The Invincible Quest: The Life of Richard Milhous Nixon [Paperback]

My father, who died last September, was a witty man who enjoyed puns, and I recall, as a young boy during the Watergate hearings, him often saying, “Nixon is too impaired to be impeached.” Thus began my lifelong fascination with Richard M. Nixon. I start my review of this extraordinary new biography of Nixon by Conrad Black with a personal note. I must also admit to being, like Black, a native of Montreal with a home in London, and an abiding fascination with American presidential politics.
That is as far as the similarities go however. Black is infamous for being a rather Hearst-like figure (a publisher who both reports on, and makes, history)-and, most recently, has been involved in legal controversies which have no place in the reviewing of this biography, at least not one which in any way renders less credible, or impressive, the achievement of the text itself. I’d advise readers who might wish to grind axes to find another whetstone, for this is a fine and formidable piece of writing, and deserves to be appreciated more than used as the first step on the way to some (likely left-wing) pulpit.
That being said, I should mention that my politics are somewhat to the left of Black’s. No doubt what he wrote of Nixon’s Democratic opponent for the senate in 1950, Helen Douglas, applies to me as well: “the prototypical energetic bleeding heart, aggressively full of good intentions but somewhat impractical in [ . . . ] political methods.” Regardless, I admire stylish writing, and, more than that, a sense of justice. With this book, one gets ample portions of both.
The chief strength of Black’s account of Richard Nixon is the clarity with which it sets out the case for a near-total acquittal of Nixon as charged, and thus his release from the rogue’s gallery of recent history. There is some self-reflexive pathos in such sympathy for a maligned and brilliant man, of course. As Black writes of another illustrious victim of dubious proceedings, “The fate of Alger Hiss is objectively sad.” Still, beyond any special pleading that could be read between the lines, Black makes his argument in a balanced, even fair, manner, reinforcing it unexpectedly with witty asides and somewhat astounding rhetorical flourishes.
Black relishes language, and peppers his pages with arresting descriptions, and unusual, even eccentric, phrasing, making this not just a piece of excellent nonfiction, but a highly enjoyable, racy, even flamboyant example of the art of the literary biography. Here he is on the bizarre Whitaker Chambers: “He was forty-seven, sometimes almost inaudible, but eerily self-possessed and very articulate. He had been a seedy, prowling homosexual, as well as a communist, in the thirties . . . ” Pat Nixon’s supposed Eisenhower squareness is described as being like (though Black shows this is a false image) “Betty in the movie send-up of the fifties, Pleasantville.” Nixon and Kissinger were “like two scorpions in the same bottle.”
Black’s even-handedness is striking. Some might have expected the capitalist scribe to be a less than neutral observer of Republican Nixon, since his own interests presumably favour less regulated entrepreneurial activity (a key Nixon policy), but consider these words from Black’s own pen, descriptions throughout of Nixon’s actions, decisions, and statements: “nonsense”; “a martinet, authoritarian and slightly compulsive”; “preposterous”, given to spending time with “strange and unsavoury characters,” and with a “Cassius-like appetite for power.” Black shows that Nixon’s work as a congressman (where he first met, and liked, a young JFK) and senator had him adopting some policies that are hard to justify, even today, such as his belief that freedom of speech did not extend to anti-government communists (not an American but a French idea of democracy, Black notes), and that America should have threatened use of the Atomic Bomb against Red China during the Korean War (and certainly bombed them). He describes the Watergate days as “pathetic, and at times, sickening.” Finally, Black reckons that Nixon was “a very competent president,” but his “legal and ethical shortcomings” mean he is not one of the great ones. This is hardly a white-washed resume.
Still, Black also often allows the best spin on things to be the one he sides with. Black writes, “Though not at all effeminate, he liked to play with dolls. . . He sometimes went barefoot, but carried shoes and socks in a paper bag, and always wore a starched white shirt, black bow tie, and knee pants.” And, he “brushed his teeth spontaneously several times a day.” It is hard not to think that Nixon was a strange, off-putting child, but Black thinks he was basically normal.
Black does hold Nixon to the highest ethical and intellectual standards, and, where and when he finds the man wanting, says so. What makes this approach effective, and ultimately convincing, is that by addressing Nixon as a legitimate historical figure, with strengths and weaknesses, successes and failures (as Black did with Franklin Delano Roosevelt in his book Champion of Freedom) and not simply a punching bag, the impressive politician he was emerges from the shadows. For instance, who knew that Nixon was an early advocate of (and expert on) the most successful initiative of 20th-century American foreign policy, the universally celebrated Marshall Plan, or an early and fairly constant supporter of the Civil Rights Movement? Only the rapprochement with China is usually emphasised as a career highlight.
Black also brings to his analysis of Nixon’s exceedingly driven rise a canny insight into the backroom machinations of American politics, and the uses and abuses of campaign financing, related particularly to the buying of media attention. According to Black (and having one newspaper baron report this of another is just one of the satisfying ironies of this text), Hearst “directed that all aid be given to Nixon not only editorially, but in archival and research support in anti-communist matters” in the 1950s.
Hearst thereby becomes a more complex actor in American culture and politics of his time, at once thwarting the great Democratic genius Orson Welles, and yet lifting up the great Republican genius, Richard Nixon. Welles and Nixon are far more similar than is often thought: both rose to world fame in the 1940s as boy wonders; both excelled at using the pre-TV media to their advantage, were superb public speakers, maniacally-driven, prone to fibbing, fascinated by the Cold War and espionage; and both were somewhat hampered in their later careers by a shift in the perception of their physical abilities; both men ended their careers in the 1970s, their original 1940s brilliance by then reduced to vague caricature in the public imagination.
A clear subtext of the case for Nixon is that all American politics has grass stains on it-it’s a rugged game played by boys and girls who want to win the power to change the world-so Nixon was not unusual in being an aggressive and gifted player, but merely in the intensity with which he pursued the ultimate goal of world democratic politics: the US Presidency.
Before briefly outlining Black’s surprisingly robust and persuasive defence of Nixon, it might be worth recalling how almost completely his very name has become blackened to “Mudd”. Nixon has been a hate figure since the Hiss case, in the 40s, but it was his apparent prolongation, and even exacerbation, of the Vietnam conflict in the 1960s, with the Christmas bombing of Cambodia, that made him, by that roiled decade’s end, the arch enemy of more liberal Americans, and most everyone else in the world.
The sad spectacle of the Watergate crisis only confirmed what most already felt: Nixon was a shady customer; and worse, a “tricky” and oily one, perhaps, even, “insane”- but at the very least, power mad. By 1972, so reviled was the man, that books like In Search of Nixon: A Psychohistorical Inquiry could become a New York Times “Best Book of the Year” and emphasise the neurotic elements of his personality (i.e. a Quaker prosecuting a divisive war). Somehow, even long after his fall, Nixon’s original handsome intelligence, indeed, his diligence, had been utterly forgotten, replaced by a scowling Nixon mask representing the lowest fortunes and morals of a public man. His sombre, rain-spattered funeral added to the impression of murk.
Some revisionism crept in to the picture, but recent books like The Arrogance of Power by Anthony Summers seem to return to the bogey man Nixon of old-the ultimate effigy for burning. The Simpsons even gave a character the name of Milhous (what Nixon’s M. stood for) as the ultimate sign of creepiness. Nixon in China, one of the great American postmodern operas of the late 80s, did present the possibility of a human side to the “old cold warrior”, but high culture rarely reaches mass opinion, or can change it. If there was a nadir for approval, Nixon had located it, and moved in, perhaps for posterity.
What could not have been anticipated when his fortunes were very low, however, were the presidencies to follow. Clinton, too, was impeached, and legally discovered to be a liar under oath (as well as something of a Kennedyesque satyr-in-chief), giving poor Richard company in the small column of disgraced presidents. And subsequently, George W. Bush-responsible for mismanaging the Iraq war, squandering the immense global support for American interests post-9/11, and generally turning down the Presidency’s intellectual dial to near-zero-has arguably replaced Nixon as the least-admired commander-in-chief of modern times. Nixon’s stock is rising, 35 or so years after his disgrace, having nowhere to go but up.
Black’s apologia for Nixon (I use that word in its best, classical sense) rests on two insights that are well fought for here, and mainly proven: firstly, he was “not a uniquely sleazy president,” but a relatively decent, hard-working man, with remarkable powers of self-conviction, and limitless ambition, working within a tarnishing profession, who “inherited an utterly hopeless war.” Secondly, and more importantly, Nixon became the indispensable post-Roosevelt Republican, the good pilot, who navigated his party back into the middle ground, and allowed it to become electable again. As Black well depicts, Nixon was the arch anti-communist for HUAC before McCarthy, and did his best to rein that now-disgraced maniac in, arguing that home-grown socialism (as opposed to communism) was not the major threat Hoover and others claimed it was for their own gain.
When Nixon reinvigorated his party, as the stunning rising star of the ’40s, it was “inhabited largely by reactionaries and isolationists.” Nixon emphasised and always promoted three things that give Republicanism its respectable side: fiscal conservatism, a strong, well-thought-out foreign policy, and respect for the “awkward, the ordinary, the unflamboyant, silent masses.”
Despite his faults-and they are legion-no one else, at that time, in that place, in America, could beat Dick Nixon at what he did best. The tragedy of his life is that America has moved on, neglecting, in its magnificent passage, one of its saddest but most dedicated captains. Conrad Black has registered this passage honourably, and this book should be read by all those who wish to understand the rich perils of post-war American history.
Todd Swift (Books in Canada)
--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

“Black is a versatile and thorough biographer who brings not only sympathy but eloquent clarity to his task. The result is a vibrant narrative of personal and political accomplishment . . . Black's superb volume, incorporating much new research, is an important and worthy addition to the literature.” – Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“[A] literary tour de force . . . stunningly researched and evocatively written.” – Peter C. Newman in Maclean’s

“The most intellectual of our modern press barons has succeeded in writing a book that entitles him to be taken seriously as a vivid chronicler of the politics of his own era.” – Sunday Telegraph

“He is a formidable writer and historian who has taken on a formidable subject.” – Ottawa Citizen

“Like the celebrated Russian novel [War and Peace], once started, it’s compelling, hard to put down and leaves a lasting impression.” – National Post

“Conrad Black tells [Nixon’s story] with an old-fashioned sweep, confidence and unabashed simplicity that postmodern biographers rarely attempt or manage. Empathetic while clinical, alert to telling detail and unafraid of generality, he leaves us a Nixon we may still largely judge for ourselves, now on the basis of the richer, fuller perspective this work gives us.” – Globe and Mail

“[A] genuinely magnificent slab of a book . . . written with enormous wit, brio and old-fashioned flourish . . . splendid, epic, enthralling.” – Daily Telegraph

“A rollicking read.” – The Guardian




From the Hardcover edition.