One Man Against the World takes aim at Richard Nixon and fires off damning details about the 37th US President's moves on Watergate and the Vietnam War. The author, former New York Times national security reporter Tim Weiner, is not kind to Nixon. In these pages we follow the words and actions of a man who is as ruthless, secretive, and calculating when negotiating his own government as he was bombing Southeast Asia. The usual suspects populate the narrative: Nixon's assistant John Ehrlichman, Attorney General John N. Mitchell, Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman, White House Counsel John Dean, and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger.Although many of these events have already been chronicled, Weiner adds to the canon of Nixon-oriented literature details and quotes derived from newly available sources, including Nixon's infamous White House tapes. I enjoyed reading this fast-paced account.
Notes:
- The list of convictions and sentencing terms at the end of the book was an effective way of punctuating the narrative.
- Democrats controlled both houses of Congress during Nixon's tenure.
"Nixon's The One," Harry Shearer (episode 5 of 6)
