Nixon: A Life
Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 1993. Second printing [stated]. Hardcover. 26 cm. xiv, 633, [1] pages. Illustrations. Principal Sources. Notes. Select Bibliography. Index. Minor sticker residue on rear DJ. Jonathan William Patrick Aitken (born 30 August 1942) is an Irish-born British former Conservative Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom (1974–97), and a former Cabinet minister. He was convicted of perjury in 1999 and received an 18-month prison sentence, of which he served seven months. Aitken was a member of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom. After becoming a Christian, he later became the president of Christian Solidarity Worldwide and was ordained in the Church of England. He served as a war correspondent during the 1960s in Vietnam and Biafra, and gained a reputation for risk-taking when he took LSD in 1966 as an experiment for an article in the London Evening Standard and had a bad trip. He was also a journalist at Yorkshire Television from 1968 to 1970, presenting the regional news show Calendar. Aitken was the first person to be seen on screen from Yorkshire Television when it began broadcasting. In 1970, Aitken was acquitted at the Old Bailey for breaching section 2 of the Official Secrets Act 1911, when he photocopied a report about the British government's supply of arms to Nigeria, and sent a copy to The Sunday Telegraph and to Hugh Fraser, a pro-Biafran Tory MP. Aitken's favorable biography, Nixon: A Life, of former US President Richard Nixon, was published in 1993. Although his was not an authorized biography, Aitken was one of the few biographers from whom Nixon accepted questions and to whom he granted interviews. The rise, fall, and rebirth of Richard Nixon is perhaps the most fascinating story in American politics. Presidential chronicles and other outside sources have tried to capture it in full, but Nixon: A Life is the first to succeed. Nixon: A Life is the first entirely objective biography of Richard Nixon. Jonathan Aitken, who, in addition to serving in Parliament, serves as Her Majesty's Minister of State for Defense, conducted over sixty hours of interviews with Nixon and was granted unprecedented access to thousands of pages of Nixon's previously sealed private documents. The results of Aitken's interviews and research shed new light on a presidency that is just now beginning to be understood by serious students of history. Among the questions Aitken answers with fresh insight are: . Why didn't Nixon burn the Watergate tapes? How did he achieve his astonishing comebacks after being defeated by Kennedy in 1960 and resigning from the presidency in 1974? What were his relationships with political figures such as Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Henry Kissinger, and personal friends such as Bebe Rebozo and Robert Abplanalp? What caused him to overcome his doubts and pursue the Alger Hiss spy case in Congress? What are Nixon's innermost spiritual beliefs and intellectual influences? What drives him now? Previously published in Great Britain to rave reviews, Nixon: A Life is the first Nixon biography written by a non-American author. Aitken's refreshingly unencumbered positions on Watergate and Vietnam provide a unique perspective on Nixon's life and his presidency. Nixon: A Life breaks important new ground as a major work of political biography. It is a work that will inspire historians to recognize the outstanding diplomatic achievements of a man whose journey from tainted politician to respected foreign policy expert and elder statesman has been nothing short of remarkable. Condition: Very good / Good.
Keywords: Republican Party, Politics and Government, Alger Hiss, Watergate, Richard M. Nixon, Presidents, Henry Kissinger, U.S. Congress, Vietnam, Whittaker Chambers, Patricia Nixon
ISBN: 0895264897
[Book #19784]
Price: $45.00