By Evan Thomas
“What used to be it quite prefer to be Richard Nixon? Evan Thomas tackles this attention-grabbing query by means of peeling again the layers of a guy pushed through a poignant mixture of optimism and worry. the result's either insightful heritage and an astonishingly compelling mental portrait.”[b]—Walter Isaacson, writer of Steve Jobs
Evan Thomas can provide the easiest single-volume biography of Richard Nixon thus far, a thorough, detailed portrait of a classy determine who was once either determinedly confident and tragically improper. the recent York occasions bestselling writer of Ike’s Bluff and Sea of Thunder, Thomas brings new lifestyles to at least one of yank history’s so much notorious, paradoxical, and enigmatic politicians, allotting with myths to accomplish an intimate and evenhanded examine the particular man.
What drove a painfully shy outcast in elite Washington society—a guy so self-conscious he refused to make eye touch in the course of meetings—to pursue strength and public place of work? How did a president so attuned to the yank political identity that he received reelection in a old landslide lack the self-awareness to acknowledge the gaping personality flaws that may force him from place of work and without end taint his legacy?
In Being Nixon, Evan Thomas peels away the layers of the complicated, confounding determine who turned America’s thirty-seventh president. The son of religious Quakers, Richard Nixon (not in contrast to his rival John F. Kennedy) grew up within the shadow of an older, favorite brother and thrived on clash and competition. via highschool and faculty, within the army and in politics, he was once always top crusades and struggling with off enemies genuine and imagined. As maudlin as he used to be Machiavellian, Nixon possessed the plainspoken eloquence to minimize American tv audiences to tears together with his career-saving “Checkers” speech; in the meantime, his darker part hatched schemes designed to take down his political foes, incomes him the infamous nickname “Tricky Dick.”
Drawing on a variety of historic bills, Thomas finds the contradictions of a pacesetter whose imaginative and prescient and foresight led him to accomplish détente with the Soviet Union and reestablish family members with communist China, yet whose underhanded political strategies tainted his popularity lengthy prior to the Watergate scandal. one of many relevant architects of the trendy Republican social gathering and its “silent majority” of disaffected whites and conservative ex-Dixiecrats, Nixon used to be additionally deemed a liberal in a few quarters for his efforts to desegregate Southern faculties, create the Environmental security company, and finish the draft.
A deeply insightful personality research in addition to a super political biography, Being Nixon deals a stunning examine a guy able to nice bravery and remarkable deviousness—a balanced portrait of a president too usually diminished to caricature.
Praise for Being Nixon
“Here in a single sharp and swiftly written quantity is what you actually need to grasp in regards to the nice and terrible thirty-seventh President: How may perhaps a person so clever concerning the international be so completely clueless approximately himself?”—Time
“[A] absolutely rounded portrait . . . Thomas has an excellent eye for the telling quote and the humorous vignette, and his kind is eminently readable.”—The big apple occasions booklet Review
“Terrifically enticing . . . should be learn by means of someone with a extra open brain concerning the oddest guy ever to occupy the Oval Office.”—Max Boot, The Wall road Journal
“Ambitious . . . There are well-crafted word-pictures of Nixon in the course of the narrative.”—Carl Bernstein, The Washington Post
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Extra resources for Being Nixon: A Man Divided
Sample text
Enron had relationships with more than 120 major financial institutions worldwide. Jeff McMahon, Enron’s treasurer since April 1998, coordinated the transactions so that the banks could not cherry-pick the most lucrative deals and shun the lower-value transactions. In reality, however, the treasurer’s office was little more than a front for dealing with the banks. While McMahon might make the initial introduction of a proposed transaction to a financial institution, he did not negotiate or consummate the 31 deals for Enron.
The fabric of fallacy they had so carefully woven was unraveling. “The Goldman Sachs of energy trading” was losing its grip on its publicity, the analysts, and its luster. One question led to another. Fastow knew how bad it really was, and he was increasingly terrified of being exposed—his lies laid bare. Not even Ken Lay’s wheeling and dealings with the Astros Major League Baseball club and friendships with past and current presidents could solve Enron’s problem. ” Meanwhile the pressure of questions about performance continued to mount as Enron struggled to meet earnings under its new business model.
She had been appointed to the bench by the first President Bush. Andersen got speedy, but it was difficult to characterize it as much of a trial. Andersen hired Houston criminal defense attorney Rusty Hardin to lead the defense team. Hardin, an experienced and highly regarded criminal defense attorney, got nowhere fast with Judge Harmon. The task force trial team of Caldwell, Weissmann, Buell, and Friedrich got its way with the judge. No one seemed to have noticed that Judge Harmon didn’t allow the defense to introduce the hundreds of thousands of 61 documents Andersen had retained.