08/31/2015
Locker, a USA Today investigative reporter focusing on politics and Congress, reconstructs the rise and fall of Richard Nixon. His well-conceived thesis is that Nixon believed the entrenched, self-interested forces of Washington—the national press corps, Congress, and the CIA, FBI, and Pentagon—were making it impossible for him to achieve his goals: reaching an arms agreement with the Soviets, establishing a détente with China, and ending the Vietnam War. Determined to succeed at any cost, Nixon stealthily created a shadow government adept at secret foreign policy initiatives. According to Locker, Nixon’s commitment to secrecy generated a culture of domestic spying, fostering the infamous break-ins, until “cover-up begat cover-up” and led to Nixon’s demise. Locker describes Nixon’s machinations in minute detail, and readers may be overwhelmed by the narrative’s parade of large and small players, but they will marvel at Nixon’s drive, paranoia, duplicity, and accomplishments. Surprisingly, while the unfolding of the world events makes for captivating reading, the debacles of the Pentagon Papers and Watergate seem like an old story. In Locker’s view, Nixon’s successes place him high in the pantheon of effective presidents, but his perfidy makes an equally compelling narrative of failure. (Oct.)
After being sworn in as president, Richard Nixon told the assembled crowd that
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government will listen. Those who have been left out, we will try to bring in.But that same day, he obliterated those pledges of greater citizen control of government by signing National Security Decision Memorandum 2, a document that made sweeping changes to the national security power structure. Nixon's signature erased the influence that the departments of State and Defense, as well as the CIA, had over Vietnam and the course of the Cold War. The new structure put Nixon at the center, surrounded by loyal aides and a new national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, who coordinated policy through the National Security Council under Nixon's command. Using years of research and revelations from newly released documents, USA Today reporter Ray Locker upends much of the conventional wisdom about the Nixon administration and its impact and shows how the creation of this secret, unprecedented, extra-constitutional government undermined U.S. policy and values. In doing so, Nixon sowed the seeds of his own destruction by creating a climate of secrecy, paranoia, and reprisal that still affects Washington today.
Nixon's Gamble: How a President's Own Secret Government Destroyed His Administration
After being sworn in as president, Richard Nixon told the assembled crowd that
government will listen. Those who have been left out, we will try to bring in.But that same day, he obliterated those pledges of greater citizen control of government by signing National Security Decision Memorandum 2, a document that made sweeping changes to the national security power structure. Nixon's signature erased the influence that the departments of State and Defense, as well as the CIA, had over Vietnam and the course of the Cold War. The new structure put Nixon at the center, surrounded by loyal aides and a new national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, who coordinated policy through the National Security Council under Nixon's command. Using years of research and revelations from newly released documents, USA Today reporter Ray Locker upends much of the conventional wisdom about the Nixon administration and its impact and shows how the creation of this secret, unprecedented, extra-constitutional government undermined U.S. policy and values. In doing so, Nixon sowed the seeds of his own destruction by creating a climate of secrecy, paranoia, and reprisal that still affects Washington today.
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Nixon's Gamble: How a President's Own Secret Government Destroyed His Administration
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Product Details
BN ID: | 2940178812747 |
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Publisher: | Lantern Audio |
Publication date: | 10/12/2015 |
Edition description: | Unabridged |
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