THE WORLD AND RICHARD NIXON
C.L. Sulzberger
New York: Prentice Hall Press, 1967
269 pp., $18.95
One of America's foremost journalists, C.L. Sulzberger, confesses he was surprised by the intense animosity still felt by many Americans toward their former president. "Having lived abroad for almost fifty years I have perforce lost considerable contact with my native land, despite frequent visits, and on a recent trip to the areas of New York and Washington," Sulzberger tells us at the beginning of this assessment of Nixon's foreign policy. "I was astonished at the emotional dislike for Richard Nixon I discovered among all kinds of people, old and young, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican." Although more than a decade has passed since the Watergate scandal, a "fevered detestation" displaying not the "faintest sign of forgiveness" for Nixon has persisted among many segments of the American population. By contrast, Nixon continues to be admired abroad as a leader who, in their estimation, was untypical skilled in foreign policy for an American and who possessed considerable understanding of their problems. Such sharply contrasting perceptions of Nixon both puzzled and intrigues Sulzberger.
A war correspondent during World War II and a long-time foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times (his uncle was the late Arthur Hays Sulzberger, its publisher), Sulzberger has had a long and distinguished career in journalism. In addition, he has authored twenty-one books, including the well-regarded A Long Row of Candles: Memoirs and Diaries, 1934-1954 (1969). Having traveled extensively abroad and having met with nearly every major historical figure of the last three or four decades, he has earned his reputation as one of America's most informed and insightful foreign correspondents.
As a widely experienced foreign affairs journalist who resided in foreign nations during much of his career, Sulzberger examines the thinking and policies of Nixon from a perspective of analytical detachment more characteristically European than American. Because of the visceral, almost instinctive dislike of Nixon exhibited by most American commentators, they have been blinded, Suylzberger believes, to the impressive successes of Nixon's foreign policy. Without diminishing in the slightest the seriousness of the ethical flaws in Nixon's character that made possible the events leading to his down fall, Sulzberger expresses with neither hesitation nor embarrassment his strong admiration for Nixon's record in foreign affairs.
He examines primarily those years between Nixon's defeat by John F. Kennedy in 1960, during which he was cast into the political wilderness, and his resignation from the presidency on August 9, 1974. In this study, Sulzberger describes Nixon's painstaking preparation in foreign policy during the years preceding his presidency and details the development and outcomes of his administration's policies on arms control, China, Europe, the Greco-Turkish war, the Vietnam War, the Middle East, and Chile. Drawing primarily from Nixon's and Henry Kissinger's published memoirs and his own extensive daily diaries and interviews, much of the evidence Sulzberger presents to document his argument that Nixon's foreign policy was on the whole "successful and cleverly conceived" is not new. What makes this book especially valuable is that Sulzberger avoids launching into a
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