Richard Nixon
From charlesreid1
Read
| Title | Author | Year | Started | Finished | Opinion |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nixonland | Richard Perlstein | An excellent starting point for reading about Nixon. The primary focus of the book is Nixon, and while it isn't the most comprehensive portrait of Nixon's presidency (particularly Watergate and Nixon's resignation, as the book ends with the 1972 election), it provides a substantial amount of context for the parts of Nixon's presidency that are not covered.
It is a book filled with astounding insights into how the political landscape of the Nixon presidency was shaped, and it is obvious, upon reading, how much of that political landscape still exists today. The book's most significant virtue is that it covers so many different topics, and provides a truly outstanding portrait of late 1960's/early 1970's America. This really made a difference in how the events of the Nixon presidency were understood by the reader. | |||
| All The President's Men | Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein | An important account of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Watergate reporting at the Washington Post.
Provides a good sense of how tangled the Watergate scandal was, how deep the scandal went, and how abusive of Presidential power Nixon was. Also provides a good sense of how precarious the Watergate investigation was - how, without a few key individuals acting according to their conscience, rather than their best interests, the entire affair would have gone unknown. | |||
| The Secret Man | Bob Woodward | Not recommended. Primarily a rehash of All The President's Men, with little additional detail included (all related to the identity of Deep Throat). No significant new material. |
Unread
| Title | Author | Year | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Wars of Watergate: The Last Crisis of Richard Nixon | Stanley Kutler | 1990 | Marriott Library LVL 2 (E860 .K87 1990 ) |
| Abuse of Power: The New Nixon Tapes | Stanley Kutler | 1997 | Marriott Library LVL 2 (E860 .A26 1997 ) |
| The Final Days | Boob Woodward, Carl Bernstein | 1976 | Follow-up to All The President's Men |
Online Resources
- NixonTapes.org
- http://nixontapes.org/transcripts.html
- Provides audio and transcripts of many Nixon tapes, grouped by participants, themes, and chronology
- White House tapes archive @ Nixon Library
- http://nixon.archives.gov/virtuallibrary/tapeexcerpts/index.php
- Most material is only organized chronologically
- Tapes related to the Watergate trial are grouped together
- Some thematically-organized recordings provided here: http://nixon.archives.gov/forresearchers/find/tapes/collections.php
- White House tapes finding aids provides many useful indexes and information: http://nixon.archives.gov/forresearchers/find/tapes/finding_aids/index.php