Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full [Hardcover]

This is pure conjecture, but I wouldn't be too surprised if this turns out to be how Conrad Black actually does write his biographies.

Step 1 - Pick a giant.
Step 2 - Write a first draft praising the giant's achievements and qualities.
Step 3 - Write, from scratch, a second draft attacking the giant from all sides, finding his every fault, his every weakness.
Step 4 - Tone down both drafts.
Step 5 - Combine both drafts in strict chronological order, mixing the praises with the criticisms.

And what we get is a very fair, very balanced biography, in this case of Richard Nixon, perhaps the first definitive one volume biography of the 37th President of the United States.

It is one thing to criticize those in power and quite another to wield it power oneself. Black has wielded power and this gives perspective and considerable authority to his work.

Like his biography of Franklin Roosevelt, this biography of Nixon should rank as one of the great works of critical praise. To pick the obvious example of Watergate, Black evaluates Nixon by concluding his "conduct was blameworthy, but the response to it was extreme". An accurate judgement for an event that "resulted in no theft, no injury, no property damage, no useful espionage".

And yet Black is often mystified by Nixon's "failure to grasp the realities of ... the political problems" especially given Nixon's known political saviness. In general, however, Black is praiseworthy. He lauds Nixon's trip to China, he corrects the record and enthusiastically credits Nixon with ending America's involvement in the Viet Nam war. Black's stance reflects the historical importance of the Nixon presidency.

The biggest surprise for me was learning how pro-civil rights Nixon had been. Of all presidents except for Bill Clinton, whom Toni Morrisson called America's first black president, Nixon was the most respecful of civil rights and of the lives of African Americans. This mindset resulted directly from Nixon's egalitarian Quaker upbringing as black friends came and ate supper at the Nixon table just because that's what you do with friends. He sacrificed considerable political capital on civil rights principles; he made no gains, nor expected any, from a black electorate committed to Johnson's War on Poverty and Great Society programs and he lost the support of many southerners who loved everything about him except his civil rights stance. (Clearly an instance of the political courage JFK wrote about but himself failed to muster.)

From a literary point of view, Watergate brings great irony to this book. Just as Black cannot understand how a man of Nixon's intellect and vision could have so completely misjudged the effects of Watergate, it equally boggles the mind how a man as superlatively intelligent and accomplished as Conrad Black could have misjudged the effects of his own actions with respect to his own legal worries. I suppose he should have found and burned the security video tapes showing him carrying out boxes of incriminating documents.

While excellent, the Nixon biography isn't quite as good as Black's Roosevelt biography, and not without one or two annoying defects, the most dismal of which are the dozen or so references to Wagner's Ring operas that Black attended (and funded in part!) in Toronto while writing the book. But that's a quibble, and we should blame a weak editor for not having forced Black to remove these quotes.

Vincent Poirier, Dublin

The length of "Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full" (1,152 pages) should surprise no one. Richard Nixon served in both houses of the U.S. Congress and was elected Vice President of the United States- all before the age of 40. No one has appeared on a national ticket more often (5 times, equaled only by FDR), nor held national office longer (13-1/2 years).

No single book can tell the whole story. However, Conrad Black's biography of Richard Nixon has many virtues to recommend it. It is very well written. The rhythms, diction and idioms of Black's Anglo-Canadian English lend a freshness to the text without calling attention to themselves. Black sometimes uses a turn of phrase that is a bit unusual to the American "ear"-- yet after a split-second it seems absolutely right and true. At his best, Black is capable of sentences that rival Gibbon's, though he is never less than clear and engaging, with flashes of humor and irony. The book is well-documented, but could use closer editing here and there. (In a couple of places, brief "quotes" from famous speeches by FDR and Nixon are, in fact, paraphrases- though the meaning remained unchanged.)

A particular strength of this biography is that it lends proportion and perspective to the various periods and issues of Nixon's long career. Black gives fresh accounts of all-but-forgotten events, such as the Nixons' physical courage when attacked by violent mobs on their state visit to Venezuela in 1958. Black also provides some insights into the important relationships of Nixon's professional life- Eisenhower, the Kennedys, Kissinger and others- without resort to psychoanalytic pretensions or lurid speculation. The book's final pages form a summary of Nixon's career- more generous than some accounts, though not less accurate.

Finally, Black's approach is refreshingly free of the tiresome "good guys vs. bad guys" approach. Nixon was a complex and driven man whose successes and failures changed the world. Contrary to common belief, his ethics were not always distinguishable from- and in some areas, were superior to- the ethics of his contemporaries in either party. The book is generally free of academic priggishness, shallow moralizing, and partisan demonology. All this, and Black's willingness to praise the characters and accomplishments of public figures regardless of political persuasion, give this book a healthy dose of uncynical humility.

I have been reading Presidential biographies over the last few years beginning with Washington and just completed this one on Nixon. This one by Conrad Black is an excellent read (his one FDR is also excellent)!

The author takes the approach of giving you detailed information and facts and allows you to decide whether decisions and actions were good, bad, indifferent, etc.

Certainly Nixon abused his presidency, but so did the other Presidents in the 1960's (JFK and LBJ), and Black doesn't let that fact go unnoticed.

If you are looking for a quick summary of Nixon's life and presidency this is not the book for you. If you are looking, however, for an exhaustive biography of Nixon this is the book for you.

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