Product Description

Now in paperback: From jazz saxophonist to one of President Nixon's closest advisers-"I zipped through Crazy Rhythm in record time and enjoyed every last page."-Saul Bellow.

Leonard Garment was a successful Wall Street attorney when, in 1965, he found himself arguing a Supreme Court case alongside his new law partner -former Vice President Richard Nixon. It was the start of a friendship that lasted more than thirty years. In Crazy Rhythm, which the New York Times Book Review called "an eloquent memoir," Garment engagingly tells of his boyhood as the child of immigrants, and the beginning of a life-long love affair with jazz. After Brooklyn Law School, Garment went on to Wall Street, where encountering Nixon changed the course of his life. Crazy Rhythm allows us a rare, intimate look at Nixon's extraordinary tenure in the White House. More than that, the book tells stories from a life that has included close encounters with characters such as Benny Goodman and Billie Holiday, Henry Kissinger and Alan Greenspan, Golda Meir and Yasser Arafat, Giovanni Agnelli and Marc Rich, and moves like the best jazz, in a writer's voice that is truly one-of-a-kind. To quote former U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, "A century from now, I cannot doubt Americans will still be reading Crazy Rhythm. This is a story of our time, written for the ages."

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1462203 in Books
• Published on: 2001-10
• Released on: 2001-10-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

Amazon.com Review
Leonard Garment, a current mainstay of the unelected elite who all but run Washington, was a close friend and adviser to Richard Nixon for 30 years. Indeed, at the height of Watergate, he was Nixon's lawyer. The part of this book that covers those White House years is elevated above the norm by Garment's honest, human presence--after all, this is the guy who advised Nixon not to destroy the Oval Office tapes. His humanity comes to the fore in the parts that cover his non-Watergate political forays, his pre-law career as a professional jazz musician, and his personal psychological difficulties. Yet, in his account of his life as a Washington fixer, the mark of Milhous is still visible. When he describes being the lawyer for a Reagan administration official who routinely taped phone calls without the knowledge of those on the other end of the line, Garment pooh-poohs the laws banning this practice and is a little too gleeful about the course of action he had his client take: destroying the tapes.

From Publishers Weekly
A self-described "birthright Democrat and lifelong liberal" born in Brooklyn to immigrant Eastern European Jews, Garment never really satisfactorily explains how or why he became Richard Nixon's friend, campaign strategist and political crony, serving as the President's special consultant and counsel. They met in 1963 as partners in Garment's Wall Street law firm, after Nixon, having lost his bid to become governor of California, moved east to make a fresh political start. Garment, who acted as Nixon's informal liaison to the American Jewish community and to Israel, also defused Native American protests and worked on federal arts programs and school desegregation. He lamely defends his attempt to help the President ride out the Watergate scandal. He offers valuable close-ups of Nixon's rise to power and White House maneuvers. His candid life story includes moments of high drama, such as a 1969 diplomatic mission to Moscow during which he fed his KGB hosts hours of disinformation; as well as personal tragedies, notably the 1976 suicide of his first wife, depressive soap-opera scriptwriter Grace Albert. Currently a Washington, D.C., lawyer, Garment writes with an open mind and a fine-tuned sense of humor. His biography is a moving testimony to a remarkable career. Photos.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Garment is one of the two most accomplished failed U.S. jazz musicians (the other? Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan). In the 1940s, saxophonist Garment attempted to bring the revolutionary bop sounds to audiences expecting big band swing. His musical ideas not catching on, he went to law school. Then his high-stakes adventures began. He joined a prestigious Wall Street firm. His Brooklyn Jewish background made him a near-outsider, a status that helped him feel affinity with a later firm newcomer, Richard Nixon. Nixon tapped Garment to work on his presidential bid and later to be his special consultant and counsel. Garment provides distinctive insights into Nixon's foreign policy achievements and a perspective on Watergate differing sharply from popular impressions. Those, along with tales of his upbringing and personal tragedies, would be enough to commend a book of unadorned narrative prose. Garment's stylish writing, infused with sharp wit and affection, makes it something better and suggests that if he seeks yet another career, he could be a first-rate journalist. Aaron Cohen

Customer Reviews

Not Just Another Nixon Book...
I was enticed by this book from the moment I read about Garment's lively performance of "Tiptoe through the Tulips" at age 7 in his father's dress making factory. Having read several Watergate books, I felt that this one was different for one specific reason; Garment makes Nixon into a human being, and helps to bring Nixon's several positive qualities to life (such as his wonderful foreign policy) that many Watergate-related authors have falied to acknowledge. I especially loved the ending of the book at his daughter Annie's Bat-Mitzvah; it was a wonderful conclusion to to a nostalgic story. I am left with only one question...when will the movie be out?

Some of the questions are answered in a very human story.
Garment shines a little light on some of the more puzzling questions of the Nixon administration and on Iran/contra. He writes as he speaks, conversational and wandering. That's the book's salvation, however: finally here's the human side of some of the darker moments in Republican government. We see how the three branches, press and other groups play off each other to achieve their goals. Like any good serial author, he leaves us hungry for the next book, which will "tell all" about Watergate. I can't wait