Richard Milhous Nixon: The Rise of an American Politician - Softcover

Morris, Roger

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0805018344 ISBN 13: 9780805018349

Publisher: Henry Holt & Co, 1991

Synopsis

Chronicles Nixon's rise to political prominence, from his pre-World War II government service to his under-the-table stab at the vice-presidency in 1952, in the first of a projected three-volume biography

About this title

Review:

Weighing in at over 1,000 pages, Richard Milhous Nixon: The Rise of an American Politician is undoubtedly the most detailed single volume on the political career of the disgraced ex-president. But the events in this book take place decades before the Watergate scandal, in an era when many were unsure whether Nixon might ever climb to heights of power from which to topple. After covering the first 33 years of Nixon's life in about 300 pages, Roger Morris immerses the reader in the major controversies of Nixon's time on Capitol Hill: the Alger Hiss case, the hotly contested California Senate race against Democrat incumbent Helen Douglas, and the charges of improper conduct that rocked the 1952 presidential campaign and motivated a desperate Nixon to make an appeal to the American public on live television (the speech is perhaps best remembered for his invocation of the family dog, Checkers). Morris takes Nixon to his 1953 inauguration, leaving the reader in no doubt of what it cost Nixon, the Republican Party, and America to make that moment happen. --Ron Hogan

From Publishers Weekly:

Morris ( Haig ) is the first biographer to provide such an intimate close-up of Nixon's early years: his relationship with his parents and siblings; his fledgling career as a lawyer; his service as a Navy officer in the Pacific. His courtship of Patricia Ryan, whom he married in 1940, is covered at length along with a revealing analysis of her influence on the future president. The balance of this engrossing book concerns four major events during Nixon's initial rise to power--his election to the House of Representatives, his emergence as a national figure during the Alger Hiss-Whittaker Chambers affair, his 1950 Red-smear campaign against Helen Gahagan Douglas and election to the Senate, his nomination as Eisenhower's running mate in the 1952 presidential campaign. Morris concludes this major biography with a detailed account of the circumstances surrounding the infamous "Checkers" speech, which saved the vice-presidential candidate from political oblivion. 75,000 first printing; $100,000 ad/promo.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Henry Holt & Co
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0805018344
• ISBN 13: 9780805018349
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 1005