Product Description

At long last the true Richard Nixon can be revealed. The man known as "Tricky Dick," who is seen today as the greatest villain in the history of American politics, actually began his amazing career as a principled campaigner and a scrupulously honest member of Congress.

Sadly, the first real reassessment of Richard Nixon's early career -- his Congress years -- had to wait until after his death in 1994. Only then was Pulitzer Prize-nominee Irwin F. Gellman able to get the documentary access of which previous Nixon biographers could only dream. Gellman became the first historian to have complete and unfettered access to (among other sources) the 1946, 1948, and 1950 campaign files in the National Archives; papers from the executive sessions of HUAC; and every document dated through July 1952 in the Nixon Library & Birthplace. All told, Gellman scoured millions of pages in dozens of collections, the vast majority of which have never before been used.

Gellman's research revealed that much of the work done on Nixon was not only based on incomplete information but was wrong. The legend of "Tricky Dick" was little more than a series of myths. For example: The "Committee of 100" did not buy Nixon his 1946 upset of Jerry Voorhis. Nixon did not unfairly smear Helen Gahagan Douglas. There was no secret funding of his Senate race in 1950. Nixon did not out-McCarthy McCarthy on HUAC. And finally, Nixon was true to Earl Warren at the 1952 convention -- there was no secret deal made for the vice presidency. As Gellman irrefutably shows, each of these myths has been built on guesswork or faulty sources.

Who then was the real Richard Nixon? Other historians have given us ominous hints and vague charges of financial and moral misconduct. Gellman shows otherwise, and the proof is in the details. In 1946 Nixon used his own meager savings in a shoestring campaign. In 1950, operating with a budget in the low six-figures -- high for the time, but many times lower than other estimates -- he reaped the benefits of his opponent's bruising primary. And the Red bashing? On HUAC Nixon was a moderate who won universal praise for his even-handedness. Behind the scenes he cautioned McCarthy against his excesses.

Even during the incredible success of Nixon's Congress years there are occasional lapses of judgment. But, as Gellman shows, it was innocence and energy -- not deceit -- that made a fresh-faced Richard Nixon the victor against great odds in contest after contest. Here are the triumphs of the early years of a young man that we can unabashedly admire. Here is the rise of Richard Nixon, from nobody to vice president, that makes all previous biographies obsolete. Here is the Nixon that history will now remember.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1293500 in Books
• Published on: 2007-08-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 608 pages

From Publishers Weekly
A history professor at Chapman College in Orange, Calif., Gellman, author of a revisionist biography of FDR (Secret Affairs), now turns to Nixon. Always interesting, sometimes downright compelling, this is revisionist biography with a capital R, as Gellman criticizes previous biographers from all parts of the political spectrum. Gellman takes special aim at Roger Morris, whose 1990 biography concentrating on Nixon's congressional years (Richard Milhous Nixon) topped 1000 pages. Some of Gellman's debunking comes in the text, some in the endnotes, most in a section titled "Nixon and His Detractors: Whom Should We Believe?" Those who have read the Morris biography will perhaps find themselves returning to it. Those who have not might need to do so to fully evaluate Gellman's much more charitable interpretations of Nixon's character and motives. Gellman's use of primary documents is impressive: there is no question that he has turned up some new evidence. Unlike Morris, who tends to judge Nixon as opportunistic at best, dishonest at worst, Gellman views the president-to-be as a skilled, often warm congressman who spoke and voted his conscience. Gellman concedes that Nixon was no saint, "but neither was he an outrageous Red-baiter, nor a crooked fund-raiser, nor a smarmy politician who smeared his opponents." Because Gellman's revisionism is the key to the book, it will be of special interest to professional historians. The writing is accessible, though, to anybody interested in post-WWII American history.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
A meticulously researched revisionist account (the first volume of a projected three) of Richard Nixon's public career, from a Putitzer-winning author (Secret Affairs, not reviewed). After Nixons resignation from the presidency in 1974, it was popular to argue that the character flaws that emerged in the Watergate crisis were evident in his first political campaigns and his tenure as a congressman and senator. Not so, contends Gellman (Modern American History/Chapman Coll.). Basing his conclusions on Nixon's recently declassified personal papers, Gellman concludes that the popular image of Nixon as a ruthless liar and conniver who rose to national prominence through irresponsible Red-baiting is actually a myth. Instead, Gellman argues, Nixon was ``a success story in a troubled era, one who steered a sensible anticommunist course against the excess of McCarthy and other extreme right-wingers.'' Charges, still widely believed, that Nixon smeared Jerry Voorhis in his 1946 congressional campaign and Helen Gahagan Douglas in his 1950 Senate campaign are false, Gellman asserts, born of partisanship and unfairness. Instead, both campaigns were divisive but ``hard-fought and deeply emotional'' on both sides. Gellman traces Nixon's involvement in the Hiss-Chambers case, which first brought him national prominence, his rapid rise in the national GOP organization as a senator who focused on the issues of communism and the Korean War, and the 1952 nominating convention in which he suddenly emerged as a dark horse vice-presidential candidate. Arguing that Nixon's nomination was the culmination of several political forces, including the high profile Nixon earned in the Hiss case, Gellman counters the widespread notion that Nixon manipulated his way to the 1952 nomination. Nixon had no managers, he points out, and Dwight Eisenhower had expressed interest in capturing the vote of young people with a youthful running mate. The 39-year-old Nixon seemed to fit the billhe was ``young, patriotic, articulate, and dependable,'' and in Ike's view became the logical choice for the ticket. A substantial contribution to Nixon scholarship. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review
Justus D. Doenecke author of Not To The Swift: The Old Isolationists in the Cold War Era There is no historian as well-versed in Nixon's early career as Irwin Gellman. Be the topic the 1946 race against Jerry Voorhis or the intricacies of the Hiss case, Gellman engages in major and necessary demythologizing. The result: an intellectual tour de force, gracefully written and extremely sensible. We'll never look at the early Nixon in the same way again. -- Review

The Contender is the solid, heavily documented sort of work that will have to be taken into account by serious people as the debate about Nixon continues\212. An impressive element of Mr. Gellman's research is that he is able to pinpoint when certain anti-Nixon myths were born and how they have been repeated over the decades\212.[Gellman's] overall vision of Nixon cannot be neglected as historians continue to assess the man who was probably the most interesting President of recent decades. -- Richard Bernstein, The New York Times

This year's big Nixon book is The Contender\212 a rich and important political Bildungsroman, as such things go, and ably recounted\212. Gellman's thoroughness will raise questions about the reliability of other biographers. -- David Greenberg, The New York Times Book Review

Where Gellman stakes his claim to superiority is in his research.... It's a masterly achievement of spadework and stamina. -- The New York Times Book Review, David Greenberg

[Gellman] draws a nuanced, well-rounded portrait of a driven, ambitious young politician whose rise to prominence owed itself not to dirty tricks but to his opponents' mistakes and, most important, to the shifting sentiments of a postwar electorate\212 one can only hope that Mr. Gellman's instructive book will be followed by others that try to reckon with the real man, not an imagined demon. -- Daniel J. Silver, The Wall Street Journal

Customer Reviews

A Welcome Change
I have never been very knowledgable about Richard Nixon. When I picked up this book, I was pleasantly surprised by what I learned. This book is an honest and factual portrayal of a man who served his country, and not the poobah of Watergate scandals.It is so refreshing to learn about the man and not just read criticism after criticism. Nixon's great character and accomplishments are in this book, and I recommend it to any student of political science or just fans of the genre.

A Real Contender
I disagree with the gentleman above. I have read over 40 books on Nixon and found 'the Contender' a cracking read.

It covers in depth the period between 1946-52, from his legal and military days right up to his days as a Senator. Most other books gloss over this period but this author has delved deep into many archives to reveal the story as it was. Again other books tend to distort the facts of Nixon's early political years her you will fins the msot accurate read I have found!

The Contender: Richard Nixon, the Congress Years, 1946-52.
Very informative and particullarly interesting to Californians. The disinformation about the Nixon campaigns is unbelievable. A good read that goes along way towards informing all of us about what RN was really like.