THE GREAT STREAM OF HISTORY

An unsparing portrait of our most durable living public figure, from his experiences in campus politics through his checkered Washington career to his recent reemergence as a respected voice in international affairs. Nixon is presented as a humorless introvert (his ``idea of relaxing was to spend an evening at home playing with Checkers, their four cats, and his two girls'') who barricaded himself behind a small group of secretive, suspicious advisors and who spent many of his last White House days drunk. Concerned that his slippery approach to legal niceties and verbal accuracy is being forgotten, Nadel (a writer for several major news organizations in the 70's and 80's) details Nixon's often-unsavory campaign tactics, his running feud with the press, and Watergate's tissue of deception—all against a summary background of world and national events. The author regards Nixon's current renascence as ``surreal'' and even lays Iran-contra at his door as the ``illegitimate godchild'' of a man who ``raise[d] covert foreign policy to a high art.'' Randolph (Richard M. Nixon, 1989) and several others present more balanced views; Feinberg's Watergate (1990) offers more detail on Nixon's downfall. Notes; bibliography. Index & photos not seen. (Biography. 12-16)*justify no*