NIXON: RUIN AND RECOVERY 1973-1990

Rating:
Summary: A Nixon Finale
Review: I enjoyed this concluding part of Stephen Ambrose's three-volume biography of Richard Nixon. This could have been the most difficult of the volumes to write - as the author needed to write in a way which maintained the reader's interest through the often tortuous intricacies of Watergate. I thought that the dangers (or challenges) were twofold: a reader's familiarity with the issues behind and history of Watergate could produce boredom, or the sheer complexity of the affair could bewilder the less well-informed reader.

I sat somewhere in the middle - I knew the broad issues (having read Woodward and Bernstein, and seen various TV documentaries) but being a non-American, my grasp of the relative roles and importance of the various US institutions involved and the politico-constitutional nuances was to say the least, tenuous. I think that Ambrose succeeded in both keeping my attention and guiding me through the whole affair: the book read at times like a political thriller, but with passages which guided me through the more complex issues. Whether or not this would bore politically aware Americans is not for me to judge.

The vast majority of this book is (rightly) devoted to Watergate. I thought that Ambrose made a good point, and one which is perhaps forgotten as the collective memory of the 1970s fades, that Watergate became such a tremendously irritating bore - people wanted rid of it because it was just so tedious, seeming to have been dominating the news forever, and producing a sclerosis in the body politic when major events of world importance needed to be addressed. Again, not being an American, I can't attest to the accuracy of Ambrose's point, but it seems to me to ring true.

The remainder of the book deals with Nixon's post-resignation reconstruction of himself, and one has to admire Nixon's sheer tenacity and willpower. At the end, Ambrose attemps an assessment of the man and his impact on America and the world. It's up the each reader to take his/her own view on that assessment, but in this cynical world when our trust in politicians seems to be ebbing ever further away, I thought that it's tempting to agree with Ambrose that Nixon's tragedy was that he got caught.

Rating:
Summary: Watergate happened in a democracy!
Review: Stephen Ambroses third Nixon Volume : "Ruin And
Recovery" takes on into the heart and soul
of democracy.
Cynics accustomed to political scandal might
be bemused by Watergate. What was all the
hullabaloo really all about?

Ambrose puts it something like this in the book:
To the british, with their official Secrets Act, nothing
that Nixon had done seemed that out of the ordinary,
much less illegal. The Italians simply threw up their hands
at the crazy Americans. To the French. Watergate
confirmed their suspicions about the naive Americans.
In west Germany, the frequent comparison of Nixon
to Hitler by his enemies in America showed either
how little the Americans understood Hitler,
or how little they understood Nixon, or both.
Nixons friends in China, could not understand
why he just didn't shoot his critics.

But in a democracy you must play by the law,
and you must trust and have faith in the wisdom
of the election process.
Watergate was all about how these things were
violated and how american democracy proved strong
enough to recover.
Ruin and Recovery reads like a detective story,
absolutely undeniable brilliant stuff.
Rating:
Summary: Well balanced with the focus on Watergate
Review: This third volume of the Nixon series is dominated by the Watergate scandal, with Ambrose skilfully detailing how the great election victory in 1972 slowly unravelled, as the full weight of the media and Democrat-controlled Congress worked to expose the whole tawdry episode. During this era, there was also the bombing of Hanoi followed by the Vietnam ceasefire, and summits with the Soviet leadership, but Watergate overshadowed all. Ambrose makes it clear that Nixon reinvented the story over and over, and bears a large burden of blame for the predicament he found himself in. He also makes clear that this was the opportunity for Nixon's arch enemies in the media and Congress to go for blood. The descent into the nightmare of possible impeachment and eventual resignation reads like an inevitablity, that Nixon lasted till August 1974 said a lot about his tenacity and stubborness in the face of relentless adversity.

The recovery of Nixon was never fully realized, although he was an authoritative elder statesman in later years, and Ambrose shows that Nixon had regained a fair amount of respect in his later years. Since his death the left has continued to disparage and villify his legacy, but as hard as it is to defend Nixon at times, he was still a statesman to be reckoned with, and his foreign policy record, especially with his China trip, is one of distinction. The eastern establishment despised Nixon, but he did not cater to them, it was the silent majority that was his constituency. One finishes this book wondering where America would have gone had the Watergate scandal not occurred.

Rating:
Summary: Stellar Work on Nixon and Watergate
Review: To fully understand Nixon, I highly recommend first reading volumes 1 and 2 of Ambrose's work. If, however, you are more interested in the Watergate affair, this volume certainly stands on its own.

This is the final part of Ambrose's definitive three-volume biography of Nixon. The destructive tendencies wonderfully described by Ambrose in the first two volumes come to a head in Ruin & Recovery. Ambrose takes the reader through the unfolding of the mess that was Watergate.

Even though we all know the ultimate outcome will be resignation, the author manages to maintain enough tension and suspense to keep the reader engrossed. In the wake of resignation, Ambrose follows Nixon's remarkable comeback as an elder statesman.

If an affordable copy is not currently available, be patient. Because this book is out of print, it will be more expensive than you might expect, but you can find it for $20 to $30 if you look around.