Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full

"The author is a crook." A political science professor said this to me when I was half way through the book, "but he writes good biographies". I was intrigued. I googled the author of the book, Conrad Black, and found that he was sentenced to prison because of inside trading. True story.

"The book tries to justify Nixon's legacy", a review criticized. "Conrad Black and Nixon both have the ability to convince themselves that imaginative facts are real", a friend in history commented sarcastically. How biased is the book? Should I stop reading it? I asked myself.

Maybe it is good to have someone like Black to write Nixon. as observed by Franklin D. Roosevelt: "It takes a thief to catch a thief". Reading the book, one can clearly tell Black identifies with Nixon. He was thinking in Nixon's shoes, pondering each hard decision as if it is his own decision to make,  essentially relived Nixon's life as if it was his own.

So it is a great book. The best part is how the author interpret Nixon's political calculations in his way to power. Nixon as an underdog exhibits the incredible political skills in forming alliance, attacking enemies, give and take, shock and awe. In "the Great Train Robbery", Nixon shows his ruthless Machiavellian skill by selling out his old ally to the powerful new boss, Eisenhower. In the "fund crisis" when Eisenhower wanted to ditch a rumour inflicted Nixon, Nixon took his enemies by surprise: he directly reached to the general public, gave his "checkers speech" in TV, refuted the rumour, won the support from the people, and had a full come-back. Black made all of these episodes alive.

Nixon also exhibits an incredible perseverance. When he lost his first bid for presidency to John F. Kennedy, and two years later, governorship of California to some unknown candidates. Everyone thought he's over. In politics, much depends on perceptions. Quote George R.R. Martin, "Power resides where men believe it resides. No more and no less." It is hard to imagine someone who has lost the perception could come back.  Yet he did come back eight years later, as the president of the United States. This contrasts to the sad story of Lyndon B. Johnson, the president before Nixon. LBJ made a huge mistake in plunging the U.S. into Vietnam war. Unlike Nixon, he never came out of it. He didn't run for re-election, gave up fighting, and smoke heavily, and became over-weight.  According to his intimate friend, "He basically waited to die." He died at an age of 65, four years after his presidency. In comparison, despite all the ridicules and criticism after Watergate, Nixon lived to 82. He told Chou Enlai on this defeat and come-back: "hope when my life is over, I’ll have one more victory than defeat."

Despite of his astonishing intelligence and endurance, it is hard to like Nixon as a person always neurotic, awkward, cynical and ungracious. Although Black tries to minimize the Watergate controversy, it is a hard sell. His downfall reveals the flaws of his character: he never commands the magnanimity of a president. His humble background may explain his insecurity facing the hostility of the establishment, but cannot justify his nasty way to deal with it. As the political science professor said, "Many presidents came from humble backgrounds: Clinton's father died before Clinton's born, and the step father is an alcoholic who almost killed Clinton's mother. Obama does not even have a father. Lincoln's mother died when Lincoln was 9. But...  they all rise above it."