Product Description

During the last four years of Richard Nixon's life, Monica Crowley served as his foreign-policy assistant and political confidante--a trusted member of the small circle of advisors with whom he shared hours of daily one-on-one conversations.

This is the remarkable story of the final public and private years of the thirty-seventh president, based on full reconstructions of the conversations Crowley had with him at the time.

Nixon in Winter puts the reader behind the scenes with the former president, allowing a unique glimpse into his life as elder statesman and private citizen. It is filled with dramatic revelations about Nixon's influential role on the world stage, whether taking action himself to guide American foreign policy or whispering advice to his successors. His hardheaded views on the end of the cold war, his emotional final trip to China, his powerful inside role during the 1991 Persian Gulf war, and his poignant thoughts on the legacy of Vietnam are recounted--as well as his frustrations with being out of power and with foreign-policy failures of Presidents Bush and Clinton.

With astonishing candor, Nixon also shares his final, startling thoughts on Watergate, including his assessments of all the major players in the scandal and what he would--and would not--have done differently. And he offers an uncompromising look at the way the sexual scandals surrounding the Kennedys, Bill Clinton, Clarence Thomas, and Robert Packwood have changed the politics of scandal.

Above all, he reveals a more private self than ever before as he reflects on his faith and his family, copes with the death of Mrs. Nixon, and struggles to deal with aging and the only force that could ultimately destroy him: death.

Nixon in Winter is the inside story of his last years. It is an unprecedented firsthand portrait, private, provocative, and candid.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2738545 in Books
• Published on: 1999-05
• Formats: Audiobook, Unabridged
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 13
• Binding: Audio Cassette

Amazon.com Review
Monica Crowley served as a personal assistant to former president Richard M. Nixon from July 1990 until his death in April 1994. During that period, she maintained a private journal in which she recorded his utterances with transcriptive clarity (a trait she attributes to having written down each conversation immediately after it was concluded). In Nixon Off the Record, she presented his views on political leadership and his opinions of specific leaders. In this sequel, she concentrates on Nixon's vision for America's foreign policy, which formed the basis of his attempts to influence the foreign policy of his successors, and his increasing awareness and acceptance of his own mortality.

Although Nixon in Winter is almost assuredly intended to portray Nixon's final years as a strong, ideologically committed statesman in semiexile, what often comes through is the image of a lonely old man suffering from frustration over his unintended legacy and reputation. Dismissing even those biographies which depict him positively, he worries, "I haven't written enough. Look at Churchill. He wrote volumes. Maybe I should write more." There's a certain wistfulness to Nixon waking Crowley up with a phone call at 7:15 A.M. or cooking chili out of the can for the two of them, serving it with grapefruit juice ("I find that it cuts the taste of the chili"). Nixon in Winter rounds out the public image of one of the 20th century's most controversial leaders with an unusually personal perspective.

From Publishers Weekly
In this plodding sequel to Nixon Off the Record (1996), Crowley, confidante, research consultant, travel companion and foreign policy assistant to the former president from 1990 until his death in 1994, records her conversations with him based on her daily diary. While her memoir contains few surprises in its admiring portrayal of Nixon as a farsighted politician and wise elder statesman, it presents him in his own authentic voice. He bristles with contempt at President Bush, whom he accuses of political overinvestment in Gorbachev, and praises Yeltsin as a progressive leader. Defending his Vietnam War policy as necessary to stop North Vietnam's expansionism, Nixon blames Congress's cutback of military funds as the reason America lost a winnable war. On Watergate, he wavers between defensive dismissal, acceptance of responsibility and blaming a press corps bent on retaliation because he unearthed Alger Hiss as a communist spy. Nixon chastises the American people for condoning Clinton's sexual infidelities, accuses Clinton of obstruction of justice in the Whitewater scandal, airs his scorn for intellectuals, expresses grief over his wife's death and discusses his wide readings ranging from Aristotle to Machiavelli. Author tour.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Readers who enjoyed Nixon Off the Record (LJ 10/1/96), Crowley's first volume based on her experiences as Nixon's foreign policy assistant from 1990 to 1994, may be disappointed by this rambling account of Nixon's final trips to Russia and the Far East and his thoughts about Watergate, Vietnam, philosophy, and family. Nixon, although a private citizen, wielded ample influence with Presidents Bush and Clinton, neither of whom he liked. Crowley shows how Nixon skillfully used the media to advance his pro-Yeltsin views (see also Marvin Kalb's The Nixon Memo, LJ 9/15/94) to counteract Bush's pro-Gorbachev leanings, but he reserved a special contempt for Clinton, the former antiwar protester who has allegedly engaged in sexual escapades as president. Crowley portrays Nixon as a leader responsible for important political successes and abuses and, less intentionally so, as an angry, bitter deposed president who blamed liberals for all social faults. For larger public libraries, purchase as demand warrants.
-AKarl Helicher, Upper Merion Twp. Lib., King of Prussia, PA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

A Valuable Memoir
This isn't a biography. The author isn't distanced enough for that. And it is hardly a tribute, because the shadow of scandal never leaves the portrayal. I would say this book is a memoir of a young graduate student's intellectual travails with an aging Nixon. His story is very complicated, and his reflections, on politics, the end of the cold war, and scandal, are absolutely riveting. Nixon's evaluation of his own foibles mesmerizes. What does he say about Watergate, 20 years later? How does he think his mother, deceased by then, would have judged the events, and him? I won't spoil the story; it's well worth reading. The only part I was troubled by was the author's portrayal of herself. There's just the slightest hint of condescension for the old man. Fully armed with fresh graduate school knowledge of world affairs, she sees herself as the person who prodded Nixon into revelation. It seems a bit self-serving. Still, that's a minor qualm in a book that, perhaps unintentionally, creates sympathy and respect for the man. As presented here, he clearly is human and, in a way not seen in today's callow politicians, brilliant.

Insightful Observations
If one ever wonders what qualifies Monica Crowley to be a talk show host, if one ever questions what relevance her opinions or insight have for the rest of America, if one ever doubts that Monica Crowley is a qualified author, this work will provide a resounding affirmation of her talent, intelligence, and ability. Before WABC and before a Columbia Ph.D., there was only the college of Richard Nixon. Crowley traveled the globe with Nixon, soaking in every detail, every nuance of his intellect and capacity for foreign affairs and political strategy.
Concerning posterity, Nixon always knew when he spoke to or with Crowley that he was speaking to history. Nixon has already sought to rewrite his legacy in his memoirs RN as well as In the Arena. Nixon's qualifications are manifest in his own writings as well. Crowley does an excellent job of highlighting Nixon's capacity for political intelligence and machinations while simultaneously showing readers that Nixon is more than a one-dimensional paranoid recluse. Crowley feels obliged to mention Watergate because it figures into Nixon's legacy so prominently but she does not dwell on a low point in an otherwise important career. She also does an excellent job of showing that there are two sides to Nixon: the steely statesman who opened China, diffused tensions with the Soviet Union, and worked toward peace in the middle east (all coauthored with Henry Kissinger) as well as the man behind the myth, saddened by the death of his wife, concerned about the health of his new foreign policy assistant, and full of colorful tales about fellow political personalities from his time in office. It is at this point and at this separation where Nixon comes off as the "grandfather" type that Eisenhower seemed to personify to the average American forty years earlier.

Dry at times but an overall good view of Nixon "unplugged"
As Crowley herself says, if history judges Nixon's presidency on the White House tapes and transcripts, he deserves a chance for his entire life to be judged on all of his life's activities, including his "winter". This book provides an extended view of Nixon in the last four years of his life.

A few of the reviewers here questioned whether Crowley's writings accurately recount Nixon's comments and confessions in an objective manner, and they wonder if he would have really opened up to her... My first take on this was a once powerful, now-fallen, guilt-ridden old man hires an attractive twenty-something female grad student - someone naïve and susceptible he can impress and dominate - to rewrite his legacy, gloss over his mistakes, and show how even after all that happened, he was indeed great. Did she - at this time in her life - have the necessary knowledge, historical context and maturity to discerningly ferret out, deduce and capture the real truth from Nixon's rhetoric?

Soon into the book, I began to realize these worries were moot, as conversations recounted by Crowley show the familiar arrogance, criticisms, paranoia, self-absorbtion and the meddling that are indeed vintage Nixon.

Nixon's musings on the collapse of Communism, Gorbachev, and Yeltsin were very interesting and provided a good review of a monumental set of events of world history. In fact, the first half of the book was a play-by-play of early 90s American-Soviet foreign policy with color commentary by Richard Nixon. So much so it became droll and I find myself skimming along to the sections on Vietnam and Watergate.

Part 3 focused on Nixon's reflections on Watergate. Crowley captures the range of feelings that must have plagued Nixon over his final 20 years - admission of culpability interchanged with minimization of his role and his being a victim of a liberal media and a turbulent time in history. He makes the point that his escapades were politics-as-usual and FDR, JFK, and LBJ all used the same dirty tricks he did. Crowley also captures Nixon's pleasure of seeing Clinton go through the same torture with Whitewater as he did with Watergate.

Part 4 continues commentary from Nixon on political scandal de jour and Part 5 focuses on Nixon's thoughts on philosophy, family and faith. On this last part, I wasn't particularly prepared to visualize Nixon puttering around the house in his pajamas talking about these things, but one realizes that he too was, in fact, human.

The book was not chronological, as each part recounted relevant items to the subject from Crowley's four years with him, which made it a bit difficult to follow on occasion. For the most part, beyond being "linearly-challenged" and the early preoccupation with Russian events, "Nixon in Winter" was fairly enjoyable.