Details

Subject(s)

• United States—Politics and government—1969-1974 [Browse]
• Nixon, Richard M. (Richard Milhous) 1913-1994 [Browse]

Summary note

• Synopsis: William Safire was a speechwriter for Richard Nixon from 1968 to 1973. During that time, as a Washington insider, Safire was able to observe the thirty-seventh president in his entirety: as noble and mean-spirited; as good and bad; as a man desirous of greatness. Rarely has there been a White House memoir more intimate or revealing in its exploration of the great events that took place "before the fall" of Watergate. In this anecdotal history, Nixon and his associates come alive, not as caricatures, but as men with high and low purpose: Henry Kissinger, William Rogers, H.R. (Bob) Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, Charles Colson, and Arthur Burns struggle not just for power, but for ideals.^
• As William Safire says in his Prologue: "In this memoir, which is neither a biography of [Nixon] nor an autobiography of me nor a narrative history of our times, there is an attempt to figure out what was good and bad about him, what he was trying to do and how well he succeeded, how he used and affected some of the people around him, and an effort not to lose sight of all that went right in examining what went wrong." The book is divided into ten sections, in which run three main themes: the President, the Partisan, and the Person. As a president, Safire discusses Nixon and the Vietnam War, foreign policy, economics, and race relations. As a partisan, he discusses Nixon's attempt to form an alignment across party lines, successful in many respects before the president tolerated the excesses that eventually corrupted his administration.^
• And as a person, Safire finds that Nixon was a mixture of Woodrow Wilson, Machiavelli, Theodore Roosevelt, and Shakespeare's Cassius--an idealistic conniver evoking the strenuous life while he thinks too much. This paperback edition of a classic primary source for historians includes a new introduction by its author. Studded with direct quotations that put the reader in the room where history was being made, Before the Fall is a realistic, shades-of-gray study of the Nixon years.

Notes

• Originally published: Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday, 1975.
• Includes index.

Action note

Committed to retain in perpetuity — ReCAP Shared Collection (HUL)

Contents

• Preface to the transaction edition
• Preface to the 1977 edition
• Prologue
• Part 1: Comeback:
• 1: Twenty Broad Street
• 2: Dear Nelson
• 3: Turning point
• 4: Washin' dirty dishes
• 5: Man who
• 6: Nixon's the one
• Part 2: It Sure Beats Losing:
• 1: Man at the Wilson desk
• 2: Interregnum
• 3: No end runs
• Part 3: Bone In The Throat:
• 1: Hello, Europe
• 2: New isolationists
• 3: Tale of two bridges
• 4: Kennedy criterion
• 5: Henry the K
• 6: Silent majority
• 7: Cambodian decision
• 8: Night at the Lincoln Memorial
• Part 4: Lowered Voices:
• 1: New Federalism
• 2: Wayward bus
• 3: Damngovernment
• 4: Rise of John Mitchell
• 5: Loners stick together
• 6: Nixon's Haldeman
• 7: Loomings
• 8: Swearing-in
• Part 5: Seeds Of Destruction:
• 1: Us against them
• 2: 70 campaign begins
• 3: Way to San Jose
• 4: Good honest appraisal
• 5: Press is the enemy
• 6: To Peking in secret
• Part 6: High Adventure:
• 1: State of the world
• 2: Secret negotiations, inside and out
• 3: China report
• 4: Guns of April
• 5: Road to Moscow
• 6: Moscow summit
• Part 7: Mudding Along On The Home Front:
• 1: Nixon's Ehrilchman
• 2: Wayward bus revisited
• 3: Hardball
• 4: President falls in love
• 5: Economic summit
• 6: Ad lib
• Part 8: New Majority:
• 1: Two-ideology system
• 2: Nixon and the Catholics
• 3: Nixon and the Jews
• 4: Work ethic
• 5: Labor rewards its friends
• Part 9: Private Man:
• 1: There is a there there
• 2: Alone together: Pat Nixon
• 3: Bebe
• 4: Hideaway
• 5: Julie
• Part 10: Man In The Arena:
• 1: Fall of John Mitchell
• 2: Campaign that never was
• 3: Bizarre incident
• 4: Christmas bombs
• 5: Peace with honor
• 6: Best year ever
• Epilogue
• Index.

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ISBN

1412804663 (pbk. : acid-free paper)

LCCN

^^2005041717

OCLC

57531447

RCP

H - S

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