Nixons Shadow The History Of An Image

Download or read book Nixon's Shadow: The History of an Image written by David Greenberg and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2004-10-17 with total page 516 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How an image-obsessed president transformed the way we think about politics and politicians. To his conservative supporters in 1940s southern California, Richard Nixon was a populist everyman; to liberal intellectuals of the 1950s, he was "Tricky Dick," a devious manipulator; to 1960s radicals, a shadowy conspirator; to the Washington press corps, a pioneering spin doctor; to his loyal Middle Americans, a victim of liberal hatred; to recent historians, an unlikely liberal. Nixon's Shadow rediscovers these competing images of the protean Nixon, showing how each was created and disseminated in American culture and how Nixon's tinkering with his own image often backfired. During Nixon's long tenure on the national stage—and through the succession of "new Nixons" so brilliantly described here—Americans came to realize how thoroughly politics relies on manipulation. Since Nixon, it has become impossible to discuss politics without asking: What is the politician's "real" character? How authentic or inauthentic is he? What image is he trying to project? More than what Nixon did, this fascinating book reveals what Nixon meant.

Download or read book President Nixon written by Richard Reeves and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2002-10-10 with total page 708 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: PRESIDENT NIXON shows a man alone in a White House ruled by secrets and lies, trying to impose old values at home and new balances of power everywhere in the world. Reeves proves that the Watergate scandal was no abberation in an administration foreshadowed by a series of successful uses of 'national security' to cover coups, burglaries, lies, the abandonment of America's allies - and even murder. Reeves portrays a man of vision and iron will who created, used and was used by a small cast of hard, ambitious men who formed a poisonous circle around their insecure leader. Alone, Nixon challenged and changed the world's political and military balance while also plotting to destroy both the Democratic and Republican parties in an attempt to create secretly a new party of the centre. This account of Nixon's stewardship will stand as the balanced, authoratative portrait of an astonishng president and his ruined presidency.

Download or read book Republic of Spin: An Inside History of the American Presidency written by David Greenberg and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2016-01-11 with total page 575 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A brilliant, fast-moving narrative history of the leaders who have defined the modern American presidency.”—Bob Woodward In Republic of Spin—a vibrant history covering more than one hundred years of politics—presidential historian David Greenberg recounts the rise of the White House spin machine, from Teddy Roosevelt to Barack Obama. His sweeping, startling narrative takes us behind the scenes to see how the tools and techniques of image making and message craft work. We meet Woodrow Wilson convening the first White House press conference, Franklin Roosevelt huddling with his private pollsters, Ronald Reagan’s aides crafting his nightly news sound bites, and George W. Bush staging his “Mission Accomplished” photo-op. We meet, too, the backstage visionaries who pioneered new ways of gauging public opinion and mastering the media—figures like George Cortelyou, TR’s brilliantly efficient press manager; 1920s ad whiz Bruce Barton; Robert Montgomery, Dwight Eisenhower’s canny TV coach; and of course the key spinmeisters of our own times, from Roger Ailes to David Axelrod. Greenberg also examines the profound debates Americans have waged over the effect of spin on our politics. Does spin help our leaders manipulate the citizenry? Or does it allow them to engage us more fully in the democratic project? Exploring the ideas of the century’s most incisive political critics, from Walter Lippmann and H. L. Mencken to Hannah Arendt and Stephen Colbert, Republic of Spin illuminates both the power of spin and its limitations—its capacity not only to mislead but also to lead.

Download or read book Shadow written by Bob Woodward and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-12-11 with total page 1068 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twenty-five years after Richard Nixon's resignation, investigative journalist Bob Woodward examines the legacy of Watergate. Based on hundreds of interviews - both on and off the record - and three years of research of government archives, Woodward's latest book explains in detail how the premier scandal of US history has indelibly altered the shape of American politics and culture - and has limited the power to act of the presidency itself. Bob Woodward's mix of historical perspective and journalistic sleuthing provides a unique perspective on the repercussions of Watergate and proves that it was far more than a passing, embarrassing crisis in American politics: it heralded the beginning of a new period of troubled presidencies. From Ford through to Clinton, presidents have battled public scepticism, a challenging Congress, adversarial press and even special prosecutors in their term in office. Now, a quarter of a century after the scandal emerged, the man who helped expose Watergate shows us the stunning impact of its heritage.

Download or read book The Nixon Tapes, 1971-1972 written by Douglas Brinkley and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2014 with total page 797 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The infamous Nixon White House taping system captured 3,700 hours of Oval Office, Cabinet Room, and Camp David conversations between 1971 and 1973, automatically taping every single word spoken. These audio recordings have finally been released over the past decade by the National Archives, yet only fewer than 5% of them have been transcribed and published--until now.

Download or read book Chasing Shadows written by Ken Hughes and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2014-07-29 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The break-in at Watergate and the cover-up that followed brought about the resignation of Richard Nixon, creating a political shockwave that reverberates to this day. But as Ken Hughes reveals in his powerful new book, in all the thousands of hours of declassified White House tapes, the president orders a single break-in--and it is not at the Watergate complex. Hughes’s examination of this earlier break-in, plans for which the White House ultimately scrapped, provides a shocking new perspective on a long history of illegal activity that prolonged the Vietnam War and was only partly exposed by the Watergate scandal. As a key player in the University of Virginia’s Miller Center Presidential Recordings Program, Hughes has spent more than a decade developing and mining the largest extant collection of transcribed tapes from the Johnson and Nixon White Houses. Hughes’s unparalleled investigation has allowed him to unearth a pattern of actions by Nixon going back long before 1972, to the final months of the Johnson administration. Hughes identified a clear narrative line that begins during the 1968 campaign, when Nixon, concerned about the impact on his presidential bid of the Paris peace talks with the Vietnamese, secretly undermined the negotiations through a Republican fundraiser named Anna Chennault. Three years after the election, in an atmosphere of paranoia brought on by the explosive appearance of the Pentagon Papers, Nixon feared that his treasonous--and politically damaging--manipulation of the Vietnam talks would be exposed. Hughes shows how this fear led to the creation of the Secret Investigations Unit, the "White House Plumbers," and Nixon’s initiation of illegal covert operations guided by the Oval Office. Hughes’s unrivaled command of the White House tapes has allowed him to build an argument about Nixon that goes far beyond what we think we know about Watergate. Chasing Shadows is also available as a special e-book that links to the massive collection of White House tapes published by the Miller Center through Rotunda, the electronic imprint of the University of Virginia Press. This unique edition allows the reader to move seamlessly from the book to the recordings’ expertly rendered transcripts and to listen to audio files of the remarkable--and occasionally shocking--conversations on which this dark chapter in American history would ultimately turn.

Download or read book Richard M. Nixon written by Elizabeth Drew and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2007-05-29 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The complex man at the center of America's most self-destructive presidency In this provocative and revelatory assessment of the only president ever forced out of office, the legendary Washington journalist Elizabeth Drew explains how Richard M. Nixon's troubled inner life offers the key to understanding his presidency. She shows how Nixon was surprisingly indecisive on domestic issues and often wasn't interested in them. Turning to international affairs, she reveals the inner workings of Nixon's complex relationship with Henry Kissinger, and their mutual rivalry and distrust. The Watergate scandal that ended his presidency was at once an overreach of executive power and the inevitable result of his paranoia and passion for vengeance. Even Nixon's post-presidential rehabilitation was motivated by a consuming desire for respectability, and he succeeded through his remarkable resilience. Through this book we finally understand this complicated man. While giving him credit for his achievements, Drew questions whether such a man—beleaguered, suspicious, and motivated by resentment and paranoia—was fit to hold America's highest office, and raises large doubts that he was.