Nixon Agonistes: The Crisis of the Self-Made Man

A series of magazine articles about the 1968 Republican nomination for president. The absolutely best ones are those on Nixon.A wide ranging study of Richard Nixon -- the man, the career, and the times that shaped both the man and the career. It is uncanny in the way it a foreshadows Nixon's self-destructive impulses: his paranoia, his introversion, his secrecy, his distrust, his self-doubts, his insecurities which combined to lead him to Watergate's half-truths, deceits, prevarications, denials, lies, enemies list, and so on.The Nixon that emerges from these pages is hardworking, and always over-prepared for everything, a man who scripted and edited his every word and gesture. If he seemed wooden and without spontaneity it is because he was his own puppet master, jerking the wires to jaw and arm. Supposing himself to lack the assets of others (the personal charm of Charles Percy, the grace of William Scranton, the wit of Adlai Stevenson, the courage of John Lindsay, the gravitas of Robert Taft, the respect accorded Dwight Eisenhower, the dignity of George Romney, the mental agility of Harold Stassen, the experience of Henry Cabot Lodge, the wealth of Nelson Rockefeller, the good looks of John Kennedy) Nixon compensated for all these these gifts bestowed on others by working longer and harder than anyone else with that famous "iron butt." Everything he ever did in public was practiced, rehearsed, revised, practiced, rejected, redone, and so on until he reached the robotic result we all saw.He would never give in to the human impulse to look at his watch while listening to a voter rant as George Bush (once did and was excoriated for so doing).If Nixon throughout his career looked tired it was because he was, not having slept but instead planned, edited, and revised the next day's every word and gesture. Nixon never trusted himself still less anyone else. This deep-rooted sense of inferiority seems to have come from nowhere; his childhood and family life before politics are numbingly ordinary.As early as 1952 Nixon supposed that even members of his own party despised him (for his lack for such gifts as mentioned above) and this conclusion made him all the more determined never to put a foot wrong. One result of this determination was his distinctive reluctance ever to say anything in his own voice; instead he would say: "as a voter I met in Arizona said...," or ‘as President Eisenhower said...,’ or ‘sources close to the Prime Minister said,’ and so on. It is likely that the first few times these attributions were true but in time it became a habit to distance himself from himself. Wills describes how Nixon reacted to his own successful nomination in 1968 as an example. Convincing.Then there is his first inaugural, an embarrassing parroting of Kennedy’s, as if somehow to capture that magic. This Nixon reminds me of Kenneth Widmerpool when Barbara Goring poured the sugar bowl on his head (or the earlier banana incident); he was grateful to be noticed: even if as a fool. (Widmerpool is the central character in Antony Powell’s magnificient twelve volume novel, Dance to the Music of Time.)Though it has nothing to do with Nixon, I particularly enjoyed Wills’s deflation of some of Arthur Schlesinger Jr’s many pretensions. That made me wonder how they cooperated when Schlesinger commissioned him to write the brief biography of James Madison (2002) in a series. Time may have healed that wound.In 1969 Wills refers to 'men' when he means 'people.' This will outrage anachronistic style police. I found it distracting and annoying,

Clear insight into what was before his eyes, before all our eyes. Most impressive is Wills' ability to accurately describe the foibles, failures, and the occasional true strengths of figures and movements of all stripes: the conservative and the mainstream Establishments, young and radical activists, blacks, intellectuals, Americans. This is an exceptional country. So powerfully inept, so able to be hoodwinked, so disappointingly unable to fulfill its founding promises and principles. Within this book are some of the reasons for our medical and our educational systems being so screwed up that our infant mortality and student achievement numbers are truly disgraceful.I don't thoroughly know politics and history. Perhaps there are better chronicles of the transformation of our country from a productive agricultural and manufacturing society to one that primarily makes vapor and shuffles Monopoly money around. But Wills' account of the first part of the shift that occurred after World War II to bring us to the 21st century "Information Age" is very useful to me. Maybe it should be grouped with Rick Perlstein's trilogy about this period. Garry Wills certainly can write deftly and artfully though.

I have read other works by Wills and I liked his writing. This, however, was a ver4y difficult read. I also found that the title was somewhat deceptive. The first half of the book discussed Nixon and the last couple chapters did also but in between was discussions of various items. It seemed to ramble a lot. He also seemed to want to write for as much more educated crowd than myself. He used the following words: infelicitous, chiastic, philhellene, ictus, orotundity, camelotitis, eschaton, agonistes, nugatory, concatenated, canted, palinodes, remasticating, stichically, eructated, semihiant, singultus, affiches, premasticated, regnant, concatenated, sinuosities, deliquescence, lacuna, fictive, plangent, suasiveness, demimonde and aridities. There were some more but I didn't start compiling this list until chapter 2 and I wasn't willing to go back. I read a lot and I will admit that I am not that well versed in English but, really! What comes to mind is "there are a lot of big words in there missy, we are but ‘umble pirates" - H Barbossa.

This is an older book. I had it in paperback but the pages fell out. This hard cover is much better. And the story is insightful on Nixon.

forgotten by too many, this book is brilliant for its prose and insight, considering it is also written during the Nixon era -- long before all the historic materials were seen

in my copy of "nixon agonistes"(2002 paperback edition), gary wills does not repeat nixon's famous statement after his 1962 defeat in california: "you won't have richard nixon to kick around anymore.". he describes the rest of the press conference as usually reported. is this true of all editions of the book and, if so, why? any info. is appreciated.

A complete grasp of the times and circumstances surrounding Nixon written by an outstanding journalist. Probably won't change your mind about Nixon.

Nixon is a character right out of Shakespeare.

Great looking copy.