The Memoirs of Richard Nixon

New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1978. Presumed First Printing. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. xii, 1120,[4] pages. Illus., index, DJ in plastic sleeve. Signed by the author. Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913 - April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 until 1974. A member of the Republican Party, Nixon previously served as the 36th vice president from 1953 to 1961, having risen to national prominence as a representative and senator from California. After five years in the White House that saw the conclusion to the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, d�tente with the Soviet Union and China, and the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency, he became the only president to resign from the office, following the Watergate scandal. He graduated from Duke University School of Law in 1937 and returned to California to practice law. He and his wife Pat moved to Washington in 1942 to work for the federal government. He served on active duty in the Navy Reserve during World War II. He was elected to the House of Representatives in 1946. His pursuit of the Hiss Case established his reputation as a leading anti-Communist which elevated him to national prominence. In 1950, he was elected to the Senate. He was the running mate of Dwight D. Eisenhower, subsequently serving for eight years as the vice president. In 1968, he ran for the presidency and was elected, defeating Hubert Humphrey and George Wallace in a close election. Nixon ended American involvement in Vietnam in 1973, ending the military draft that same year. Nixon's visit to China in 1972 eventually led to diplomatic relations, and he gained the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with the Soviet Union. Derived from a Kirkus review: "I intended to play the role of the President right to the hilt and right to the end." Thus RN, whose words read less like memos here than they did in the newspaper excerpts and more like the last will and testament of a fighter who never willingly gave ground. Had he been urged to resign, he avers, he would have rebelled; and his review of the two occasions - the "secret fund" crisis, the second v.p. nomination - when he felt himself crowded and didn't cave in, back up his claim. "And tell them I know something about politics too!" he quotes himself as shouting over the phone, in the first instance, to a wheedling, dissembling Tom Dewey. He was a mere freshman senator then, built up by the Hiss case, but always had ideas of his own. Not public affairs: He had nothing against communism, he says, until Churchill's Iron Curtain speech. So it's when he's talking politics that his celebrated caginess becomes an asset and his acumen is in evidence; and only then, too, is he interesting about people. Poor Rose Mary Woods, for instance, turns up unheralded, whereas Bob Haldeman scores for spotting the potential of campaigning-by-TV, not whistle-stop train. By the same token, while the extensive travels are, dull, the final days are distinctly not: Intent on being a leader from the time when, four years out of law school, he was president of every organization in sight, he is fully aware of what's slipping away. He records the silence - instead of the usual applause - that greeted his entrance to the last Cabinet meeting, the "sober, noncommittal" faces as he thanks his aides for their support; and like a prospective suicide, he imagines the effect his farewell cables will have on Chou and Chairman Mao, "in Cairo and Tel Aviv, in Damascus and Amman" - where, "eight weeks ago, I had been accorded unprecedented acclaim." How the mightiest fell: the pages carry weight.