Ike and Dick
Portrait of a Strange Political Marriage
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- $22.99
Publisher Description
An absorbing account of “the most intriguing—and dysfunctional—political marriage in history” (The New York Times Book Review, front page review).
One of the most acclaimed political biographies of our time, Jeffrey Frank’s Ike and Dick takes you inside the strained and complex relationship of two fascinating American leaders—hailed as “top-drawer as political history” (Russell Baker, The New York Review of Books) and “one of the best books ever written about Richard Nixon” (Thomas Mallon, The New Yorker).
For nearly twenty years, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon shared a political and private association that deeply affected both men and their turbulent era. In a work of “compelling can’t-put-it-down history” (Joe Klein, Time columnist) filled with “marvelously cringe-inducing anecdotes” (The Wall Street Journal), Frank reveals sides of the two that you’ve never seen. He offers fresh views of the striving, uneasy young Nixon and of Eisenhower, the legendary commander in failing health, far more comfortable with international affairs than with problems besetting the United States. Behind the scenes and beyond the headlines, Ike and Dick, informed by deep archival research and dozens of interviews, provides a captivating look at the presidency and the nation. It will become essential reading for generations of Americans.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A novelist and former editor at the New Yorker and the Washington Post, Frank (Bad Publicity) turns his attention to history with a very good result. His look at the 1952 presidential election focuses on Republican vice presidential candidate Nixon, treating him more sympathetically than most observers have. Easily winning the Republican presidential nomination, Eisenhower left the choice of a running mate to advisers, who picked Nixon: a first-term senator, he was much younger, politically astute, and possessing suitably fierce anticommunist credentials. Uninterested in hardball politics, Eisenhower let Nixon take care of that. and Nixon worked hard and tried mightily to change his image from vicious red-baiting ideologue to statesman. He remained self-effacing and loyal, yearning mostly in vain for his boss's approval. By 1960, he had achieved enough eminence to run for president, and few disagree that Eisenhower's unenthusiastic endorsement contributed to his narrow defeat. Eight years later, a mellower Eisenhower supported Nixon's successful presidential campaign. Nixon remains a chilly character, but Frank argues convincingly that he was intelligent, shrewd, and, regarding civil rights, more liberal than Eisenhower.
