Silent Coup, by Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin

I was reading about Silent Coup in other books that I was reading for My Year (or More) of Nixon, and its thesis intrigued me.  I already owned the book, since I had picked it up at a local Goodwill store some time ago.  So I figured that I might as well read it!

I probably should read John Dean’s books in addition to Silent Coup, since Dean sued the authors of Silent Coup for libel.    But I probably won’t read Dean’s books for My Year (or More) of Nixon.  Maybe I’ll read them some other time in the future.  January will be over before you know it.  February is coming up, and I have a couple of books to read and blog about for Black History Month (which is in February).  My Year (or More) of Nixon has to come to an end sometime, and January 31, 2014 is an appropriate date to draw it to a close.  Plus, as much as I have grown accustomed to reading books by and about Nixon—-after all, I’ve been doing so for over a year—-I would like to move on to something else.  Some books I will have to save for another time—-such as John Dean’s works.

So what did I think about Silent Coup?  It was all right, I guess.  I don’t know enough to critique its theses.  Moreover, because the book was rather heavy and detailed, it would take me a long time to evaluate each and every paragraph for accuracy, and I don’t want to devote years of my life to unpacking Silent Coup.  I was looking through some other books about Nixon that I have read, and more than one of them criticizes Silent Coup for making leaps in logic.  Maybe it does, but, to me, as a reader, it did come across as fairly well-documented.  It relied on interviews and documents.  It noted contradictions in people’s testimonies, and between what people said and what the record showed (i.e., someone saying there was such-and-such a meeting, when actually there was not such-and-such a meeting on record).  Maybe there were times when the authors of Silent Coup went a bit beyond the evidence to make certain people look more sinister than they actually were.  Still, they ask good questions.

The main villains of the book are Alexander Haig and John Dean.  Haig, according to Colodny and Gettlin, was sabotaging Nixon’s Administration as White House Chief of Staff.  In the story that Silent Coup lays out, Haig was behind leaks, and he himself was the mysterious Deep Throat who was leaking information to reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.  Colodny and Gettlin even argue that Haig and Woodward had a prior relationship, that Woodward as a Navy man briefed Haig.  Colodny and Gettlin do not buy into Woodward’s portrayal of himself as a political outsider, for they maintain that he was long a part of the establishment.  Why were there forces seeking to sabotage Nixon’s Administration, according to Colodny and Gettlin?  Because there were elements of the military who did not like Nixon’s policies of rapprochement with the Soviet Union and Red China, as well as arms control.

Colodny and Gettlin assert that The Final Days, by Woodward and Bernstein, is essentially Haig’s side of the story—-the propaganda that Haig is behind.  I don’t know.  Granted, Haig wasn’t portrayed too badly in The Final Days: he was loyal to Nixon, yet not blindly loyal.  But The Final Days did include some bad things that Haig did, such as talking badly about Kissinger to Nixon, and about Nixon to Kissinger.  The Final Days also quotes someone who was warning Gerald Ford about Haig, essentially saying that Haig was out for himself.  I don’t think that The Final Days is a complete whitewash of Haig.  But perhaps detractors would argue that The Final Days would have to include some bad details about Haig to look like a credible piece of journalism rather than a whitewash.

On Dean, I have read in other books that Silent Coup‘s thesis is that Dean ordered the Watergate break-in to conceal information there that his girlfriend was associated with a call-girl ring.  That’s certainly a major part of the break-in, according to Silent Coup.  The thing is, though, Dean in Silent Coup does not come across as particularly chivalrous, but rather as ambitious and selfish.  According to Colodny and Gettlin, Dean wanted to work on intelligence to advance himself within the White House ranks; he would look at people’s desks and take credit for their ideas; he broke up with his girlfriend, then decided to marry her because then she couldn’t testify against him.  Silent Coup‘s notorious and controversial thesis was actually the most puzzling and nebulous to me, in light of its portrayal of Dean.

I was looking at David Greenberg’s Nixon’s Shadow, and he says that Nixon in Silent Coup appears “hapless” and “guileless” (page 225).  That’s why he’s so puzzled that Roger Morris supported the book (Morris actually wrote the Foreword to Silent Coup): How could Morris portray Nixon as so manipulative and shady in Richard Milhous Nixon: The Rise of an American Politician, only to endorse a book that presented Nixon as a victim of Watergate?  But I didn’t think that Nixon came across as “hapless” and “guileless” in Silent Coup.  Granted, Silent Coup does portray him as a victim of Haig and Dean, but it does not depict Nixon as thoroughly innocent, but rather as one who was involved in a cover-up.

This book would probably be a good read for people who are interested in Watergate.  But I also found it to be rather interesting when it came to the human element—-how the characters were depicted: how one could be an insider yet portray himself as an outsider; how people try to rise in the ranks and impress others; and how one may be on the social margins of the elite and yet be able to seduce women by appealing to his contacts (there was one character like that in the book).

The Ends of Power 4

On pages 110-111 of The Ends of Power, H.R. Haldeman (with Joseph DiMona) offers an opinion as to why President Richard Nixon did not have personal friends, such as Herb Klein and Bob Finch, close to him in his Administration, whereas Haldeman actually did serve close to Nixon:

“Nixon viewed Klein and Finch in human terms, as people, which meant he would have had trouble dealing with them on an official basis.

“He didn’t see me as a person or even, I believe, as a human being.  I was a machine.  A robot.  Shortly after it came out I saw the movie Star Wars: there is a robot, a metal machine clanking along doing what it’s told by a computer-like mind.  From Nixon’s viewpoint, that’s what I was.  And I was a good machine.  I was efficient, I didn’t require a lot of ‘oiling’—-and he wasn’t good at ‘oiling’; or what LBJ called ‘schmoozing.’”

I wouldn’t exactly treat what Haldeman says here as absolutely true, though there may be some truth in it.  Granted, Nixon may have treated Haldeman in an impersonal manner, but I read in The Final Days that Nixon regarded Pat Buchanan almost as a son, and Buchanan was a fairly influential adviser within the Nixon Administration.

But this passage from The Ends of Power got me thinking: would I like to work with friends in an official capacity?  I was watching The Wonder Years recently, and there was an episode in which Paul got Kevin a job at a Chinese restaurant.  Paul was the assistant manager, and Kevin was chopping onions!  I was thinking to myself that this would not be a bad set-up.  You have a friend getting you a job, which means that you’re more of a shoe-in: you’re not submitting an application, only to be forgotten, or to be given the brush-off.  And, because your boss is your friend, your boss may be more understanding.  I’m not saying that therefore you can be a bad worker, but rather that you’re not walking on eggshells as much as you may be if you were going into a new, unfamiliar setting where you knew nobody, and you were afraid of making mistakes.  (I say “you” here, but that may not be appropriate, since some people reading this are not as timid as others.)

But there are downsides to working with friends in an official capacity.  It can destroy the friendship.  For example, if I were to write a book, I would prefer for it to be edited and critiqued by someone I did not know.  I would take criticism harder and more personally were it to come from a friend.  But, from someone I did not really know, I wouldn’t care as much.  On the other hand, though, perhaps there are situations in which criticism can come from a friend much more smoothly: the friend may know how to be diplomatic with you, or how to offer constructive criticism that is tailored towards your unique personality.  (Again, I can’t really say “you” here, since some people are stronger and more receptive to criticism than others.)

The Final Days 15

I finished The Final Days, by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.  On page 455, we read Bruce Herschensohn’s reaction to Richard Nixon’s final speech to his White House staff: “That’s probably the real Nixon.  It’s a shame he couldn’t have been like that more often.”

Was that the real Nixon?  I remember reading in David Greenberg’s Nixon’s Shadow that there were people who did not think so.  They thought that Nixon was positioning himself for a comeback, feeding people sentimentalism, as he had in the past.  Some have pointed out the apparent errors in Nixon’s stories in that speech: Nixon’s father did not sell the lemon ranch before oil was found on it, for example, but rather the Nixons failed to purchase land on which oil was later found.  Maybe Nixon was giving that speech to look better in the eyes of history, for he did insist that it be televised, and there were instructions about where his wife, his daughters, and his sons-in-law would stand.  On the other hand, he put on his glasses at this event, something he rarely if ever did in public before.  And there seemed to be tears in his eyes, and the fact that he let them be seen in public differed from a tendency he often had to want people to see him as tough.  And yet, did not Nixon cry after giving the Checkers Speech, prompting one of his former acting teachers to remark that he was acting?  Did Nixon recognize that a certain form of sentimentalism could look good to people?

Do people like us when we are vulnerable, when they see the real us?  According to the Final Days, Nixon did not want it to be known that he cried when he was with Henry Kissinger on one occasion, under the pressures of the Watergate scandal.  Many of us may want for people to see us as tough and as strong.  We can identify with vulnerability, and even feel sorry for people who are vulnerable.  But do we respect and admire vulnerability?  Maybe we do when vulnerability appears to us in a particular package—-when it does not convey weakness or self-pity, for instance.

Of course, I cannot say “we,” as if I have some right to speak for everyone.  I’m just stating my general observations and speculations, and what I am saying may not apply to a number of people.

I'd like to add my final impressions of The Final Days.  At first, I liked the book on account of its descriptions of the legal reasoning of pro-Nixon and anti-Nixon people.  But I came to enjoy it even more because of its narration of the relationships in its stories: the loving ones, the complex ones, etc.

The Final Days 14

On page 433 of The Final Days, by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, President Richard Nixon’s White House Press Secretary, Ron Ziegler, is asking a secretary in the White House press office, Anne Grier, is she will be coming with him, Nixon, and two people on Ziegler’s staff—-Frank Gannon and Diane Sawyer—-to San Clemente, California.  Nixon is about to leave the office of the Presidency.  After pausing to consider how she will respond, and being told by Ziegler that she didn’t have to go, Anne finally says: “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.  Of course I’ll go.”

I liked this part of the book because Ziegler is sticking with Nixon, even though Nixon is departing as a disgraced President.  And, as someone who watches ABC News each weeknight, I also think it’s cool that Diane Sawyer went with Nixon to San Clemente.  I already knew that Diane Sawyer worked for Nixon after his Presidency on account of the movie, Frost/Nixon, in which an actress plays her.  But it’s interesting to me how often she shows up in The Final Days, often dutifully doing her work, and sometimes expressing an opinion (of sympathy for Nixon, or of shock that John Connally was being attacked for a particular scandal).  Jonathan Aitken in Nixon: A Life narrates that Nixon and Sawyer had a breach in their relationship after Diane Sawyer interviewed him on CBS.  Aitken states on pages 559-560: “She needled him particularly harshly on Watergate, possibly because of a feeling on her part that she had to demonstrate her journalistic independence from her former boss.  Nixon coped more than adequately with her tough questioning, but was inwardly hurt by it and felt he had been betrayed by an old friend.”

The Final Days 13

On page 404 of The Final Days, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein depict a conversation between White House Chief of Staff (under President Richard Nixon) Alexander Haig, and White House Counsel for Watergate J. Fred Buzhardt.  They are discussing whether or not Richard Nixon will commit suicide under the pressures of the Watergate scandal.  Haig fears that Nixon might, whereas Buzhardt doubts that Nixon will, saying that Nixon was a tough and a religious man.

In this telling of the conversation, Haig brings up a movie in an attempt to shed light on the situation:
“Haig said the President was a battered man, strained to his limit.  He compared Nixon’s behavior to that of Captain Queeg, the erratic naval officer in The Caine Mutiny.  Queeg had been relieved of duty by his second in command because he was unable to function as his ship swirled out of control in a typhoon.  Buzhardt thought the analogy argued against a suicide.  Queeg was a fighter.  He had fought to the end.”

It’s easy to look at this interaction about Captain Queeg and to ask, “Who cares?”  How is Captain Queeg even relevant to Richard Nixon’s situation?  Nixon is not Captain Queeg, but is Richard Nixon.

But my impression is that reference to movies, TV shows, and books occurs often when people try to understand and to navigate their way through real life.  You’d think that people would see this as a no-no, realizing that stories are fictional and do not always portray things as they really are.

In some cases, though, people might be inspired by something they see on television to go out and to try to make the world a better place.  On page 8 of Nixonland, Rick Perlstein refers to a white minister from Boston who went to Selma to help out with the Civil Rights movement.  He had just watched the movie Judgment at Nuremberg, which was about people doing nothing while the Nazis committed their atrocities.  He decided that he would not sit back on the sidelines during one of the greatest struggles for justice in the twentieth century, so he went to Selma.  Unfortunately, he was beaten to death by local thugs.  He took his stand, and his stand was righteous.  But his own life was not the sort of happy ending that one often sees in stories.  But he may have known the risks when he went into the situation.

The Final Days 12

On page 378 of The Final Days, we read of the following interaction between two officials in the Nixon Administration, Raymond Price and Ben Stein:

“‘Here’s your chance to do something great,’ Price instructed.  ‘Write a speech that will bring tears to the eyes of Americans and demands that the President stay in office.’  Stein took to his typewriter with the old enthusiasm.”

Of course, Richard Nixon never used Stein’s speech, for Nixon resigned from the Presidency rather than staying in office.  But this passage makes me think about the topic of rekindling old enthusiasm.  What rekindles it?  In this case, I think it was Price giving Stein an important mission, an opportunity for Stein to use his talents, and a challenge.

There are times when my old enthusiasm is rekindled.  I may see a TV episode or a movie that really grabs me, and I feel inspired to share thoughts about it on my blog, as opposed to doing my usual perfunctory writing.  I may read a book or an article, or hear a lecture, in my field of study, and that reminds me of the whole reason that I went into my field in the first place: to encounter thoughts like that!  Unfortunately, disappointments can follow.  Ben Stein’s speech was not used, and there are times when I can be excited about a thought that I encountered, only to see that thought undermined in another book or article.  It’s like cold water being thrown on a flame!  Yet, it’s good when the old enthusiasm comes back!  Many of us have to persevere without it, and that is an important discipline in itself, but how exciting it is when we get that flame back!

The Final Days 11

On page 344 of The Final Days, by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, we read:

"As was his custom, the President had not called for anyone to come.  When he wished company, he simply made himself available."

I'm somewhat like this.  I usually don't call people, asking them if they want to get together with me.  But I have done so in the past.  People are busy, and so, if I don't call them asking them if they want to get together to socialize, the socialization probably won't happen.  But people have called me sometimes, asking me if I want to hang out; in those cases, I either say yes, or I try to find some excuse to say no (since I'm not in the mood to socialize).  I guess that my point here is something that many point out: that, for a number of people, initiating and preserving relationships takes a conscious decision, and effort.

In the past, I have simply made myself available to people when I wanted company.  Sometimes, that works out.  If people are watching TV in a room, for example, it's not overly awkward for me to walk in and to join them.  But, at times, I have made myself available to people when it wasn't a particularly convenient time for them.  So live and learn!

The Final Days 10

On page 303 of The Final Days, by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, we read the following:

“[Ben] Stein never knew what to tell [Julie Nixon Eisenhower].  Throughout the spring and summer their frequent conversations had followed a pattern.  Stein always tried to think of something positive to say.  Partly to have something else to talk about, he had given Julie a copy of Joan Didion’s collection of essays, Slouching Toward Bethlehem.  She had liked it immensely.  Tonight Stein counted himself lucky: he could tell her about Sandman’s and Wiggins’ arguments.”

Ben Stein was a speech writer in the Nixon White House.  It’s interesting to me that his name comes up more than once in The Final Days, more than it comes up in later books about Nixon that I have read.  The Final Days came out in 1976, and that was before Stein’s acting in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and The Wonder Years, the “Moisture Eyes” commercials he was in, and the movie Expelled.

The passage on page 303 stood out to me because I could identify with Stein in that situation.  I’m often not sure what I should talk to people about in social situations.  Often, this is simply me not knowing what to say.  At other times, I don’t want to talk about a specific topic (i.e., politics, religion) with someone, due to bad experiences in the past, so I look for alternative topics of conversation.

Something that I’ve done in the past to form connections with people is to watch a TV show that they like, or to follow their blog.  This can work.  But conversations are much better when the person I am conversing with likes the same shows I do, rather than me watching a show just to have something to discuss with someone else.  Moreover, I have tried to research sports to have something to talk about with people, and that usually doesn’t end up well, since I appear ignorant of sports, even after reading scores.  The reason is that sports just do not interest me.

I’m happy when I come across something that I can share with someone else.  Otherwise, socializing can be a mundane, uphill-battle experience for me.  “How are you?  How was your week?”

The Final Days 9

On pages 263-264 of The Final Days, by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, we read:

"[President Richard Nixon's White House Press Secretary Ron Ziegler's] staff accepted these menial chores with varying degrees of tolerance, recognizing that the demands he made on them were extensions of the pressures the President put on him.  His temper tantrums were excused on similar grounds.  Nixon raged at Ziegler, they knew, and Ziegler raged back at whoever was handy."

I can sympathize somewhat with people who are jerks because they were hurt in life.  Hopefully, that sort of sympathy on my part can keep me from despising them, for despising people is not good for my own soul, or even my personal interactions, for that matter.  But that doesn't mean that I want to be in any sort of close relationship with them.  And there are situations in which a person should leave a relationship with extreme types of those sorts of people----the types that are abusive.  But do I admire those who stick with relationships with difficult people----people who are not abusive, but who are extremely difficult because of some hurt that they experienced?  I do.  I just don't have that sort of unconditional love within me.  I can love from a distance and wish someone the best, but that doesn't mean that I want a close relationship with that person.  And yet, I somehow hope and expect for people to be understanding of me and my problems.  Maybe I shouldn't have that expectation.  I shouldn't burden people with rules in my mind that I myself am extremely reluctant to follow.

Comments are off.

The Final Days 8

On page 246 of The Final Days, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein narrate the following:

"When you make a suggestion or proposal to the American military, [President Richard Nixon] explained, they say no, they say they can't do it.  He cited the 1970 invasion of Cambodia as an example.  The military had wanted to hold back, he said; they had thought the operation was too risky and of limited value.  He was the driving force, Nixon said, the one who had to say, 'Do it.'"

One would think that military people are the most hawkish people around, the first who would support using military force to solve the world problems.  There are cases in which that is probably accurate.  Not long ago, I was watching the American Experience documentary about President John F. Kennedy, and it said that General Curtis LeMay wanted to use nuclear weapons to solve the Cuban Missile Crisis.  I got a similar impression when I saw the movie Thirteen Days, which was about the Cuban Missile Crisis: that there were military people who thought that Kennedy was too soft and should use strong military force.

But it's not always the case that military people are trigger-happy----if that is the right word.  Because they know quite well the loss of life that war brings, there are plenty of times when some military people might be hesitant to support the government approaching a problem with military force, when they might not be particularly hawkish, when they might be especially sensitive to whether the exercise of military force accomplishes enough to merit the loss of life.  I vaguely recall Nixon making that sort of point in one of his books, but I forget where.

The Final Days 7

On page 223 of The Final Days, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein say the following about President Richard Nixon's negotiations with the Soviets to slow down the arms race:

"The President had often confided to Kissinger his most telling reason for slowing down the nuclear-arms race.  He feared that the United States would lose it.  Continued military competition was too expensive.  The country might not be able to sustain the costs of a prolonged cold war.  America, the President felt, was too likely to buckle under the pressure.  Besides the economic weakness of the country, Nixon perceived a weakness of will.  Too many of the same political critics who were pushing him to the wall on Watergate would not support a tough posture toward the Russians, he said."

In this post, I'll just assume that Nixon felt this way, even though I don't know for sure if that was the case.
It sounds as if Nixon saw detente as second-best, as if he would have preferred for the United States to have the guts to be tough with the Soviets and to win the nuclear arms race.  Not only did Nixon admire guts, but, reading some of his foreign policy books, Nixon looked back with apparent pleasure at the days when the United States had nuclear superiority and could appeal to that to get the Soviets to back off from some of the adventures that they were pursuing.  Nixon considered that to be keeping the peace!

But I think that there was another side to Nixon.  Nixon in his memoirs, especially the first volume, depicts himself as someone who wants peace.  He wanted peace when his father and his brothers fought.  He saw some of the horrors of war.  And he admired pacifists, even if he did not go so far as to be a pacifist himself.  I have my doubts that this side of Nixon saw detente merely as second-best.

Moreover, Nixon argues that he as President spent more money on domestic concerns than on military defense.  Maybe Nixon here is simply presenting himself as progressive, against liberal critics, and his point is that he has done more to further liberal concerns than liberals themselves have.  Or perhaps a part of Nixon had a sense that the arms race was costing the United States money, money that could be used to help people.

I admire guts, but I also don't think that peace and negotiation should be considered second-best.  I think that the best option is what Nixon said detente was: negotiation, but not negotiation that allows others to walk all over you.  Detente is tough negotiation, according to Nixon.

I would like to mention one more thing.  On page 222, Woodward and Bernstein say: "The Soviet press had largely ignored Watergate.  When the matter was referred to, it was portrayed as a plot to destroy d[e]tente."  That actually overlaps with the argument of the book, Silent Coup: that there were military people in Nixon's Administration who did not like being shut out of the decisionmaking process, and who did not care for detente, and they contributed to President Richard Nixon's downfall.

The Final Days 6

On page 194 of The Final Days, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein state the following:

“On occasion [Henry Kissinger] expressed enthusiasm at the size of the bomb craters that American B-52s left in North Vietnam, and he once bragged to Elliot Richardson that they would ‘reduce Le Duc Tho to tears.’  When Anthony Lake, his executive assistant, questioned the bombing policies, Kissinger ridiculed him.  In a long discussion that grew heated, Kissinger said that Lake’s approach to the war was ‘not manly enough.’  Lake was so upset by the conversation that he went into a hallway in the West Wing and pounded the vending machines with his fists.  [Alexander] Haig talked him out of quitting on that occasion and on one other, but Lake did soon resign.”

I myself can be rather sensitive, so I can identify with Lake’s reaction to Kissinger’s insult.  At the same time, the way that I would like to envision myself responding to Kissinger’s insult is by saying, “Well, maybe my approach to the war is not ‘manly enough,’ but it’s more reasonable than your approach to the war, for the following reasons.”

But, come to think of it, I really don’t take a great deal of offense when my machismo is questioned.  I guess it’s because I never could be a “man’s man,” since I was never good at sports, and so I didn’t bother to try.  Plus, in this day and age, there are many who question whether the machismo way of doing things is necessarily the best.

But, when my intelligence is questioned, I take great offense.

The Final Days 5

On page 156 of The Final Days, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein say that House Minority Leader John Rhodes “thought that the President’s aloofness showed strength.”

My tendency to be rather aloof has turned people off from me, but is there a way in which people have seen it as an asset in me rather than a liability?  Perhaps some have admired me because I did not seem to care about what other people thought.

Well, this could have happened, at times.  Of course, my problem is that I actually care too much about what other people think, and that’s why I’m nervous in social situations.  I doubt that people see me as the strong, silent type when I am nervous and timid as I talk with them, or when I appear clingy in my desperate attempts to forms contacts with people.

My understanding is that Nixon, on some level, was deliberately aloof, since he thought that this was suitable for the dignity of his office.  And yet, I have also read that he wanted to be loved, and this would be consistent with seeing him as one who wanted to have social skills so that he could receive the love that he craved, yet he tried to make due with lacking them.  But I have also read that Nixon saw socializing as a waste of time, that he thought his time was better spent reading books and learning.  So was his issue that he did not want to socialize, rather than that he wanted to but lacked the skills to do so?  Perhaps it’s a combination of all of these.

The Final Days 4

In this post, I'll share a couple of passages from The Final Days, by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, as well as a passage in Richard Reeves' President Nixon: Alone in the White House.  The topic is Richard Nixon's introversion and how he preferred not to deal with people.

On page 31 of The Final Days, we read: "Haldeman was so concerned about this predilection of Nixon's to retreat into himself that he spent the days immediately before and after his resignation as chief of staff trying to find his own successor.  The new White House chief of staff had to be someone who would oppose Nixon's preference for dealing with paper rather than people.  He had to be capable of presenting to the President a full range of options for each decision, of knowing how and when to ignore Nixon's intemperate orders."

On page 37, we read: "The President would not deal directly with people or events.  He preferred papers: memos didn't talk back, didn't push him."

And on page 12 of President Nixon: Alone in the White House, Richard Reeves states:

"He had learned how to act.  Nixon had memorized his lines, as he had memorized hundreds of pieces of music in order to play the piano----all of them in the key of G.  He was not a natural; it was all hard, lonely work.  He also memorized entire speeches, working alone from notes, then throwing away the paper.  He did the same thing with conversations, working from little scripts he committed to memory.  He once said of himself: 'I've found a way to do it.  I'm a reader, not a buller.  Most of the boys at the law school had long bull sessions about cases.  I studied my cases alone.'"

So end the readings!

I'd now like to comment about where I identify with these portrayals of Nixon, and where I differ.

1.  I prefer to communicate via e-mail rather than person-to-person.

2.  At the same time, I find that I learn things better by listening to people speak rather than through reading books.  Because of my social struggles, I tend to lean more heavily on reading books.  But I find that I learn things that change my outlook, and that I remember things a lot longer, when I hear them spoken by another human being.  This is true in terms of attending classes, and also having conversations with colleagues.

3.  At the same time, classes and conversations only skim the surface of any given topic, and that's why it's important for me to learn by reading----since there is a lot more information out there in books and articles.

4.  I find that person-to-person interaction with colleagues makes me more familiar with resources that are out there, whereas I probably would not be as familiar with these resources all on my own.  Is this because, on my own, I'm not sure what exactly I should be looking for----I don't know what to google to access what may help me?  That's probably part of it.

5.  There are times when I prefer to learn by snuggling up with a book.  But there are other times when I would prefer for people to summarize something for me, so that I don't have to plow through a document and do heavy-duty analysis.  On some level, I can identify with different Presidents' modes of operation (as I understand them, based on what I have heard or read): Richard Nixon preferring to read, Ronald Reagan wanting briefer documents or movies that conveyed information, Bill Clinton digesting policy books and picking the brains of intellectuals, and George W. Bush preferring to be briefed.

6.  One reason that I like to read is that the book or article does not answer me back.  I have problems with being challenged in person-to-person interaction because I am not quick enough on my feet to respond to what people say to me.  Of course, one can be challenged online, as well, in online discussions.  I don't particularly care for that, either, even though I have to admit that I have learned from such discussions, and have modified my views in response to some of them (while my views have hardened in reaction to others of them).  I'm all for learning, but not so much within a context in which I can take things personally: when I can lose face, or be considered stupid or inferior.  Consequently, I'm all for reading and hearing different perspectives----by reading books, or listening to radio programs, or watching YouTube videos----in a manner that does not involve my interaction with a human being who can talk (or write) back, when I can simply read, and make my own evaluation of what I just read.

7.  Some may criticize my post here, saying that I should adapt to the world, rather than expecting it to adapt to me.  I'm all for that, on some level, but I think that it's all right for me to take a look at my strengths and my weaknesses, so that I can use the former, while compensating for the latter.  Moreover, over the years, I've heard so many students bellyaching about their learning styles in classes, so I don't feel guilty talking about my own learning styles.  If others can do that, why can't I?

The Final Days 3

On page 104 of The Final Days, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein say:

"Nixon's inability to handle more than one drink was well known to his intimates.  During campaigns he had wisely chosen not to touch alcohol.  But now, on too many afternoons, he started sipping in his office with [his friend Bebe] Rebozo.  On the mornings after, the President arrived in his office late, sometimes not until noon.  [Chief of Staff Alexander] Haig was worried that the press would learn about it, and he ordered that the time the President left his residence to go to work no longer be recorded."

If this is accurate, then I can identify with Nixon here: he was going through a hard time, and he tried to self-medicate by drinking alcohol with his friend.  But Woodward and Bernstein say that there was a downside to this: that drinking was hindering Nixon from doing his job.  Now, people may debate about whether or not Nixon was hindered in doing his job during Watergate.  Nixon argues that he was accomplishing stuff, especially in the field of foreign policy, and that his political critics were upset about this.  Anthony Summers in The Arrogance of Power, by contrast, argues that Nixon was dropping the ball, on some things.

During the time when I was drinking, I got things done.  I read a lot, especially when I was eating dinner and sipping my beers.  I wrote papers.  But there were times when I drank, and I would wake up late, with a hangover.  Ever since I quit drinking, I don't have to put up with that.  And that makes me happy.

The Final Days 2

On page 73 of The Final Days, by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, we read the following about Judge Sirica:

“Sirica entered.  He didn’t like dramatic courtroom confrontations, and he expected one this afternoon.  His nerves were getting to him.”

On the next page, we read: “Sirica retired to his chambers.  As he often did after a tense hearing, he lay down to wait for the pounding of his heart to slow.”

Do I like drama?  Well, I like watching it on TV, or reading about it.  And, when I was a child and a teenager, I liked to generate drama by being controversial.  My fifth grade class had class elections, and I ran and assisted a few campaigns.  I enjoyed starting debates in class.  I found life to be rather humdrum and boring, and this was my way of trying to make it interesting.

As an adult, while I like to follow fictional drama, or drama that involves other people, I am not as keen about being in the middle of drama.  I like for things to run smoothly and rather predictably, when I am involved.

The Final Days 1

I started The Final Days, by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.  I figured that this was an appropriate book to read soon after finishing Richard Reeves' President Nixon: Alone in the White House.  I had expected for Reeves' book to go from the first day of Richard Nixon's Presidency up to the very last day, and, while it technically did that, it cramped the events after the resignations of Haldeman and Ehrlichman into a short epilogue.  Well, The Final Days primarily focuses on the Nixon White House after the resignations of Haldeman and Ehrlichman, so it's a good book to read soon after finishing Reeves' book!

On page 31, we read that "when Haldeman resigned, he had warned Haig about Nixon's tendency to isolate himself, to refuse to see advisers with bad news or unpalatable recommendations."

How am I on this?  Well, there are things that I just don't want to hear!  Recently, I've been saying to myself a lot, "Don't ask questions that you don't want to hear the answer to."  I don't want to hear what people are saying about me, or what they really think about me.  Even if I suspect that I have a hunch what they are thinking about me, I don't want to hear it!  I have enough problems struggling with grudges and a depressing recognition of my own limitations, without having to be saddled with additional burdens, as people judgmentally deconstruct me and attribute to me flaws, both real and imagined.  Maybe that sort of attitude means I'm not strong enough.  Oh well.

As I've said before on this blog, however, I respond well to certain types of constructive criticism.  When it's mocking and belittling, I don't respond well to it.  When it's matter-of-fact and mentions things I can do, I'm more open to it.  Of course, there are many people in the world who have bosses who delight in the former sort of criticism.  Many of them learn to cope with it and not to let it bother them the rest of the day.  Some are more successful at this than others are.

Julie Nixon Eisenhower's Pat Nixon: The Untold Story 9

I finished Julie Nixon Eisenhower's Pat Nixon: The Untold Story.

1.  Julie recounts that her mother as First Lady was devoted to reading and responding to her mail, and to helping people whenever she could.  On page 323, Julie tells about a time that her mother helped a first-time offender who was having difficulty finding work:

"An impoverished young girl wrote Mrs. Nixon and confided she had been caught shoplifting and had been unable since then to get a job.  An impersonal letter expressing 'concern' was attached to the girl's letter and then placed in one of the bulging brown folders of mail destined for the small wooden table for messages outside Mrs. Nixon's bedroom.  When my mother got to the letter, she wrote across the top, 'Gwen, this is fine but it doesn't really help her, does it?'  Rewritten, the letter referred the girl to a Civil Service rehabilitation program for first-time offenders, and eventually she was employed.  One more person had been helped."

I love this story for three reasons.  First, Mrs. Nixon helped someone whom not everyone would want to help.  Her attitude was not "She made her bed, now let her sleep in it."  Some may criticize Julie's book by saying that it portrays her mother as a saint.  Frankly, after reading a couple of books that portray Pat as a chain-smoking drunk or as an empty shell of a woman, seeing Pat's altruism highlighted is quite refreshing.  Second, it interests me that Mrs. Nixon referred the young lady to a government program.  That reinforces in my mind that we don't have to choose between the government helping people and people helping people, for both can work together as a team.  Mrs. Nixon apparently had that mindset in this case, even though it seems to me (from what Julie says) that Pat Nixon held a number of politically conservative positions.  Third, Pat used her power for good.  Why have power if it won't be used for good?  Pat's power, in this case, was that she had access to information that many people probably did not have: that there was a government program that could help first-time offenders get a job.

2.  On page 149, Julie summarizes Pat Nixon's views about the controversial Red-hunting Senator, Joseph McCarthy:

"My mother wanted to believe that Joe McCarthy had his facts straight and that those he charged as being Communists would soon be out of government.  The experience of the Hiss case had convinced her that the issue of Communist infiltration was a real one.  Moreover, during her 1953 world trip, she had been disturbed by the number of State Department officials, most of them long-term careerists, who seemed to be lukewarm advocates of our own government and apologists for local insurgencies and, occasionally, Communism.  Some had gone so far as to tell her outright that the people of the country where they served would be better off under Communism.  Even as growing numbers of Americans questioned McCarthy's sincerity, my mother resolved not to do so, but she soon recognized that with his reckless charges, sloppy research, and insatiable desire for headlines, he was his own worse enemy."

I like this passage because it gives insight into Pat's political views, and the basis for one of her positions.  Personally, I'm doubtful that the State Department people who expressed some sympathy towards Communism were themselves card-carrying Communists, but my guess is that they were well-meaning people who thought that Communism was better for the poor than the poverty that they were experiencing.  Was it still dangerous for the U.S. to have such people in the State Department, when the Cold War was going on?  Well, I don't condone Communism, for I recognize that it was (and, to some extent, still is) a tyrannical and brutal system.  Still, I do believe that there should have been people in the government who were compassionate towards the poor, who recognized the existence of systemic problems, and who tried to see Third World countries as something more than pawns in the Cold War.  I don't entirely know what the U.S. could have done in situations where peasants were mobilizing into Communist movements as a way to ameliorate their conditions: How could the U.S. have addressed humanitarian concerns, while still fighting Communism?  My impression is that this was easier said than done!  Not long ago, I watched a movie called Path to War, which was about America's growing involvement in the Vietnam War during the Lyndon Johnson Administration.  Johnson desired to help Vietnam in a humanitarian sense, but Ho Chi Minh did not want that help, according to Johnson in the movie.

3.  On pages 446-447, Julie criticizes the book The Final Days, by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, which portrayed Pat Nixon as one who drank heavily and the marriage between Richard and Pat as cold.  Julie is skeptical about the authors' claim that they only included stories that were confirmed by at least two sources.  She quotes Ray Price, who said that this means that "if two people have heard the same rumor, [the writers] weave a story around it, wrap it in manufactured detail and sprinkle it with quotation marks, and present the story as fact" (Price's words).  Julie also quotes a public statement made by her husband David Eisenhower, who was interviewed by one of The Final Days' authors.  When David was asked about the interview by the Washington Post, the Post distorted David's response, Julie quotes David as saying.  David denied to the Post that the Nixons had an unhappy marriage, saying that such a notion was "a general characterization of that relationship which would require forty-five minutes to rebut, forty-five minutes the reporter and I did not have" (David's words).  The Post, however, just quoted David's statement that the notion was "a general characterization".  David went on in his public statement to say that "The Nixon family is a close family", and that "The love and respect of each for all is a beautiful thing."

I've read a couple of anti-Nixon books that use material from interviews.  A question that enters my mind after reading Julie's account on pages 446-447 is: Did they quote their sources accurately?  I don't know.  I don't dismiss everything that they said, for some quotes are hard to put into a positive or a neutral context: if a quote looks negative about Nixon, it looks negative about Nixon, and I can't envision a context for that quote that would make it positive!  At the same time, I am open to the possibility that there may be more to people's thoughts than what they expressed on one or more occasions to an interviewer.

Nixon Reconsidered 8

I finished Joan Hoff's Nixon Reconsidered.  I have three items.

1.  I liked something that Hoff said on pages 344-345:

"...the parents of those born after 1974 either strongly opposed or supported Nixon for reasons their children still do not quite understand: 'My parents hate him,' one of my students responded on a questionnaire asking why she was taking a class on Nixon, 'and I want to know why.'"

Why did I like this passage?  I can't really say.  I guess it's because it warms my heart to see people wanting to learn more about the world around them, due to something in their background that they don't quite understand.

I was one of the people born after 1974.  What did my parents think about Richard Nixon?  My impression is that they neither hated him nor loved him.  They believed that he was a shady politician, but they didn't have high expectations about politicians, in general.

Although my parents didn't appear (at least to me) to have strong opinions about Nixon, there were a couple of times when they expressed an opinion about him.  When I was in the sixth grade, I was reading The Final Days, by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.  The back cover quoted the New York Times saying about the book: "Unprecedented....Mr. Nixon emerges as a tragic figure weathering a catastrophic ordeal...and weathering it with considerable courage and dignity."  When I read that quote to my Mom, she responded that she felt that way about Nixon during Watergate.

My Dad one time told a story about a conversation that his father had with someone about Nixon.  A relative was really gun-ho about Nixon, saying that Nixon would be a great President, and my Grandpa retorted, "Nixon will be the last President, and, not only that, he will be the worst President."  My Dad in telling the story may have been implying that my Grandpa was not too far off the mark: while Nixon did not turn out to be our last President, Nixon's Presidency did end on a dismal note.

2.  On pages 345-346, Hoff talks about how Nixon during the 1990's was deemed by many to be authentic:
"He insisted on speaking out on issues, especially foreign policy ones; he looked like a real person, not a talking head, on television; he stood for something rather than nothing or everything, as is now the trendy postmodern fashion...Nixon's potential appeal by the early 1990s because of his own 'real' look was lost on him; he once said to me that 'blow-dry hair is now as important as brains' when running for office.  It is truly a postmodern moment when Richard Nixon, who had to deal with charges of inauthenticity all his public life, became more real and authentic than the totally packaged variety of contemporary politician."

Throughout Richard Nixon's political career, there were many who did not regard Nixon as particularly authentic.  With all of the "new Nixons" coming out, many wondered who the real Nixon was.  According to Hoff, however, Nixon during the 1990's was regarded by many as more authentic than most of the politicians who were on the scene.  I can attest to that, on some level.  I was watching a YouTube clip of David Frost's interview of Nixon, in which Nixon was responding to Frost's questions about Watergate.  One of the commenters said that she liked Nixon because he was comfortable with being who he was.  Granted, this clip was of an interview of Nixon from the late 1970's, not the 1990's.  But I could see the commenter's point.  I don't know if Nixon was telling the truth or not in the Frost interviews, but he did come across to me as authentic, as a real person.  I have the same impression whenever I watch Nixon's Checkers Speech from 1952----and this is a speech that detractors consider to be particularly inauthentic, with its staged den and Nixon's sappy reference to the family dog.  Many say that Nixon was uncomfortable in his own skin, and they may be right.  But there were a number of times when Nixon came across as authentic, as if he were conveying a message of "This is who I am, take it or leave it."

3.  For this third item, I'll offer my general assessments of Hoff's book.  Overall, the book has a lot about policy, and I had to reread parts to grasp what exactly Hoff was narrating.  The book is important, but it is very dry, in areas.  At the same time, I enjoyed Hoff's anecdotes about her interviews with Nixon.  In terms of her argument that President Nixon had significant and progressive accomplishments in domestic policy, she may be right about that, but I wish that she addressed certain liberal arguments against Nixon's domestic policy.  For example, a number of progressives were critical of Nixon's welfare reform plan of giving cash benefits to the poor, maintaining that the funding would not be adequate.  Hoff should have addressed that charge by saying whether or not the poor would have been able to live on the amount of money that Nixon's plan would give them.  Another point that I would like to make is that I found Hoff to be rather elliptical, in places.  She seemed to agree that the Joint Chiefs of Staff was bugging the National Security Council, for example, but I wanted her to go into more detail about why it would do this.

Good book, though!

Ambrose's Nixon: Ruin and Recovery 1

I started Stephen Ambrose's Nixon: Ruin and Recovery, 1973-1990.  This is the third volume of Ambrose's trilogy on Richard Nixon.

This volume will talk a lot about the Watergate scandal.  For my blog post today, I'll use as my starting-point something that Ambrose says on page 10:

"This is a play that does not edify or enlighten or uplift.  There is no moral lesson to be learned from a play in which many of the characters, much of the time, are rotters.  Yet there is a hero...That hero is the American system of justice, as embodied in the Constitution."

To be honest with you, the Watergate scandal does not particularly interest me.  I'm doing a Year (or More) of Nixon, in which I read and blog through books about Richard Nixon.  But I don't have a great desire to read about Watergate.  I have John Dean's book, Blind Ambition, but I don't particularly want to read it (at least not anytime soon).  I also have G. Gordon Liddy's autobiography Will, which probably won't be on my Year (or More) of Nixon reading list.  I could order books by the key players in the Nixon Administration for a fairly cheap price----by H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, and the list goes on.  I could also order Judge Sirica's book about Watergate.  But I'm just not interested in the details of Watergate.

I do plan to read a couple of books about Watergate, though.  I was debating about reading Silent Coup, but I've decided to read it at some point in my Year (or More) of Nixon.  From what I've heard about it, the book's thesis is quite edgy, but it was praised by Roger Morris (who wrote a renowned book about Nixon), and John Mitchell (Nixon's friend and one of his Attorneys General) apparently thought that the book was on to something.  And, looking at Monica Crowley's Nixon in Winter, Nixon himself seemed to have taken Silent Coup seriously, on some level.  So I might as well read it!  It must be more than tabloid-type speculation!  I'm also planning to read The Final Days, by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.  One reason is that I tried to read this book as a kid, and (while I enjoyed the book) I did not finish it.  I like to read books that I tried to read as a kid but did not get through.  That's what I did with Richard Nixon's Six Crises!  Second, Woodward and Bernstein have excellent prose.  I just have to read The Final Days!

In reading Nixon's memoirs, I did not like reading and blogging about Watergate.  Nixon had interesting insights in his discussion of the scandal: his struggle to find a coherent narrative of what actually happened, and how we may not recognize the significance of what we are doing while we are in a particular situation, as opposed to looking at it in a big-picture or retrospective sense.  But, overall, his discussion of the Watergate scandal bored me.

Why?  I think it's because there were no heroes in it, which is the point that Ambrose makes.  Even in Nixon's own account, he did not come off smelling like a rose.  And, although I didn't care for Nixon's complaining about the hypocrisy of those who were going after him, that sort of talk did convince me of one thing: I didn't consider Nixon's persecutors to be heroes, either!  Do I consider the American system of justice to be the hero?  Well, I've been inspired when I've heard that point on documentaries: that the American system was stable and went on, even though the President resigned.  There is something inspiring whenever the American system is based on law rather than the whims of the powerful.  But I don't need to read that point over and over again.

Watergate was a tragedy.  It was an unhappy ordeal.  It's depressing to read about.  I'd like to think highly of Nixon, since I identify with his introversion and think that he did some pretty remarkable things.  But he really dropped the ball with Watergate.

But there may be a silver lining in this third volume of Ambrose's book: that Nixon (on some level) recovered from the Watergate scandal.  I like what Ambrose says on page 10:

"Incredibly, unbelievably, he does come back.  Were this really a play, instead of real life, the story would end with his resignation.  But Nixon is Nixon.  There is no one else like him for refusing to quit, for plotting and executing comebacks, for winning redemption, for self-resurrection.  Within a decade and a half of his resignation, he had not only become America's elder statesman but was threatening to become America's beloved elder statesman."

Ambrose concludes his Forward with "I have loved writing this book."  That's one reason for me to read it, even if I'm not particularly interested in Watergate: Ambrose loves his subject matter, and that really shows in his writing.