Product Description

Working side by side in the White House, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger were two of the most compelling, contradictory, and powerful figures in America in the second half of the twentieth century. While their personalities could hardly have seemed more different, 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 archives, Robert Dallek uncovers fascinating details about Nixon and Kissinger's tumultuous personal relationship and brilliantly analyzes their shared roles in monumental historical events—including the nightmare of Vietnam, the unprecedented opening to China, détente with the Soviet Union, the Yom Kippur War in the Middle East, the disastrous overthrow of Allende in Chile, and the scandal of Watergate.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #126693 in Books
• Published on: 2007-11-01
• Released on: 2007-10-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 752 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Bestselling author Dallek (An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy) delivers what will quickly become recognized as a classic of modern history: the definitive analysis of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger's complex, often troubled partnership in running American foreign policy from January 1969 through August 1974. Dallek has had unprecedented access to major new resources, including transcriptions (20,000 pages) of Kissinger's telephone conversations as secretary of state, unreleased audio files of key Nixon telephone conversations and Oval Office discussions, and previously unexamined documents from the archives of Nixon, Kissinger (who served first as national security adviser, then as secretary of state) and White House hands Alexander Haig and H.R. Haldeman. Dallek's eloquent portrait of power depicts two men who were remarkably alike in important ways. Both harbored ravenous personal ambitions. Both suffered from (and operated out of) profound insecurities and low self-esteem. Both were deeply resentful (to the point of paranoia) of criticisms and challenges. Digging deep into the various archives, Dallek artfully fills in the back stories behind such debacles as the pair's policies in Vietnam, Cambodia and the Middle East, as well as such triumphs as the opening to China. In what many will consider the book's darkest moment, Dallek reveals for the first time the discussions and strategic thinking that led to the U.S.-orchestrated coup d'état against Chile's democratically elected president Salvador Allende in September of 1973. As he did with his Kennedy biography, Dallek finds important new material that will revise our thinking about a president and the man the author terms "a kind of co-president." 16 pages of b&w photos. (May 1)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The Washington Post
Reviewed by Margaret MacMillan

Historian Robert Dallek has made his reputation with biographies of American presidents, Kennedy and Johnson among them. In this massive new book, he focuses on a relationship between one of the most controversial recent American presidents and his most influential foreign policy collaborator. So close was the partnership between Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger that one historian has talked of a "Nixinger" foreign policy. In the first 100 days of his presidency, Nixon met with Kissinger, then his national security adviser, 198 times; by contrast, William Rogers, the secretary of State, met with the president only 30 times.

Nixon and Kissinger shared a similar view of the world -- that nations should act to promote their own interests and to encourage international stability. Both worried about what Vietnam had done and was continuing to do to the United States; both wanted to mend relations with their allies, particularly in Europe; and both wanted a better understanding, including arms control agreements, with the Soviet bloc. Yet they were never friends, and both tried to take credit for the administration's foreign policy successes.

Dallek paints a vivid portrait of two clever, insecure men, each wanting a place in history. Although at the start of their relationship, in 1969, Kissinger was a relative unknown and Nixon his powerful patron, by 1974 it was Kissinger, then secretary of state, who remained popular with the American public as a reviled Nixon left the White House. In later years, they rarely saw each other.

One of the great challenges in writing a history of the Nixon administration is the extraordinary wealth of material, most of it now released. Rogers rightly warned Nixon and Kissinger that they would regret taping everything, but both men were eager to ensure their place in history. Dallek has trolled through thousands of pages of transcripts from the Nixon and Kissinger tapes and caught them at their best and their worst, vindictive, funny, statesmanlike, petty, wise and absurd. A word of warning, though: Their lengthy conversations ought not always be taken at face value. Nixon worked his ideas out that way; Kissinger tended to flatter and agree with his president and even joked about it.

The tapes show the two men egging each other on to savage their enemies. The Democratic senators who are talking of impeaching Nixon during Watergate are, says Kissinger, "bastard traitors." The two men gloat that the 1971 war between India and Pakistan will cause American liberals "untold anguish" because their beloved India was so clearly the aggressor. They celebrate when Gen. Augusto Pinochet overthrows Salvador Allende's government in Chile, reassuring each other that, in Kissinger's words, "we didn't do it," although in the next breath he admits, "I mean we helped them."

Dallek recognizes the real successes of the Nixon administration -- China, the end of the Vietnam War and détente with the Soviet Union -- and its failures, such as the coup in Chile. He also reminds us of how dangerously distracted Nixon became as a result of Watergate. Sen. Barry Goldwater came away deeply worried after a bizarre dinner in 1973 at which Nixon "jabbered incessantly, often incoherently, to the end." Increasingly, it was left to Kissinger, the administration's "one figure of stature remaining," as Time put it, to manage American foreign relations and cope with crises such as the October War between Israel and its Arab neighbors. For all the fascinating detail, the big picture remains elusive. Curiously for a book about one of the key relationships in American foreign policy, there is little extended analysis of what the two men thought about the world and the role of the United States. Nixon, Dallek tells us, wanted to advance world peace. So do beauty pageant contestants. Nixon is "an idealist" and "a defender of national traditions," and Kissinger is America's "chief practitioner of realpolitik." We need more explanation. The two men "had a hidden agenda that they themselves did not fully glimpse." Well, neither do we.

This also is very much a history of the period as seen from inside the Beltway. Other countries and their leaders serve as background and obliging extras. In 1969, Nixon tells Charles de Gaulle that he is "somewhat pessimistic on the Middle East." It would be nice to know why. We get very little sense of what it is the Soviets or the Chinese, or indeed any other peoples, actually want.

Dallek also commits odd omissions. There is almost nothing on the tensions within the Western Alliance, for example, which we know were a major concern for both Nixon and Kissinger. We also know that they had serious reservations about West Germany's "ostpolitik," or rapprochement with its Communist neighbors (which involved much more than "détente with the Communists"), but these barely get a mention. There is no discussion of how Nixon shocked his allies in 1971, when the United States effectively abandoned its support for the dollar and imposed wage and price controls; and there are no references to the impact of the new American relationship with China on allies such as Japan and Taiwan.

Early on, Dallek promises the story of a collaboration "that tells us as much about the opportunities and limits of national and international conditions as about the men themselves." For all his industry, he does not seem to have shaken himself free of his material to deliver on that promise. They can be dangerous things, those tapes.

Copyright 2007, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine
Armed with voluminous new source material, presidential historian Robert Dallek delivers a comprehensive view of a profoundly influential political duo. Because of their importance, very little in Nixon and Kissinger is new. But that doesn't deter reviewers from praising Dallek for this intelligent, wide-ranging synthesis. The author of the best-selling An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917?1963 (***1/2 Sept/Oct 2003) and a two-volume biography of Lyndon Johnson, Dallek details the personal motivations behind Nixon's and Kissinger's public and private machinations, a technique that fascinates most reviewers. A few critics want more political context, but most seem satisfied with this riveting, fleshed-out story of a fascinating time in American history.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

Customer Reviews

waste of time
robert dallek's book "nixon & kissinger" waste of time, typical liberal point of view, glad only paid $4.00 for the book, first and last book i read authored by him

An important piece of the Nixon/Kissinger puzzle
The topic of Richard Nixon's presidency is a massive one, and there are many ways to approach it. Dallek views the era through the lens of the relationship between Nixon and Kissinger. The results are impressive and at over 600 pages, it's obvious that even though Dallek is only using a specific angle, there is much to be said about one of the most controversial presidencies in U.S. history.

Divided into four sections, the book first deals with Nixon and Kissinger's personal histories and the context of how the two came to be a team. This is the shortest section of the book, and had Dallek went further into detail, the rest of the book would have had some added valuable context. Reading about Nixon's childhood and early life goes a long way in explaining his behavior in the White House, and the same goes for Kissinger. Digging a little deeper here could have made the book stronger.

The book is surprising for the incredible detail concerning certain topics (like relations with China & Russia, and also of course Vietnam), but also because of what gets left out (like Chile and a more in-depth discussion of Watergate). One of the book's selling points is Dallek's access to a wealth of new tapes and transcripts and it's clear that in discussions of Vietnam, China, and the Soviet Union, Dallek pulled a lot of important information from these new sources. Perhaps these materials failed to shed light on some other subjects, or perhaps Dallek felt other authors covered them adequately. In any case, the relatively short amount of space devoted to Chile in what is essentially a narrative of Nixon and Kissinger's foreign policy is surprising.

Dallek on the whole is fair to his subjects. He is critical at times, but this is certainly warranted and at no point does Dallek demonize Nixon. Dallek acknowledges why Nixon acted the way he did, but doesn't give him a free pass either. Given the access Dallek had to previously unavailable materials and sources, the book is a must-read for students of American history and international politics.

kissinger and nixon
I like this book
Anyway to show that Nixon was A GREAT PRESIDENT is in my opinion OK