Rick Perlstein's Nixonland: The Rise of a President & the Fracturing of America

One of my more recent posts reviewed Robert Caro's The Passage of Power--The Years of Lyndon Johnson, and I found it a remarkable work. That reading prompted me to go back to a book that I started but had left, although I had found it quite engaging, Rick Perlstein's Nixonland. In short, one great book led me to another. 

However, before I get into the crux of my review, two points by way of an introduction. First, Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson were the two most influential and significant politicians of post-WWII America during their time in office. (Ike was really a relic of an earlier era, and JFK was like a streaking meteor, significant but so brief). Second, I think that I need to digress into my personal history to help the reader understand my fascination with Nixonland in particular.

In 1960, I supported Richard Nixon for president. 

I was in the second grade. 

I had attended a Nixon campaign stop in Red Oak with my parents. They supported Nixon, of course (my mom's Catholicism notwithstanding). My parents woke me after I'd gone to bed to tell me that Nixon had lost.

From there, my Republican bona fides continued as follows: sometime in 1961 or 1962, Republican Governor Norm Erbe came to our house, and he gave me an autographed copy of the Iowa Official Register.  (I thought it a great gift.) I attended election returns with my father at  KMA, the local radio station, in 1962. In 1964 I was at the Republican national convention in San Francisco that nominated Barry Goldwater as its presidential candidate. I'm happy to report that we attended because my father worked for rival candidate William Scranton, then governor of Pennsylvania.

Also, sometime that year, I attended the Page County Republican convention, where there was a move afoot to oust my dad as Page County Republican Central Committee chairman by the Goldwaterites. He prevailed, despite his connection with the moderate Scranton. In 1966, I served as a page at the state party convention. In 1968, I attended the Republican National Convention in Miami Beach with my father (who went to sell political surveys, run a charter group, and hobnob with party leaders). That convention nominated Richard Nixon for president, and later that year he was elected. I was a sophomore in high school. 

When Nixon ran for reelection in 1972, I was a sophomore college at the University of Iowa, a very different place from Shenandoah in Page County--very different. I had been exposed to a lot of new perspectives, and I changed many of my perspectives, although not radically so. I worked on behalf of the moderate Republican congressman in that district, Fred Schwengel (he lost). Jack Miller, the U.S. senator, was also up for reelection, but I pulled the trigger for his Democratic challenger, Dick Clark. (I'd met Miller, too, but by that time I thought him a dud.) And for president, I had to choose between George McGovern and Nixon. When I went to vote . . .  I couldn't mark the ballot for either one of them because I found both of them deeply flawed. I left it blank. 

Less than two years after that lop-sided election, Richard Nixon fell from power. I got married about a week later, and I continued my gradual drift toward the political left. The Republican Party, in the meantime, began lurching to the far right, where it is today. 

I share all of this with you to help you understand why I found this book so fascinating. Much of it recounts events that occurred while I was in grade school, junior high, and high school. And while I followed politics much more closely than my peers, I was also quite caught up with sports, school, friends, and (eventually) girls (one in particular). I can look back on this era and realized how crazy, out of control, and momentous it all was. How Richard Nixon was truly the figure of Shakespeare's Richard III, who could "set the murderous Machiavel to school." The liberals (most Democrats and even some Republicans), on the other hand, were naive, foolish, and given to the greatest hubris. Middle America was scared, and rightly so.

Perlstein presents this history using the figure of Richard Nixon as the central barometer of the age (the "plastic man" as Garry Wills dubbed him). Perlstein recounts a wide variety of events: urban riots, Viet Nam protests, civil rights demands, and cultural changes through reviewing the original sources, such as newspaper accounts, as well as going back and reading what the many commissions and investigations reported (and which were overwhelmingly ignored). Events like the Chicago Democratic Convention was marked by radicals, clowns, mobs, and police riots (yes, you read that correctly). The political world was in chaos. The Democrats were a mess. 

If all of this wasn't scary enough, the election of Richard Nixon marks the ascent of a deeply troubled--and troubling-- man into the White House. Nixon said (and did) some things in public that seemed eminently reasonable and rational. He figured himself a Disraeli-like reforming Tory, but in private, he was, as he always had been, a "serial collector of resentments" (a term that someone coined but I can't recall whom and I don't have a copy of Perlstein's book to check the reference. Sorry.) He was nearly paranoid and often vengeful. And from this, came the incredibly stupid, venal,  and disgraceful matter of Watergate. Perlstein deals with it all, step by step. 

All of this is relevant today. History is the flow of the river of time, and what occurs upstream flows downstream, adulterated and reduced, but in this case, still visible. The culture wars seem to have played themselves out, at least as an outcome determinative matter in elections, and economic issues will likely be the measure of this election. Also, there appears to be the growing perception that Obama is a man of restraint and moderation. Romney, on the other hand, must carry the ideological baggage of the political right while he sees the world through the eyes of privilege at the highest levels of society. Many voters seem to sense the disconnect. Anyway, how we arrived at the political environment today comes through this turbulent era and through this vexing man Richard Nixon. Pearlstein does a superb job of recounting how it all unfolded. 

A terrific book.

One of Perlstein’s most important and acknowledged sources is Garry Wills’ Nixon Agonistes, one of my all-time favorite books. The Inscrutable Panda tells me it’s still recommended for students of American politics by faculty at her university, to attest to its measure. If you find this topic engaging, I highly recommend this book to you.

A Great Book: Robert Caro's The Passage of Power

I don't think that I call a book "great" too often, although I usually find those that I am quite enthusiastic about (if I finish it, it's held me). But for this book, the combination of the author and the subject (LBJ) is a perfect storm of a biography. In this volume, the fourth in the "Years of Lyndon Johnson", Caro follows his subject  from 1958 to about mid-1964. During this time, Johnson went from serving as the dominant figure in the Senate as the Senate majority leader, to a failed presidential candidate (and a reluctant and belated one at that, despite his longing to reach the presidency). Then, out of nowhere seemingly--and much to the chagrin of his brother Bobby--John Kennedy chose Johnson as his veep. While John Kennedy seemed to respect Johnson, Bobby Kennedy hated and despised him. Johnson knew this, and he reciprocated the feeling. As Garry Wills noted in his review of the book, this hatred brought out the worst in both men.

As vice-president, Johnson languished, excluded from the Kennedy inner-circle and ignored even in congressional matters, where his knowledge and experience could not be matched. LBJ could only watch as Kennedy's legislative program went nowhere. By 1963, the Bobby Baker scandal was brewing, while former Johnson protege John Connelly was governor of Texas and feeling his own oats. Things looked bleak for Johnson, he'd even lost his clout in Texas. Then, as he rode through the streets of Dallas behind John Kennedy, shots cracked and Johnson was shoved the floor of his car. Not long after, Kennedy aide Ken O'Donnell came into a room where Johnson has been secluded by the Secret Service, and told him, "he's gone". With this Johnson became president, and a changed man.

Caro, from this point forward, details the steps that Johnson took to make his succession work. From the swearing in with the blood-stained Jackie Kennedy at this side to his wooing of Kennedy aides, Johnson orchestrated the passage. Through talks with governors, congressman, and others in government, Johnson worked to keep the power of the presidency in tack and working. While the nation grieved and watched the spectacle of the Kennedy last rites, Johnson worked.

After this immediate time of abrupt change, Johnson realized that he could now accomplish things, that he was no longer a bystander, no longer another Southern senator. As Caro describes it, Johnson's passions now matched his ambitions, and one of his passions was justice for the poor and downtrodden, including those black and brown. Johnson immediately began to work to get the Kennedy tax cut through Congress (by making a deal with Harry Byrd, the budget watchdog from Virginia), and Johnson, despite warnings to the contrary, pushed the civil rights bill--and got it passed. It was an amazing and under-appreciated display of political mastery that left the nation better off.

Caro foreshadows the fall that Lyndon Johnson would suffer after his election later in 1964. Many of the traits that marred him, which he'd suppressed during this transition, came back to the forefront. Vietnam, of course, lurks as a monster that we know comes to devour Johnson and the peace of the nation. But for now, we have this amazing portrait of redemption and success, one brief shining moment, if you will, when in the dark time of mourning, Lyndon Johnson did the right things. Happily, this extraordinary biographer, who maps the arc of Johnson's life, has proven equal to the task. Pray that Caro enjoys long life so that we can read the next chapter, the tragedy, that we know befalls our protagonist.

Garry Wills on Lawyers & Politicians

The previous post let me back into reading some of the "Elites" chapters that I mentioned in that post. I particularly enjoyed chapter "Politicians", which Wills spells out his understanding of their role (and which anticipates the recent NYRB post about the Unger position). Because this book appears to be out of print (not many of his are!), I thought I should share this quote about lawyers and politicians. I've not been a politician, but I've observed and read a great deal (now in the great Caro biography of LBJ), and I have been a lawyer for over 30 years now, so I think that I can affirm a good deal of what Wills writes.

It is not accidental that most of our politicians were educated as lawyers for do... . Many have criticized the tenets of legal training and its effect on the politicians who share this kind of training. Jimmy Breslin grumbled yesterday, and Macaulay, a hundred years ago. It is easy to understand their objections. The lawyer's skills are negotiatory, technical, mediating, neutral. He acts as an expert adviser for a client, not as a creative thinker or framer of his own views. It is his job to make the maximum claim on his client's behalf -- whether to a jury, an insurance company, the  IRS, a sued or suing  opponent, a partner in divorce proceedings. He speaks for one client today, another tomorrow; one side now, a different one later. The neutral agent is not a friend of one side, and therefore no enemy to the other side. Legal adversaries can exchange their lawyers, and the only difference (if any) will be in their technical skills. Having made the maximum claim for his own client, and expected a similar maximum claim from the other side, a lawyer must forge the terms of settlement and advises clients on them. If our own lawyer made less than the maximum legal claim for us--out of ignorance, or reticence, or rectitude -- we would feel cheated. His services were not fully at our disposal; part was kept to indulge himself.

    So the critics of the lawyer background shared by so many of our politicians are dead wrong. No better training can be found for them. They, too, a struggle with each other, yet be friends the next day; make maximum claims as bargaining points, but aim at a compromise settlement; satisfy most people somewhat rather than a few people fully; represent diversity by muting differences; always be more neutral than hostile; dealing  in increments and margins only, but you'll constantly; always adjusting, hedging, giving in a little, gaining a little; creeping towards one's goals, not heroically striving there; always leaving oneself an out, a loophole, a proviso -- what Willmoore Kendall used to call "a verbal parachute," so that no alliance is irrevocable, no opposition adamant.

 Confessions, 175-176.

The rest of the chapter is well worth it, and, I must say, Wills has always made me want to read the likes of Macaulay, Bagehot,  Belloc, Johnson, Hume, and the like; literary writers who addressed politics.

In Praise of Audio Books

This article about audio with kids & this one on more generally on audio books highlights a favorite pass  time of mine: being read  to. I almost always have a book or lecture going in my car. From Moby Dick to The Illiad to The Great Gatsby, I've enjoyed them as much or more by having them read to me. And as to kids books, The Giver and The Witches pop to mind immediately as a part of our trips to Michigan!  I received a great deal of pleasure reading the our daughters--1HP even suffered me to read to her in high school (she's old enough to admit it now) from the instructional & enigmatic Sophie's World.


Great readers & performers? Of course, the great Shakespearean actors reading Shakespeare: Geilgud, Olivier, Burton, Guiness, etc. (I often go back to Burton reading John Donne, too--what a treat!). George Guidall will always be the voice of the great phyisician-essayist Lewis Thomas to me, and Frank Muller brought Moby Dick to life in a way that a couple of futile attempts at reading it could not.

Perhaps I should join the author of the second article in listening to Caro's lastest installment his incredible LBJ biography. Hmmm, maybe. But in the not too distant future, I won't have a car. Listening as I drive makes me a much happier driver. (Currently listening  to Thinking, Fast & Slow: highly recommended.)

Garry Wills on Caro on LBJ & Bobby

Garry Wills is a master writer and biographer of--among others-- Nixon & the Kennedy clan. Robert Caro, is perhaps the great biographer of our times, and his recently published The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson takes on a time that seems far away, but is well within the memory of many of us. In this piece, Wills does a riff on Caro's work. Wills notes that one of the great themes arising from Caro's most recent volume is the hatred between LBJ & Bobby Kennedy. Hatred, as an important component of this book, overrides, at least in part, Caro's grand theme of the exercise and struggle for political power in mid-20th century America. This piece is a delight, but as Wills notes, the hatred between Kennedy and Johnson brought out the worst in both of them. As Wills describes it, it's like watching two trains colliding head-on.

Fascinating Interview with Robert Caro by Charlie Rose

This interview is about 3 years old, but on the eve of publication of Caro's latest installment, it's worth watching. In anticipation I took up Master of the Senate, volume 3 of the Years of Lyndon Johnson (winner of the Pulitzer Prize). Great pros and great scene setting mark this effort. Caro mentions some of his method in the interview. He is a masterful biographer, and whether you love Lyndon (does anyone?) or hate him (too easy a judgment), this ongoing biography is a fascinating account of his life and times.