- Table View
- List View
Nitrous Oxide and Climate Change
by Keith SmithNitrous oxide, N2O, is the third most important (in global warming terms) of the greenhouse gases, after carbon dioxide and methane. As this book describes, although it only comprises 320 parts per billion of the earth's atmosphere, it has a so-called Global Warming Potential nearly 300 times greater than that of carbon dioxide. N2O emissions are difficult to estimate, because they are predominantly biogenic in origin. The N2O is formed in soils and oceans throughout the world, by the microbial processes of nitrification and denitrification, that utilise the reactive N compounds ammonium and nitrate, respectively. These forms of nitrogen are released during the natural biogeochemical nitrogen cycle, but are also released by human activity. In fact, the quantity of these compounds entering the biosphere has virtually doubled since the beginning of the industrial age, and this increase has been matched by a corresponding increase in N2O emissions. The largest source is now agriculture, driven mainly by the use of synthetic nitrogen fertilisers. The other major diffuse source derives from release of NOx into the atmosphere from fossil fuel combustion and biomass burning, as well as ammonia from livestock manure. Some N2O also comes directly from combustion, and from two processes in the chemical industry: the production of nitric acid, and the production of adipic acid, used in nylon manufacture. Action is being taken to curb the industrial point-source emissions of N2O, but measures to limit or reduce agricultural emissions are inherently more difficult to devise. As we enter an era in which measures are being explored to reduce fossil fuel use and/or capture or sequester the CO2 emissions from the fuel, it is likely that the relative importance of N2O in the 'Kyoto basket' of greenhouse gases will increase, because comparable mitigation measures for N2O are inherently more difficult, and because expansion of the land area devoted to crops, to feed the increasing global population and to accommodate the current development of biofuels, is likely to lead to an increase in N fertiliser use, and thus N2O emission, worldwide. The aim of this book is to provide a synthesis of scientific information on the primary sources and sinks of nitrous oxide and an assessment of likely trends in atmospheric concentrations over the next century and the potential for mitigation measures.
Nixon: A Life (The Presidents)
by Jonathan AitkenThe rise, fall, and rebirth of Richard Nixon is perhaps the most fascinating story in American politics--and perhaps the most misunderstood. Nixon: A Life is the first entirely objective biography of Richard Nixon. Former British Defense Minister Jonathan Aitken conducted over sixty hours of interviews with the impeached former president and was granted unprecedented access to thousands of pages of Nixon’s previously sealed private documents. Nixon reveals to Aitken why he didn’t burn the Watergate tapes, how he felt when he resigned the presidency, his driving spiritual beliefs, and more. Nixon: A Life breaks important new ground as a major work of political biography, inspiring historians to recognize the outstanding diplomatic achievements of a man whose journey from tainted politician to respected foreign policy expert and elder statesman was nothing short of remarkable.
Nixon Agonistes: The Crisis of the Self-Made Man
by Garry WillsFrom one of America's most distinguished historians comes this classic analysis of Richard Nixon. By considering some of the president's opinions, Wills comes to the controversial conclusion that Nixon was actually a liberal. Both entertaining and essential, Nixon Agonistes captures a troubled leader and a struggling nation mired in a foolish Asian war, forfeiting the loyalty of its youth, puzzled by its own power, and looking to its cautious president for confidence. In the end, Nixon Agonistes reaches far beyond its assessment of the thirty-seventh president to become an incisive and provocative analysis of the American political machine.
Nixon Agonistes: The Crisis of the Self-Made Man
by Garry WillsWith a new preface: A “stunning” analysis of the troubled Republican president by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Lincoln at Gettysburg (The New York Times Book Review). In this acclaimed biography that earned him a spot on Nixon’s infamous “enemies list,” Garry Wills takes a thoughtful, in-depth, and often “very amusing” look at the thirty-seventh US president, and draws some surprising conclusions about a man whose name has become synonymous with scandal and the abuse of power (Kirkus Reviews). Arguing that Nixon was a reflection of the country that elected him, Wills examines not only the psychology of the man himself and his relationships with others—from his wife, Pat, to his vice-president, Spiro Agnew—but also the state of the nation at the time, mired in the Vietnam War and experiencing a cultural rift that pitted the young against the old. Putting his findings into moral, economic, intellectual, and political contexts, he ultimately “paints a broad and provocative landscape of the nation’s—and Nixon’s—travails” (The New York Times). Simultaneously compassionate and critical, and raising interesting perspectives on the shifting definitions of terms like “conservative” and “liberal” over recent decades, Nixon Agonistes is a brilliant and indispensable book from one of America’s most acclaimed historians.
Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power
by Robert DallekIn this epic dual biography, one of our most distinguished scholars—the bestselling author of An Unfinished Life—probes the lives and times of two unlikely leaders whose partnership dominated American and world affairs and changed the course of historyRichard Nixon and Henry Kissinger were two of the most compelling, contradictory, and important leaders in America in the second half of the 20th century. Both were largely self-made men, brimming with ambition, driven by their own inner demons, and often ruthless in pursuit of their goals. Tapping into a wealth of recently declassified documents and tapes, Robert Dallek uncovers fascinating details about Nixon and Kissinger’s tumultuous personal relationship—their collaboration and rivalry—and the extent to which they struggled to outdo each other in the reach of foreign policy achievements. He also brilliantly analyzes their dealings with power brokers at home and abroad, including the nightmare of Vietnam, the brilliant opening to China, détente with the Soviet Union, the Yom Kippur War in the Middle East, the disastrous overthrow of Allende in Chile, and growing tensions between India and Pakistan, while recognizing how both men were continually plotting to distract the American public’s attention from the growing scandal of Watergate. Authoritative, illuminating, and deeply engrossing, Nixon and Kissinger provides a shocking new understanding of the immense power and sway these two men held in affecting world history.
Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World
by Margaret MacmillanWith the publication of her landmark bestseller Paris 1919, Margaret MacMillan was praised as "a superb writer who can bring history to life" (The Philadelphia Inquirer). Now she brings her extraordinary gifts to one of the most important subjects today--the relationship between the United States and China--and one of the most significant moments in modern history.
Nixon at the Movies: A Book about Belief
by Mark FeeneyWas it an omen? Richard Nixon and the film industry arrived in Southern California in the same year, 1913. As Mark Feeney relates in this unusual and unusually absorbing book, Nixon and the movies have shared a long and complex history. Some of that historyOCothe president's multiple screenings of "Patton" before and during the invasion of Cambodia, or Oliver Stone's "Nixon"OCois well known. Yet much more is not. How many are aware, for example, that Nixon was an enthusiastic filmgoer who watched more than five hundred movies during his presidency? "Nixon at the Movies" takes a new and often revelatory approach to looking at Nixon's careerOCoand Hollywood's. From the obvious ("All the President's Men") to the less so (Elvis Presley movies and Nixon's relationship to '60s youth culture) to several onscreen alternate Nixons (Fred MacMurray in "Double Indemnity," Tony Curtis in "The Sweet Smell of Success," Gene Hackman in "The Conversation"), Feeney sees aspects of Nixon's character, and the nation's, refracted and reimagined in film. Conversely, Feeney argues that Nixon can help us see the movies in a new light, making a strong case for Nixon as the movies' tutelary deity during the early '70s, playing a role in Hollywood's Silver Age comparable to FDR's during its Golden Age. Stylishly written and bracingly eclectic, "Nixon at the Movies" draws on biography, politics, cultural history, and film criticism to show just how deeply in the twentieth-century American grain lies the pair of seemingly incongruous nouns in its title. As Nixon once remarked to Garry Wills: Isn't that a hell of a thing, that the fate of a great country can depend on camera angles?"
The Nixon Conspiracy: Watergate and the Plot to Remove the President
by Geoff ShepardGeoff Shepard&’s shocking exposé of corrupt collusion between prosecutors, judges, and congressional staff to void Nixon&’s 1972 landslide reelection. Their success changed the course of American history.Geoff Shepard had a ringside seat to the unfolding Watergate debacle. As the youngest lawyer on Richard Nixon&’s staff, he personally transcribed the Oval Office tape in which Nixon appeared to authorize getting the CIA to interfere with the ongoing FBI investigation, and even coined the phrase &“the smoking gun.&” Like many others, the idealistic Shepard was deeply disappointed in the president. But as time went on, the meticulous lawyer was nagged by the persistent sense that something wasn&’t right with the case against Nixon. The Nixon Conspiracy is a detailed and definitive account of the Watergate prosecutors&’ internal documents uncovered after years of painstaking research in previously sealed archives. Shepard reveals the untold story of how a flawed but honorable president was needlessly brought down by a corrupt, deep state, big media alliance—a circumstance that looks all too familiar today. In this hard-hitting exposé, Shepard reveals the real smoking gun: the prosecutors&’ secret, but erroneous, &“Road Map&” which caused grand jurors to name Nixon a co-conspirator in the Watergate cover-up and the House Judiciary Committee to adopt its primary Article of Impeachment. Shepard&’s startling conclusion is that Nixon didn&’t actually have to resign. The proof of his good faith is right there on the tapes. Instead, he should have taken his case to a Senate impeachment trial—where, if everything we know now had come out—he would easily have won.
The Nixon Defense
by John W. DeanBased on Nixon's overlooked recordings, New York Times bestselling author John W. Dean connects the dots between what we've come to believe about Watergate and what actually happened Watergate forever changed American politics, and in light of the revelations about the NSA's widespread surveillance program, the scandal has taken on new significance. Yet remarkably, four decades after Nixon was forced to resign, no one has told the full story of his involvement in Watergate. In The Nixon Defense, former White House Counsel John W. Dean, one of the last major surviving figures of Watergate, draws on his own transcripts of almost a thousand conversations, a wealth of Nixon's secretly recorded information, and more than 150,000 pages of documents in the National Archives and the Nixon Library to provide the definitive answer to the question: What did PresidentNixon know and when did he know it? Through narrative and contemporaneous dialogue, Dean connects dots that have never been connected, including revealing how and why the Watergate break-in occurred, what was on the mysterious 18 1/2 minute gap in Nixon's recorded conversations, and more. In what will stand as the most authoritative account of one of America's worst political scandals, The Nixon Defense shows how the disastrous mistakes of Watergate could have been avoided and offers a cautionary tale for our own time.
The Nixon Defense: What He Knew and When He Knew It
by John W. DeanBased on Nixon's overlooked recordings, New York Times bestselling author John W. Dean connects the dots between what we've come to believe about Watergate and what actually happened Watergate forever changed American politics, and in light of the revelations about the NSA's widespread surveillance program, the scandal has taken on new significance. Yet remarkably, four decades after Nixon was forced to resign, no one has told the full story of his involvement in Watergate. In The Nixon Defense, former White House Counsel John W. Dean, one of the last major surviving figures of Watergate, draws on his own transcripts of almost a thousand conversations, a wealth of Nixon's secretly recorded information, and more than 150,000 pages of documents in the National Archives and the Nixon Library to provide the definitive answer to the question: What did PresidentNixon know and when did he know it? Through narrative and contemporaneous dialogue, Dean connects dots that have never been connected, including revealing how and why the Watergate break-in occurred, what was on the mysterious 18 1/2 minute gap in Nixon's recorded conversations, and more. In what will stand as the most authoritative account of one of America's worst political scandals, The Nixon Defense shows how the disastrous mistakes of Watergate could have been avoided and offers a cautionary tale for our own time.From the Trade Paperback edition.
The Nixon Defense
by John W. DeanBased on Nixon's overlooked recordings, New York Times bestselling author John W. Dean connects the dots between what we've come to believe about Watergate and what actually happened Watergate forever changed American politics, and in light of the revelations about the NSA's widespread surveillance program, the scandal has taken on new significance. Yet remarkably, four decades after Nixon was forced to resign, no one has told the full story of his involvement in Watergate. In The Nixon Defense, former White House Counsel John W. Dean, one of the last major surviving figures of Watergate, draws on his own transcripts of almost a thousand conversations, a wealth of Nixon's secretly recorded information, and more than 150,000 pages of documents in the National Archives and the Nixon Library to provide the definitive answer to the question: What did President Nixon know and when did he know it? Through narrative and contemporaneous dialogue, Dean connects dots that have never been connected, including revealing how and why the Watergate break-in occurred, what was on the mysterious 18 1/2 minute gap in Nixon's recorded conversations, and more. In what will stand as the most authoritative account of one of America's worst political scandals, The Nixon Defense shows how the disastrous mistakes of Watergate could have been avoided and offers a cautionary tale for our own time.
The Nixon Effect
by Douglas E. SchoenThe Nixon Effect examines the 37th president's political legacy in broad-ranging ways that make clear, for the first time, the breadth and duration of his influence on American political life. The book argues that Nixon is the key political figure in postwar American politics in multiple ways, some barely acknowledged until now. His legacy includes a generational shift in the ideological orientations of both the Republican and Democratic parties; the Nixon influence, both intentional and unintentional, was to push both parties further out to their ideological poles. So stark was Nixon's influence on party identities that it shaped the hardened partisan polarization in Washington today and the evolution of what has come to be called Red and Blue America.Stemming in part from this, and also from Nixon's scorched-earth political warfare and eventually his Watergate scandal, we have also seen the evolution of politics as war, where adversaries and ideological opponents are seen as evil or unpatriotic. Finally, Nixon's pioneering tactics-from the identification of the Silent Majority to the Southern Strategy, from "triangulating" between both parties and claiming the political center to launching the culture war with attacks on "elites" in media, academia, and the courts-have shaped political communications and strategy ever since.Other books have argued for Nixon's importance, but Douglas E. Schoen's is the first to take into account the full range of this fascinating man's influence. While not discounting Nixon's many misdeeds, Schoen treats his presidency and its importance with the seriousness-and evenhandedness-that the subject deserves.
The Nixon Memo: Political Respectability, Russia, and the Press
by Marvin KalbAn absorbing example of political journalism, The Nixon Memo is a case study of Richard Nixon's relentless quest for political rehabilitation. At issue is the key role of this former president of the United States (best known for his involvement in the famous "watergate" scandal) in the post-cold war debate about aiding Russia in its uncertain revolution. The story begins on March 10, 1992. Nixon had written a private memo critical of president George Bush's policy toward Russia. The memo leaked and exploded on the front page of The New York Times. Why would Nixon attack Bush, a fellow party member fighting for re-election? Why on an issue of foreign affairs, which was Bush's strength? The questions are as intriguing as the answers, and distinguished journalist and scholar Marvin Kalb offers a suspenseful, eye-opening account of how our conventional wisdom on United States foreign policy is shaped by the insider's game of press/politics. This story of Nixon's Machiavellian efforts to pressure the White House, by way of the press, into helping Boris Yeltsin and Russia sheds new light on the inner workings of the world inside the government of the United States. Marvin Kalb read the documents behind the Nixon memo and interviewed scores of journalists, scholars, and officials in and from Washington and Moscow. Drawing on his years of experience as a diplomatic correspondent, he identifies and illuminates the intersection of press and politics in the fashioning of public policy. "An absorbing and often compelling argument that Richard Nixon directed his own political rehabilitation on the world stage, using presidents, lesser politicians, and the press as his supporting cast. This is a first-class job of unraveling a complex and usually unseen tapestry."—Ted Koppel "With Marvin Kalb's captivating account, Richard Nixon continues to fascinate us even in death."—Al Hunt
Nixon & Rockefeller: A Double Portrait
by Stewart AlsopA fascinating analysis of two of the most important figures in 1960s American politics, written during their battle for the GOP presidential nomination. Richard Milhous Nixon was one of the most controversial politicians in America's history: a California congressman, senator, vice president, and president who was forced to resign his position as US Chief Executive because of his role in the scandalous Watergate affair. Nelson Rockefeller was the scion of a phenomenally wealthy American family and longtime governor of New York State. In 1960 they were the leading contenders to win the Republican Party's nomination for president of the United States, one of whom would face the Democratic challenger, Senator John F. Kennedy, in November's general election. Written by acclaimed journalist Stewart Alsop during the heat of the political race to the Republican Convention, Nixon & Rockefeller provides a revealing, often surprising dual portrait of two giants of twentieth-century American politics. Alsop, an acknowledged Washington, DC, insider and one of the most esteemed political analysts of his era, explores the backgrounds, mindsets, and distinct personalities, as well as the strengths and failings of these two candidates vying for the highest office in the country. The author's intelligent and insightful views on the nature of a Nixon presidency versus a Rockefeller presidency make for fascinating reading in light of the political outcome that ultimately was and one that might have been.
The Nixon Tapes: 1971–1972
by Douglas Brinkley Luke NichterThe famous -- and infamous -- Nixon White House tapes that reveal President Richard Nixon uncensored, unfiltered, and in his own words President Nixon's voice-activated taping system captured every word spoken in the Oval Office, Cabinet Room, and other key locations in the White House, and at Camp David -- 3,700 hours of recordings between 1971 and 1973. Yet less than 5 percent of those conversations have ever been transcribed and published. Now, thanks to professor Luke Nichter's massive effort to digitize and transcribe the tapes, the world can finally read an unprecedented account of one of the most important and controversial presidencies in U.S. history. The Nixon Tapes, with annotations and commentary by Nichter and Professor Douglas Brinkley, offers a selection of fascinating scenes from the year Nixon opened relations with China, negotiated the SALT I arms agreement with the Soviet Union, and won a landslide reelection victory. All the while, the growing shadow of Watergate and Nixon's political downfall crept ever closer. The Nixon Tapes provides a unique glimpse into a flawed president's hubris, paranoia, and political genius.
The Nixon Tapes: 1973
by Douglas Brinkley, Luke A. NichterThis &“revealing&” transcription captures a dark and dramatic year in presidential history—and the words of Richard Nixon himself (The New York Times Book Review). Between 1971 and 1973, President Richard Nixon&’s voice-activated tape recorders captured 3,700 hours of conversations. Douglas Brinkley and Luke Nichter&’s intrepid two-volume transcription and annotation of the highlights of this essential archive provides an unprecedented and fascinating window into the inner workings of a momentous presidency. The Nixon Tapes: 1973 tells the concluding chapter of the story, the final year of taping, covering such events as the Vietnam cease-fire, the Wounded Knee standoff, and, of course, the Watergate investigation. Once again, there are revelations on every page. With Nixon&’s landslide 1972 reelection victory receding into the background and the scandal that would scuttle the administration looming, The Nixon Tapes: 1973 reveals the inside story of the tragedy that followed the triumph.
The Nixon Tapes: 1971–1972 (With Audio Clips)
by Douglas Brinkley, Luke A. NichterAn enhanced edition of this &“fascinating&” collection of White House transcripts, including audio clips of some of the most newsworthy conversations (San Francisco Chronicle). This &“treasure trove&” of transcripts documents two years of Richard Nixon&’s presidency and takes you directly inside the White House, through the famous—and infamous—Nixon White House tapes that reveal for the first time the president uncensored, unfiltered, and in his own words (TheBoston Globe). President Nixon&’s voice-activated taping system captured every word spoken in the Oval Office, Cabinet Room, other key locations in the White House, and at Camp David—3,700 hours of recordings between 1971 and 1973. Yet less than five percent of those conversations have ever been transcribed and published. Now, thanks to historian Luke Nichter&’s massive effort to digitize and transcribe the tapes, the world can finally read an unprecedented account of one of the most important and controversial presidencies in US history. This volume of The Nixon Tapes offers a selection of fascinating scenes from the period in which Nixon opened relations with China, negotiated the SALT I arms agreement with the Soviet Union, and won a landslide reelection victory. All the while, the growing shadow of Watergate and Nixon&’s political downfall crept ever closer. The Nixon Tapes provides a never-before-seen glimpse into a flawed president&’s hubris, paranoia, and political genius—&“essential for students of the era and fascinating for those who lived it&” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).
The Nixon Tapes (With Audio Clips): 1973 (WITH AUDIO CLIPS)
by Douglas Brinkley, Luke A. NichterWith audio clips included, this &“revealing&” transcription captures a dark and dramatic year in presidential history—and the words of Richard Nixon himself (The New York Times Book Review). Between 1971 and 1973, President Richard Nixon&’s voice-activated tape recorders captured 3,700 hours of conversations. Douglas Brinkley and Luke Nichter&’s intrepid two-volume transcription and annotation of the highlights of this essential archive provides an unprecedented and fascinating window into the inner workings of a momentous presidency. The Nixon Tapes: 1973 tells the concluding chapter of the story, the final year of taping, covering such events as the Vietnam cease-fire, the Wounded Knee standoff, and, of course, the Watergate investigation. Once again, there are revelations on every page. With Nixon&’s landslide 1972 reelection victory receding into the background and the scandal that would scuttle the administration looming, The Nixon Tapes: 1973 reveals the inside story of the tragedy that followed the triumph.
Nixon Volume I: The Education of a Politician 1913-1962
by Stephen E. AmbroseFrom acclaimed biographer Stephen E. Ambrose comes the life of one of the most elusive and intriguing American political figures, Richard M. Nixon. From his difficult boyhood and earnest youth to bis ruthless political campaigns for Congress and Senate to his defeats in '60 and '62, Nixon emerges life-size in all his complexity. Ambrose charts the peaks and valleys of Nixon's first fifty years -- his critical support as a freshman congressman of the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan; his involvement in the House Committee on Un-American Activities; his aggressive pursuit of Alger Hiss; his ambivalent relationship with Eisenhower; and more. It is the consummate biography; it is a stunning political odyssey.
Nixon Volume II: The Triumph of a Politician 1962-1972
by Stephen E. AmbroseThe author begins this volume on election day in 1962 when Richard Nixon, defeated in his bid for the California governorship, retired from political life. But staging one of the greatest political comebacks in American history, on November 6, 1968, Richard Nixon achieved the ultimate triumph and was elected president of the US. With the help of Henry Kissinger, Nixon opened relations with China, established detente with the USSR and withdrew troops from the bloody stalemate in Vietnam - yet in preparing for the 1972 election, he had begun sowing the seeds of his own destruction in the maelstrom the country would soon refer to as "Watergate".
Nixon Volume III: Ruin and Recovery 1973-1990
by Stephen E. AmbroseWatergate is a story of high drama and low skulduggery, of lies and bribes, of greed and lust for power. With access to the central characters, the public papers, and the trials transcripts, Ambrose explains how Nixon destroyed himself through a combination of arrogance and indecision, allowing a "third-rate burglary" to escalate into a scandal that overwhelmed his presidency. Within a decade and a half however, Nixon had become one of America's elder statesmen, respected internationally and at home even by those who had earlier clamoured loudest for his head. This is the story of Nixon's final fall from grace and astonishing recovery.
Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America
by Rick PerlsteinTold with urgency and sharp political insight, Nixonland recaptures America's turbulent 1960s and early 1970s and reveals how Richard Nixon rose from the political grave to seize and hold the presidency. Perlstein's epic account begins in the blood and fire of the 1965 Watts riots, nine months after Lyndon Johnson's historic landslide victory over Barry Goldwater appeared to herald a permanent liberal consensus in the United States. Yet the next year, scores of liberals were tossed out of Congress, America was more divided than ever, and a disgraced politician was on his way to a shocking comeback: Richard Nixon. Between 1965 and 1972, America experienced no less than a second civil war. Out of its ashes, the political world we know now was born. It was the era not only of Nixon, Johnson, Spiro Agnew, Hubert H. Humphrey, George McGovern, Richard J. Daley, and George Wallace but Abbie Hoffman, Ronald Reagan, Angela Davis, Ted Kennedy, Charles Manson, John Lindsay, and Jane Fonda. There are tantalizing glimpses of Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, Jesse Jackson, John Kerry, and even of two ambitious young men named Karl Rove and William Clinton -- and a not so ambitious young man named George W. Bush. Cataclysms tell the story of Nixonland: - Angry blacks burning down their neighborhoods in cities across the land as white suburbanites defend home and hearth with shotguns - The student insurgency over the Vietnam War, the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, and the riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention - The fissuring of the Democratic Party into warring factions manipulated by the "dirty tricks" of Nixon and his Committee to Re-Elect the President - Richard Nixon pledging a new dawn of national unity, governing more divisively than any president before him, then directing a criminal conspiracy, the Watergate cover-up, from the Oval Office Then, in November 1972, Nixon, harvesting the bitterness and resentment born of America's turmoil, was reelected in a landslide even bigger than Johnson's 1964 victory, not only setting the stage for his dramatic 1974 resignation but defining the terms of the ideological divide that characterizes America today. Filled with prodigious research and driven by a powerful narrative, Rick Perlstein's magisterial account of how America divided confirms his place as one of our country's most celebrated historians.
Nixon's Back Channel to Moscow: Confidential Diplomacy and Détente (Studies In Conflict, Diplomacy, And Peace Ser.)
by Richard A. MossMost Americans consider détente—the reduction of tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union—to be among the Nixon administration's most significant foreign policy successes. The diplomatic back channel that national security advisor Henry Kis
Nixon's Court: His Challenge to Judicial Liberalism and Its Political Consequences
by Mcmahon Kevin J.Most analysts have deemed Richard Nixon’s challenge to the judicial liberalism of the Warren Supreme Court a failure—“a counterrevolution that wasn’t. ” Nixon’s Court offers an alternative assessment. Kevin J. McMahon reveals a Nixon whose public rhetoric was more conservative than his administration’s actions and whose policy towards the Court was more subtle than previously recognized. Viewing Nixon’s judicial strategy as part political and part legal, McMahon argues that Nixon succeeded substantially on both counts. Many of the issues dear to social conservatives, such as abortion and school prayer, were not nearly as important to Nixon. Consequently, his nominations for the Supreme Court were chosen primarily to advance his “law and order” and school desegregation agendas—agendas the Court eventually endorsed. But there were also political motivations to Nixon’s approach: he wanted his judicial policy to be conservative enough to attract white southerners and northern white ethnics disgruntled with the Democratic party but not so conservative as to drive away moderates in his own party. In essence, then, he used his criticisms of the Court to speak to members of his “Silent Majority” in hopes of disrupting the long-dominant New Deal Democratic coalition. For McMahon, Nixon’s judicial strategy succeeded not only in shaping the course of constitutional law in the areas he most desired but also in laying the foundation of an electoral alliance that would dominate presidential politics for a generation.
Nixon's Court: His Challenge to Judicial Liberalism and Its Political Consequences
by Kevin J. McMahonMost analysts have deemed Richard Nixon’s challenge to the judicial liberalism of the Warren Supreme Court a failure—“a counterrevolution that wasn’t.” Nixon’s Court offers an alternative assessment. Kevin J. McMahon reveals a Nixon whose public rhetoric was more conservative than his administration’s actions and whose policy towards the Court was more subtle than previously recognized. Viewing Nixon’s judicial strategy as part political and part legal, McMahon argues that Nixon succeeded substantially on both counts.Many of the issues dear to social conservatives, such as abortion and school prayer, were not nearly as important to Nixon. Consequently, his nominations for the Supreme Court were chosen primarily to advance his “law and order” and school desegregation agendas—agendas the Court eventually endorsed. But there were also political motivations to Nixon’s approach: he wanted his judicial policy to be conservative enough to attract white southerners and northern white ethnics disgruntled with the Democratic party but not so conservative as to drive away moderates in his own party. In essence, then, he used his criticisms of the Court to speak to members of his “Silent Majority” in hopes of disrupting the long-dominant New Deal Democratic coalition. For McMahon, Nixon’s judicial strategy succeeded not only in shaping the course of constitutional law in the areas he most desired but also in laying the foundation of an electoral alliance that would dominate presidential politics for a generation.