The Arrogance of Power

by Anthony Summers
Victor Gollancz: £20.00
ISBN 0-575-06243-6

Richard M. Nixon is a figure like few others in Western political history. Few are the biographers and commentators who will say anything complimentary about Nixon — and those who do, do so grudgingly. It is interesting that Kennedy, whose politics were barely different from Nixon’s, and who took the world to the brink of nuclear war, still has many admirers — hagiographers, even. On the other hand, as well as the criminal deeds which ultimately led to his downfall, Nixon was also responsible for the USA’s rapprochement with both China and the USSR — something which, for a while at least, made the world a safer place.

The motivation behind The Arrogance of Power seems to be well summed up by the blurb:

The Arrogance of Power will destroy forever the image that Nixon sought to make his legacy, presenting in its place a stark portrait of a man whose personal torments came to have had [sic] such a damaging impact on the nation he once so proudly led.

Certainly, right from the start, Summers sets out to demonstrate that Nixon was an unscrupulous liar.

That is one of the problems of the book: so relentless is he in showing that Nixon was untruthful even about details of his early life that it is counter-productive.

Nixon said that after his family’s land was sold, oil was found there; Summers explains that this was not the case, that oil was actually found on land nearby which the Nixons never owned. This, he says, is a lie.

Is it not possible, though, that it was simply a mistake — particularly in view of the fact that Nixon’s mother apparently also told this story? Summers, though, asserts that Hannah Nixon “joined in propagating the yarn” — is it not just as likely that Nixon’s parents heard about the oil find and mistakenly thought it was on the land they had owned, the myth being passed on to Nixon who believed it?

This is a trivial matter, really, compared with some of the later instances in which Nixon undoubtedly did lie, but it is indicative of the fact that Summers almost always tries to put the worst possible light on Nixon.

There are many instances where, for example, sums of money are quoted. Usually there is a range of possible sums, depending on whom one chooses to believe; in all but one or two instances, the figure Summers places in the main text is the one which makes Nixon look worst, with other possible values relegated to the Notes at the rear (more about which later).

At no time is the possibility admitted that Nixon might have had some principles, or that he might occasionally have had good, even praiseworthy, intentions — at all times, the picture is one of someone who lies habitually, is totally without scruples, and is concerned only with self-advancement.

This determination to damn Nixon is a pity because it actually gets in the way of the evidence, which is in fact pretty damning. It is clear that he was psychologically ill-suited to hold a position of such responsibility, and that he was entirely prepared to break the laws of the United States should they get in his way.

There is nothing to put this in context except in regard to Joe Kennedy’s dubious links to Mayor Daley in Chicago which may have dishonestly won the 1960 election for his son. That could hardly be left out, of course, but the focus here is more on the fact that Nixon did not contest the election — which Summers says is only because Eisenhower told him not to. I haven’t read that anywhere else, but it is not hard to believe.

On the other hand, Nixon did take Eisenhower’s advice — no matter how strongly phrased, it could be nothing more than that — over the advice of many people closer to him who urged him to contest the election.

The problem is that demonstrating that Nixon was less than honest and had links to very dubious characters is not balanced by any overt description of Kennedy’s Mafia links and possible misuses of the powers of government, let alone consideration of any failings in the other major figures of the time. None of that excuses Nixon, but he was not the sole “bad guy” in American politics.

One of the two questions which always comes to my mind when considering Nixon is: is it possible for an honest man, with substantial personal integrity, to become president of the USA? The level of expenditure required to campaign, the number of vested interests which must be appeased — it seems to me arguable that Nixon is precisely the sort of president we should expect from the system in the modern world.

Certainly, of the four presidents of the 60s, only Eisenhower comes across as to some extent a man of principles; I wouldn’t have trusted Kennedy, Johnson or Nixon as far as I could throw them. Unfortunately, all of the data presented in this book shows Nixon’s failings as though he were sui generis.

The other question Nixon provokes is: why was he the way he was? Why did he so readily lie? Why did he treat the law as something he could ignore? The answer partially must lie in the wider political context: he clearly felt that dishonest and dubious methods were part of the way politics was conducted.

Equally clearly, this is only a partial answer and whatever his character flaws were his childhood must have been crucial to their development. (Is it too much to hope that some of our current politicians would reflect on Nixon’s childhood and recognise that being brought up in a “normal” family by god-fearing parents is no guarantee that one will develop into an upright, honest individual?)

Summers does not go into this in any great depth, which is probably just as well — journalists playing at psychoanalysis are rarely illuminating.

The picture which grows out of the enormous amount of evidence Summers has collected is one of a deeply damaged individual, racked by insecurity and self-doubt, who had enormous difficulty relating to other people. It is a picture which also comes through Oliver Stone’s film Nixon, and as with that film it would be difficult to come away from this book without a twinge of sympathy for a human being so tormented.

Summers seems to succeed in restraining his sympathy, however, keeping Nixon always under a very cold examining eye. The book, though, is mistitled: if Summers succeeds in anything, it is in showing that the arrogance of Richard Nixon long pre-existed any exposure to power.

Summers writes in the usual style for American political biography (although he is, as far as I know, British). That is, fact is piled upon fact relentlessly, presented in near-arid prose. Perhaps this is to avoid sensationalism, perhaps it is unavoidable with such a quantity of evidence to be placed before the reader, but the result is frequently a real slog to read.

The one advantage Summer has is that Nixon was a crucial figure in post-war American politics — and Watergate and Vietnam the two defining events, Nixon being intimately involved with both; even with the driest possible text, the involvement of Nixon and his associates in the defining moments of recent US history cannot be anything other than fascinating.

Considering the book as a book for a moment, The Arrogance of Power has, at the back, two sets of notes, a list of abbreviations (which only deals with sources, unfortunately, not some of the more obscure American abbreviations which we are expected to recognise without explanation), acknowledgements, photo credits, bibliography and the index. What there is not, though, is a table of contents.

All right, the book is not divided into sections and each chapter is simply numbered — but the reader should not have to rummage through the rear of the book to find out where the notes are, in particular when there are two separate sets of notes to add to the confusion. In a substantial book by a publisher like Victor Gollancz, the failure to provide a contents page is inexcusable.

Anyone with any interest in American politics over the past fifty years will find much of interest in The Arrogance of Power, despite its blatantly ex parte tone. While Nixon was clearly unsuited to high office and did much to bring the political system into disrepute, he yet did more to ease tension between the USA and Russia and China than any other president; unfortunately, these coups in international relations don’t show Nixon in a bad light, so Summers spends very little time on them. But although the failings of the man are thoroughly picked over, it is difficult to forget the words of Henry Kissinger (who, let it be recalled, also spoke of Nixon’s Walter Mitty-like qualities and has written of Nixon’s “titanic struggle among the various personalities within him”):

“Can you imagine what this man could have been had somebody loved him? Had somebody in his life cared for him? I don’t think anybody ever did… He would have been a great, great man had somebody loved him.”