chasm had been there all along, and previously unmasked by LBJ himself through various Civil Rights initiatives, along with the Vietnam War. LBJ also showed himself to be no slacker in the 'dirty tricks' department either - the most brazen of which was his deliberate fomenting of the Tonkin Gulf to justify escalating the Vietnam War.

Bottom-Line: Both parties were violent at times (Left - anti-war and pro-Civil Rights demonstrations; Right - violence directed against demonstrators), and leaders of both parties were high-volume dissemblers. And Republicans evinced disdain for the educated long before today's Pains and Bachmanns (eg. V.P. Spiro Agnew's reference to 'an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals'). But Richard Nixon did not create the mess we're in today - our political system did.

Long -- to the point where the material condition of actually reading the book may come into play during your evaluation of the text. The work itself is very insular, focusing on the shortcomings of the main 'character' of the book. This may be a weakness, as it does not put the domestic scene covered in an evaluative light against the larger issues of the day. The international situations, outside schemes about Indochina, are ignored.

However, Perlstein is a fantastic storyteller. I cannot criticize the story he chose not to tell without giving full credit and praise to the story he does tell; Nixon's rise and his consolidation of power and his paranoia. If anything, the book is too familiar to any student of the press surrounding the last several presidents and the polarization of the country into camps that differ on the route to best to achieve national glory and debate over just what that defines.

_Nixonland_ gives the student of history a fair, yet critical look at the tenure of a significant president with verve and wit. I heartily recommend this title.