Home › Books & Reviews › Capsule Reviews › The Nixon Presidency

The Nixon Presidency

Edited by Kenneth W. Thompson
Reviewed by By William P. Bundy
Winter 1987/88
Print Email
Login or Register to leave a comment.

Sign-up for free weekly updates from ForeignAffairs.com.
Edited by Kenneth W. Thompson
University Press of America
1987
416 pp.

This is the sixth in a series of oral history volumes prepared by the White Burkett Miller Center for Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Men who worked closely with Nixon recall the man and the presidency. Most agree that Nixon's intellect is extraordinary-"the highest of any person ever to serve in the Oval Office," said one adviser-but that he suffers from an incapacity to like other people and be liked in turn. The volume is thin in the area of foreign affairs because the principal participants did not accept invitations to be interviewed.

Related

Essay, Jan 1971
The Nixon Doctrine and Our Asian Commitments
Earl G. Ravenal

Eighteen months after its enunciation at Guam the Nixon Doctrine remains obscure and contradictory in its intent and application. It is not simply that the wider pattern of war in Indochina challenges the Doctrine's promise of a lower posture in Asia. More than that, close analysis and the unfolding of events expose some basic flaws in the logic of the Administration's evolving security policy for the new decade. The Nixon Doctrine properly includes more than the declaratory policy orientation. It comprises also the revised worldwide security strategy of "1½ wars" and the new defense decision-making processes such as "fiscal guidance budgeting." These elements have received little comment, especially in their integral relation to our commitments in Asia. But the effects of this Administration's moves in these areas will shape and constrain the choices of the United States for a long time to come.

Read
Essay, Oct 1970
The New Generation of Isolationists
James A. Johnson

The decade of the sixties has produced a new school of isolationism. The reaction to the war in Vietnam, the demands of domestic problems and the seeming hollowness of traditional assumptions of international involvement- all give rise to this outlook. The isolationism is sometimes incoherent, occasionally inconsistent, and very attractive to a large portion of the younger generation.

Read
Essay, Oct 1970
The Peace Corps: Making it in the Seventies
Joseph H. Blatchford

Ten years ago this fall John Kennedy first spoke about sending Americans overseas in voluntary service. By the following summer the idea had a name- the Peace Corps-several hundred Volunteers were in training, and even as Congress debated the program it became clear that the idea was catching on. The Silent Generation was ready to be heard from and young Americans were flooding the Corps' makeshift headquarters with thousands of applications. The public saw in it an opportunity to "show what Americans are really like" and redeem the image portrayed in Eugene Burdick's best-seller, "The Ugly American." Surveys revealed thousands of jobs to be done abroad. It seemed obvious that the most modern nation in the world could provide the needed manpower. Despite misgivings, Congress baptized the experiment by overwhelming votes.

Read