Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America

Ron Perlstein has put together a big, sprawling, action packed history of the Sixties that seems to capture all the madness, idealism, and excitement of those challenging times. It's the kind of book you can open to any page and find a colorful anecdote or a revealing quote from some colorful or controversial figure. He digs beneath the surface, the "peace and flowers" to show real violence, real hatred, and real cynicism on all sides of the political spectrum. From politicians pandering to white racism in the suburbs and factory towns to ghetto street kids shouting their defiance of white cops to angry hard hats punching out flag-burning hippies, Ron Perlstein seems to have captured the real feel of the streets, the political wheeling and dealing, and the newspaper and media manipulation of the public mood.

All well and good, on the surface. Skim through it at the bookstore and it looks like a classic, like Macauley's HISTORY OF ENGLAND. But check it out from the library, read it over carefully at home, and more and more factual mistakes, subjective opinions, and moral flaws come to light. Perlstein is not a real historian, but more of a propagandist after the fact. His indifference to fact checking and the larger sweep of American history, and his obvious bias against politicians, the military, and the working class causes him to make all sorts of melodramatic exaggerations and blanket assertions about the American character that simply don't hold true.

First the factual errors. It's okay that he hates the Vietnam War and thinks it was a big mistake. But his "history" of the events leading up to the struggle is jaw-droppingly false and careless. He says that the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 was "the first defeat of a European colonial power in 300 years." Read that sentence over two or three times.

Has Ron Perlstein never heard of Mahatma Gandhi? When the British lost India it was certainly a major defeat, and it happened well before Dien Bien Phu. And that was after World War II. Does Perlstein not know the Japanese captured 100,000 British troops at Singapore? Or that Japanese warplanes sank three British battleships in ten minutes in 1942? What about the crushing defeat of the Russian navy by the Japanese at Tsushima Straits in 1905?

Perlstein is so ignorant he can't even make his own case correctly. U.S. involvement in Vietnam was a disastrous mistake because the trend of history was clearly against white imperialist ventures in Asia. What's really going on here is that this man really doesn't care about "history" for its own sake. He's just interested in venting his rage at pet villains like the military and the working class.

Or consider the sloppy writing when he compares Nixon hassling the Vietnam Veterans Against the War to Macarthur rousting "aged" World War I Bonus Marchers in 1932. Do the math. A 1918 doughboy would hardly be "aged" in 1932. But Perlstein doesn't care, he's just hoping he can get in another cheap shot mean bad evil Nixon. But again, note the fact that he DOES -- NOT -- CARE. The real suffering of World War I veterans, Vietnam Veterans, combat soldiers in general, means less than nothing to him. He's indifferent to facts because the people on the other side are stick figures to him anyway. Soldiers and hard hats are "bums" to him the same way student protestors were "bums" to Nixon. The irony is he blames Nixon for his own moral failures, while pretending to be horrified at the other guy's hatred -- but never his own.

The double standard becomes laughable when you read the lighter sections of the book. Luscious, pampered Jane Fonda gets tossed in jail and calls herself a "political prisoner," yet six months later she's back in front of the cameras making movies. The cons she's conning stay in jail, though. But Perlstein doesn't care. He has a hard on for movie stars that will not quit. He even gushes over Warren Beatty like a bobby soxer, calling him "luminous." Down, boy. And of course he takes Fonda's self-pitying, self-promoting poor little rich girl rap at face value, while Nixon's pleas for unity and his pride in his Quaker heritage are dismissed automatically as political gamesmanship and loathsome hypocrisy. I don't like Nixon, and I don't dislike Jane Fonda. But I can't see that his calling himself a "Quaker" is any less absurd than a Hollywood princess playing at revolution with a lifetime of privilege in place to back her up.

For a leftist, though Perlstein is awfully soft on privilege. He tends to make knee jerk assumptions about the courage and compassion of intellectuals and the cowardice and ignorance of the working class that would put Edith Wharton to shame. When he writes about the Vietnam War, he points out how the mainstream media distorted the truth. But always needs the cheap shot to bolster his own self-esteem. "Ignorant midwestern nobodies who read TIME and READERS DIGEST might really believe the war was going well, and soldiers spent their spare time helping Vietnamese children. But a daring, Harvard educated journalist discovered the truth . . ." It's not hard to spot the real class prejudice and bigotry in this book. And it's not coming from Nixon!

Even on his own terms, Perlstein is appallingly out of it when it comes to the finer points of Sixties nostalgia. His idea of a great Beatles album is SGT PEPPER and his favorite track is "She's Leaving Home" (a weepy McCartney ballad, complete with oozing violins.)"Long Tall Sally" has more power, more racial threat, and even more political relevance ("I saw Uncle John/With Long Tall Sally/He saw Aunt Mary coming and he ducked back in the alley") summing up youthful disgust with adult hypocrisy in just four unforgettable lines. Plus it's got a good beat and you can dance to it. Does Ron Perlstein even like the Beatles?

Similarly, Perlstein wastes about four pages on Arthur Penn's dated (and overrated) youth movie BONNIE AND CLYDE just so he can sigh over his favorite left-wing dreamboat, Warren Beatty. (He's luminous.) But he says not a word about THE WILD BUNCH by Sam Peckinpah, a much more challenging film about real killers who become real revolutionaries and make a real sacrifice to gain real redemption. Ron Perlstein should be forced to viddy that film with his glazzies glued open, just like Alex in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, another superb Sixties film that shows all the darker side of youth "liberation" that Perlstein doesn't want to confront. Malcolm McDowell isn't "luminous" in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, but when he rapes and kills it's for real. In that movie the state and the teen thugs who fight against state power are equally vile. Perlstein claims to see ugliness on both sides in his book too, but when push comes to shove he always sides with the affluent, the well-born, and the well-educated.

Maybe it's because they're so "luminous."

If you are at all interested in Nixon, politics and the late sixties and early seventies then this book is for you. It takes a while to plow through but it is worth it. Wish the author had used footnote as I think the book bogs down on too many details. The author has a unique and entertaining style of writing that I like. Others may loose patience.
Have at it!

In 1964, the Democratic presidential candidate Lyndon B. Johnson won the biggest landslide in American history by taking 61.05% of the popular vote. In 1972, the Republican presidential candidate Richard M. Nixon won a similar landslide by taking 60.67% of the popular vote. This book is about what happened in the eight years in-between.

And let me tell you it is quite a story. The author's narrative gives you the impression that the US is on the verge of civil war. The war in Vietnam pops up frequently - as it would - but the book gives the impression that it is almost a minor irritant compared to what's going on in American society in general during this time period. I love the way the author brings the narrative to life making this book a real page turner. And if it was just a book on recent US-history this should be rated a solid 5 stars.

However, from the author's point of view this is not just a piece of history but a decisive time period where there was a shift to conservatism, which is still present today. However, the author does not provide any evidence that that shift actually took place and the harder he tries the more he unmakes himself. Instead the central message of the book appears to be: "Richard Nixon is a Number One manipulator and I am going to prove it." I didn't find that proof in the book.

The book's title is "Nixonland" but it could equally well have been Johnsonland, but I guess the name Nixon sells better. Richard Nixon would have made it to the top in any country because he was an excellent operator in the game of politics, which is an indispensable requirement for making it to the top in any organisation.
In that respect, I always found his nickname `Tricky Dick' a good laugh, because he never struck me as being any trickier than any of his competitors, who were just as dirty rascals as any politician undoubtedly is.
What may have helped Nixon's rise in the US and his re-election in 1972 in particular - apart from his track record in office that is - was that from 1966 to 1972 the Democratic Party re-invented itself in such a way that it became virtually unelectable. There is plenty of evidence in the book to support this statement. The fact that the Party did rather well in the 1970 mid-term election is the only real freak event here.

I found the statement "The fracturing of America" a somewhat meaningless statement. The 1960s were no doubt an unusual period in recent history not only in the US but in a lot other countries as well. But this is not an outstanding event in human history. These upheavals have happened before the 1960s and will do so again in future.

In two pages of conclusions the author tells the reader what the previous 746 pages were about. There are only two points here. Firstly, I found them unnecessary and secondly I wondered if the author and I read the same book.

As I said earlier, this is an excellent piece of recent US history but nothing else. Any deeper meaning of the book remains safely hidden.

This was an amazing (and an amazingly long) book. It covers, of course, how the country could travel from a Johnson landslide to a Nixon landslide in only eight years, but the point of the book is the journey, and it is not a pretty picture. While I started out chuckling and shaking my head at Nixon -- old, tricky dick -- as you wade through events (events of which I am old enough to have a child's memory) the humor fades. As portrayed by Perlstein, there are no heros here, on the left or the right. Some things you will note are how many of the arguments of recent years having been going on for 35 years, and how naive and short-sighted almost everyone was (and still is?). But what really stays with you is how bad things were in this period. If you think there is a lack of civility or intelligent discourse now: take a look at 60's with this book. Things have been worse. At this length it sometimes becomes a slog, but the experience stays with you.

"Nixonland" is a comprehensive, detailed, gritty and extremely depressing account of socio-political America from the early 60s to early 70s. The author dives deep into the dysfunction of the era with heart-breaking detail of the riots, the assassinations, the confusion, ignorance, bigotry, murder, and corruption. The title is a bit misleading, as even well into the book, the reader finds it hard to distinguish whether it's a focus on Nixon in the context of the 1960s or a focus on the 1960s in the context of Nixon. It is certainly not a biography of Nixon, but the chronology of the era is intertwined with that of Nixon's career. While Nixon was not always the dominant figure in any particular point in the span of time covered by "Nixonland", he arguably has the largest aggregate presence.

Vietnam is a primary component of any look at this decade, and "Nixonland" offers plenty of research and commentary. The author traces the beginnings from red-baiting to obsession with the Cold War and the domino theory. A true self-fulfilling prophecy, each escalation forced our leaders to come up with new and increased justification, lest the entire effort be uncovered as folly. As Perlstein said, "Lying about Vietnam: it had become a Washington way of life", and the JFK, LBJ, and Nixon administrations all were complicit. "The madness was not hard to spot, if you chose to spot it. The problem was facing the wrath of all those decent Americas who didn't want to face that their government was mad."

While Perlstein is decidedly liberal, all of the politicians, leaders, and government officials - regardless of ideology - come off as narcissist, hypocritical, underhanded liars and cheats, including JFK, LBJ, RFK, Humphrey, Muskie, Reagan, Dole, Kissinger, and extreme conservatives Wallace, Maddox and Rafferty, and the far left's Hayden, Rubin, Hoffman and Cleaver. Yet Perlstein's Nixon is the sociopath's sociopath. While maybe not inherently evil, he is certainly devoid of humanity. It's much easier to fathom how Hitler came to power after understanding Nixon's rise through the lens of "Nixonland".

Nixon, who "felt his life had to be dedicated to great foreign policy purposes", "would do anything, make any sacrifice, to be able to use his talents and experiences in making foreign policy". These sacrifices included not just his own personal inconveniences, but also his sabotaging peace negotiations in Vietnam, ruining careers of political opponents, bribing, strong-arming, "rat-f***ing", manipulating fiscal policy, and ultimately breaking the law, becoming the "GODFATHER IN THE WHITEHOUSE". Nixon was driven by paranoia and fear of losing control, which he seemed to personify on his political adversaries and elements of society he could not manipulate. This became "a battle which many of the public in some sense indentified, who embraced Nixon not despite the anxieties and dreads that drove him, but because of them. And that the vindictiveness that came of those anxieties and dreads was not separate from the fronts of pious normalcy he and his followers presented to the world, but bound up with them as well."

Although a whopping 800+ pages, the ending felt rushed, as if Perlstein suddenly became cognizant of the page count and simply ended the text. The themes which he spent so much time developing were to eclipse well beyond the seemingly arbitrary stopping point of Nixon's second election. Perlstein insisted that Nixon anchor his narrative, yet he closes well before Nixon leaves the scene.

Despite this abrupt closure, the length, and sometimes insane level of detail - one chapter is a virtual transcript of the televised NBC coverage Democratic convention on Aug 28, 1968 - "Nixonland" completely held my interest. It's certainly not an inspirational and patriotic book that makes one proud to be an American, but it is definitely a page-turner. Five stars for Perlstein's ability to effectively weave a long narrative.