The story of Richard Nixon is one of the most tragic - and also one of the most important - stories in our nation's history. There's so much that can be said, and that has already been written, about him. John A. Farrell attempted to encapsulate Nixon's life in his recent book, Richard Nixon: The Life.
Though the book is over 700 pages long, I feel like it only scratched the surface of Nixon's story. The book's biggest strength is its insight into Nixon's complex personality. Farrell describes him as a man who was both tough and ambitious, but also troubled and insecure. He wanted power and for people to like him, yet he also was introverted and seemed to dislike most social situations. He entered politics as a defender of our nation's old-fashioned values, yet Farrell also portrays him as someone who would do whatever it takes to accomplish his goals, usually while also doing what he thought gave him the best chance to win the next election. Indeed, his actions, particularly on economic and social issues, were moderate compared to his more "conservative" contemporaries, including Ronald Reagan.
Farrell does a great job of showing how Nixon's conflicting personality traits would appear throughout his life, as he rose quickly from his service in World War II to become a U.S. Representative, Senator, and Vice President in less than a decade. After suffering a tough defeat to John F. Kennedy in 1960, Nixon won election as our nation's 37th President in 1968, taking advantage of a fractured Democratic Party and narrowly defeating Hubert Humphrey.
Other reviews of this book that I have seen suggest that Farrell was overly critical of Nixon, but I didn't find that to be the case. Farrell gave lots of credit to Nixon for his foreign policy achievements, including his role in bringing the Vietnam War to an end and achieving a breakthrough in U.S.-China relations. In terms of his capability as a Chief Executive, I came away with the impression that Nixon was talented and accomplished a lot.
Farrell is not so kind when discussing Nixon's involvement in the Watergate scandal, and I suppose that's fair. I don't feel that Farrell did enough to chronicle Nixon's involvement in the cover-up, though that would have been difficult to do in a book of this scope. I was also surprised at how Spiro Agnew, Nixon's first Vice President, received nothing more than a couple of brief passing remarks. It goes to show how difficult it is to give Nixon's life the full treatment it deserves in just one volume.
The most significant part of Nixon's legacy is that, due to what happened while he was in office, Americans lost faith in their elected officials more than at any other time in the nation's then 200-year history. I would have liked more analysis on this, but again, that's likely outside the scope of this book. The reader will likely come away from this book with the conclusion that Nixon could have been a great President, but he let the destructive parts of his personality get the best of him, throwing it all away due to ridiculous pursuits like a break-in into a Democratic office.
While the book was informative and loaded with information, it still left me wanting more. If you want more information about, say, the 1960 election or the Watergate scandal, you'll want to consult other sources after reading this. It certainly will not be the last source I consult on Nixon's life, but it was an interesting read that I'd recommend to anyone who likes Presidential biographies.
Saturday, December 30, 2017
Sunday, December 10, 2017
Book Review: The Unexpected President
Chester A. Arthur has to be near the top of any list of the most obscure U.S. Presidents. Among those who actually know anything about him, he is probably best known for those long mutton chops instead of any actual achievements while in office.
Scott S. Greenberger recently undertook the daunting task of chronicling Arthur's life in his book, The Unexpected President: The Life and Times of Chester A. Arthur. (Click here to see the listing on Amazon.) We know so little about Arthur, largely because there were no events of major significance during his time in office (he was President from 1881 to 1885), he was a relatively private man who tried to keep his family out of the public eye, and because he had many of his important archives destroyed before he died.
And yet, Greenberger attempts to show that despite Arthur's relative anonymity in our history books, his Presidency was a consequential one. Arthur has to be one of the most unlikely men to ever hold the office. During the late 19th Century, instead of voters selecting a nominee for their party in primaries like we do now, state parties would send delegates to a national convention and they would vote over and over again until someone reached a majority. In 1880, the Republicans were in danger of splitting over those who favored the spoils system of rewarding loyal party members with government jobs (referred to as Stalwarts) and reformers who thought this system was corrupt and wanted to pass laws that allowed for the selection of such positions based on merit.
As the son of a strict abolitionist minister, Arthur showed a lot of promise as a young man, including defending a black woman against discrimination in New York's public transportation system as a lawyer. But he became involved in the New York Republican Party and worked up the ranks to become one of the most prominent members of the Republican "machine," using government influence to control appointments to important government posts and solicit money to help Republican political campaigns. He loved his family, though Greenberger portrays him as a man who cared even more about his growing career and lavish lifestyle. Arthur's wife, Nell, became ill and died at age 42, and while he took it hard, even that didn't seem to slow down his ambition.
With Reconstruction over and the next big war still a few decades away, civil service was the big issue of the day in 1880. When none of the top candidates could get a majority of support at the convention, the delegates eventually chose James A. Garfield as a compromise. To satisfy the Stalwarts, who still wielded a lot of power in the party, the Republicans tucked Arthur away as the Vice Presidential candidate. Though this office had relatively little responsibility, he was only one life away from holding our country's most important job. And just a few months after Garfield took office, a disgruntled government job seeker shot Garfield. After an agonizing few months of clinging to life, Garfield died and Arthur was suddenly President.
No man, before or since, may ever have assumed the Presidency as unpopular as Arthur was, well known as a political "hack," as Greenberger refers to him. Many even suspected that he was behind the more reform-minded Garfield's murder so that the Stalwarts could stop any attempts at civil service reform. But if Arthur's loss of his wife didn't force him to have a change of heart, Garfield's death seems to have been a turning point. He was distraught, not only over the President's untimely death, but also because almost everyone in the country viewed him unfavorably, and he took the suggestions that he was behind the assassination hard.
When Arthur took office, he was unsure of himself. But when he became President, he suddenly saw himself, no longer as a leader of the Republicans, but rather as a President for all people. And with the encouragement of a series of letters from an unknown young woman, Julia Sand, President Arthur pleasantly surprised his detractors by standing up to the Stalwarts who inevitably tried to control him and led the effort towards civil service reform. Arthur signed the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act into law in 1883, and though it didn't resolve the issue entirely, it was a big step forward to ending political corruption and using merit to fill government positions. Though that might be a boring topic to learn about in today's history books, it was an important accomplishment in our nation's history.
Greenberger took on a challenging task of writing a biography on Arthur and probably did about as well as we could expect any historian to do. Besides Arthur's father, there is little description of the rest of Arthur's family. While the author hinted that Arthur's political ambition was a strain on their marriage, there aren't many details in the book on this. It appears that Arthur did a good job of shielding his family from public scrutiny. Besides this, Arthur ordered many of his important papers burned after he left the White House, ashamed of his past as a Republican crony who did whatever he could to keep the party in power.
Indeed, Greenberger is not generous towards Arthur when it comes to much of his political involvement. But one important historical lesson we can take from this book is that Arthur, as he watched his own wife die partly from his neglect and President Garfield die because of the evil effects of the spoils system, was able to change his heart towards the end of his life. His rough lifestyle even took a toll on his own health, as he died at age 57 less than two years after leaving office.
For a topic that may seem a little dry to the average reader on the surface, I had no trouble reading this book and it held my interest the whole time. Greenberger writes with clarity and ease, and he brings Arthur and the other prominent people in the story to life. I would have liked a little more detail about Arthur's personal life, as well as more on his effort to bring about civil service reform. And it was a little frustrating that the latter part of the book relied so heavily on the letters from Sand; indeed, they were quoted at length several times.
But again, with so little to go on, Greenberger may have done as well as he could have. If you don't know much about Arthur - or this era in American history, for that matter - I recommend reading this book. It should provide some new perspective on the American Presidency.
Scott S. Greenberger recently undertook the daunting task of chronicling Arthur's life in his book, The Unexpected President: The Life and Times of Chester A. Arthur. (Click here to see the listing on Amazon.) We know so little about Arthur, largely because there were no events of major significance during his time in office (he was President from 1881 to 1885), he was a relatively private man who tried to keep his family out of the public eye, and because he had many of his important archives destroyed before he died.
And yet, Greenberger attempts to show that despite Arthur's relative anonymity in our history books, his Presidency was a consequential one. Arthur has to be one of the most unlikely men to ever hold the office. During the late 19th Century, instead of voters selecting a nominee for their party in primaries like we do now, state parties would send delegates to a national convention and they would vote over and over again until someone reached a majority. In 1880, the Republicans were in danger of splitting over those who favored the spoils system of rewarding loyal party members with government jobs (referred to as Stalwarts) and reformers who thought this system was corrupt and wanted to pass laws that allowed for the selection of such positions based on merit.
As the son of a strict abolitionist minister, Arthur showed a lot of promise as a young man, including defending a black woman against discrimination in New York's public transportation system as a lawyer. But he became involved in the New York Republican Party and worked up the ranks to become one of the most prominent members of the Republican "machine," using government influence to control appointments to important government posts and solicit money to help Republican political campaigns. He loved his family, though Greenberger portrays him as a man who cared even more about his growing career and lavish lifestyle. Arthur's wife, Nell, became ill and died at age 42, and while he took it hard, even that didn't seem to slow down his ambition.
With Reconstruction over and the next big war still a few decades away, civil service was the big issue of the day in 1880. When none of the top candidates could get a majority of support at the convention, the delegates eventually chose James A. Garfield as a compromise. To satisfy the Stalwarts, who still wielded a lot of power in the party, the Republicans tucked Arthur away as the Vice Presidential candidate. Though this office had relatively little responsibility, he was only one life away from holding our country's most important job. And just a few months after Garfield took office, a disgruntled government job seeker shot Garfield. After an agonizing few months of clinging to life, Garfield died and Arthur was suddenly President.
No man, before or since, may ever have assumed the Presidency as unpopular as Arthur was, well known as a political "hack," as Greenberger refers to him. Many even suspected that he was behind the more reform-minded Garfield's murder so that the Stalwarts could stop any attempts at civil service reform. But if Arthur's loss of his wife didn't force him to have a change of heart, Garfield's death seems to have been a turning point. He was distraught, not only over the President's untimely death, but also because almost everyone in the country viewed him unfavorably, and he took the suggestions that he was behind the assassination hard.
When Arthur took office, he was unsure of himself. But when he became President, he suddenly saw himself, no longer as a leader of the Republicans, but rather as a President for all people. And with the encouragement of a series of letters from an unknown young woman, Julia Sand, President Arthur pleasantly surprised his detractors by standing up to the Stalwarts who inevitably tried to control him and led the effort towards civil service reform. Arthur signed the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act into law in 1883, and though it didn't resolve the issue entirely, it was a big step forward to ending political corruption and using merit to fill government positions. Though that might be a boring topic to learn about in today's history books, it was an important accomplishment in our nation's history.
Greenberger took on a challenging task of writing a biography on Arthur and probably did about as well as we could expect any historian to do. Besides Arthur's father, there is little description of the rest of Arthur's family. While the author hinted that Arthur's political ambition was a strain on their marriage, there aren't many details in the book on this. It appears that Arthur did a good job of shielding his family from public scrutiny. Besides this, Arthur ordered many of his important papers burned after he left the White House, ashamed of his past as a Republican crony who did whatever he could to keep the party in power.
Indeed, Greenberger is not generous towards Arthur when it comes to much of his political involvement. But one important historical lesson we can take from this book is that Arthur, as he watched his own wife die partly from his neglect and President Garfield die because of the evil effects of the spoils system, was able to change his heart towards the end of his life. His rough lifestyle even took a toll on his own health, as he died at age 57 less than two years after leaving office.
For a topic that may seem a little dry to the average reader on the surface, I had no trouble reading this book and it held my interest the whole time. Greenberger writes with clarity and ease, and he brings Arthur and the other prominent people in the story to life. I would have liked a little more detail about Arthur's personal life, as well as more on his effort to bring about civil service reform. And it was a little frustrating that the latter part of the book relied so heavily on the letters from Sand; indeed, they were quoted at length several times.
But again, with so little to go on, Greenberger may have done as well as he could have. If you don't know much about Arthur - or this era in American history, for that matter - I recommend reading this book. It should provide some new perspective on the American Presidency.
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