Richard Nixon

Zusatztext 47594520 Informationen zum Autor JOHN A. FARRELL is the author of Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned ! which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography! and Tip O'Neill and the Democratic Century . A longtime journalist! he worked at The Denver Post and at The Boston Globe! where he served as White House correspondent and on the vaunted Spotlight team. Klappentext From a prize-winning biographer! this charts the life of America's disgraced 37th President. Chapter 1 The Dragon Slayer The United States had throttled its foes with steel. Now it was time to stand down and go home. Navy lieutenant John Renneburg was stationed at the Glenn L. Martin Company aeronautics complex near Baltimore in the summer of 1945. It was a sprawling plant where the firm's big flying boats were built, then tested on the Chesapeake's tranquil waters. In a single year at the conflict's peak, American factories churned out ninety-six thousand warplanesalmost as many as those manufactured by Nazi Germany in seven years of war. The Martin plant was emblematic: one of the largest aviation works in the world, with fifty thousand employees building seaplanes, bombers, and other aircraft. With victory, the nation faced a vast demobilization. The press brimmed with foreboding about the pain of reconversion to a peacetime economy. The army sent out thirty thousand telegrams canceling 95 percent of its orders for artillery, tanks, and other instruments of war. The navy stopped construction on a hundred ships. What the government needed now were regiments of lawyers to settle its contracts. That was Lieutenant Renneburg's job until new orders arrived. He was going home, just as soon as he could train a replacement. The man the navy sent was a dark-haired, dark-eyed veteran of the fighting in the Pacific, Lieutenant Richard Nixon. After returning from the Solomon Islands, Nixon had been given a course on federal contracting. He and his wife, Pat, bounced from Washington to Philadelphia to New York and ultimately to Stansbury Manor, a complex of two-story apartment buildings on a cove near the Martin airfield. In this pleasant backwater, he and Renneburg spent their days haggling with the firm's accountants on behalf of the navy's Bureau of Aeronautics. Renneburg found Nixon smart and serious, yet amiable. The work was demanding, and about the only chance we would have to relax would be when we would walk down to the officers' mess, a bit more than a quarter mile away. They spoke about music, for which they were both enthusiasts, and swapped stories about their wartime experiences. Inevitably, the conversation turned to civilian life, Renneburg remembered, and one day I asked him what he was planning to do. It was a warm day, Indian summer. Nixon didn't really know, he told his colleague as they ambled. The navy had offered him a promotion to commander. The world of business beckoned, and he and Pat were entranced by Manhattan. If nothing else turned up, his law partners had kept his old job open in his little hometown of Whittier, California. And thenout of the blue, Nixon saidhe had gotten a letter from some folks back home who wanted him to run for Congress. It was a long shot: he would be chal- lenging a five-term incumbent. Nevertheless, intrigued, he had waited for the cheaper nightly long-distance rates and discussed it over the telephone. I'm not a politician, Nixon told Renneburg. I probably would be defeated. I hope they didn't reverse the charges, his colleague said. No, they didn't. Nixon smiled. They seemed to be serious. Renneburg urged him to accept the offer. He admired Nixon's qualities and thought he'd make a good congressmana voice for a new generation in uniform coming home from war and seeking to build a better world. Even if you get defeated, you mig...

ldquo;Beautifully written and deeply insightful . . . A bracing portrait of a man untethered from principle and ideology, driven throughout his life to win at any cost and thereby palliate his deep-seated insecurities . . . Nixon was not an easy man to understand. And even now, his failures and accomplishments are not easy to classify. In Farrell’s capable hands, however, we see Nixon in his entirety—and we can’t help but wonder what he means for our politics today.”
—William Howell, San Francisco Chronicle

"[Nixon is] an electrifying subject, a muttering Lear, of perennial interest to anyone with even an average curiosity about politics or psychology. The real test of a good Nixon biography, given how many there are, is far simpler: Is it elegantly written? And, even more important, can it tolerate paradoxes and complexity, the spikier stuff that distinguishes real-life sinners from comic-book villains? The answer, in the case of Richard Nixon, is yes, on both counts.”
—Jennifer Senior, The New York Times
 
“A stack of good books about Nixon could reach the ceiling, but Farrell has written the best one-volume, cradle-to-grave biography that we could expect about such a famously elusive subject. By employing recently released government documents and oral histories, he adds layers of understanding to a complex man and his dastardly decisions . . . Outstanding.”
—Aram Goudsouzian, Washington Post

"With a mix of morbid fascination and deep empathy, Farrell humanizes Nixon, but he doesn't let him off the hook . . . The dichotomy between brooding schemer and extroverted leader has long defined the Nixon dynamic. But with Richard Nixon, Farrell has etched those history-shaking contradictions into the most vivid—and the most startling—relief to date."
—Jason Heller, NPR.org
 
“An extremely valuable introduction to the life and times of one of our most consequential presidents. Farrell gives us a Nixon rich in both character flaws and great accomplishments, the latter fueled by his transformational vision. It’s a worthy look at a fascinating president.”
—Ray Locker, USA Today
 
“Though there have been many previous books about Nixon, Mr. Farrell’s comprehensive, one-volume biography is welcome . . . In lively, vigorous prose, he takes readers through Nixon’s career, offering incisive judgments and revealing details along the way.”
—Robert K. Landers, Wall Street Journal
 
“Superb . . . the most formidable attempt yet made to put Richard Nixon in perspective.”
—Steve Donoghue, Christian Science Monitor

“Farrell is an exceptional writer . . . It may not have been Farrell’s intent to produce a cautionary tale about the dangers of a presidency run aground on lies, paranoia, prejudices, and delusion, but that’s what he’s accomplished.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Farrell’s blockbuster portrait of Nixon is revelatory—filled with fresh reporting shedding new light on the roots of our own dark political moment. He shows that dirty tricks, October Surprises, and anti-elitist resentment were among the gifts Nixon bequeathed to our own presidential politics.”
—Jane Mayer, author of Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right
 
“John A. Farrell has once again delivered a rich, precisely written portrait of the past to help us understand the present. He traces the origins and turning points of one of the most complex, complicated and fascinating presidents of the modern age with flair and narrative skill. Each page is a joy to read, on the way to a very satisfying whole.”
—John Dickerson, moderator of CBS’s Face the Natio…