The Making of the President, 1972

The classic you-are-there account of the Nixon-McGovern election by the Pulitzer Prize-winning, New York Times–bestselling author: “A brilliant analysis.” —Commentary

The Making of the President 1972 chronicles both the Democratic and the Republican parties as they jockeyed for position toward the end of Richard M. Nixon’s turbulent first term. Theodore White illuminates the cinematic moments that shaped the campaign—the attempt on George Wallace’s life, Edmund Muskie crying in the snow in New Hampshire, the swift rise and fall of Tom Eagleton, and the ongoing anguish of Vietnam—leading inexorably to a second chaotic collapse among the Democrats and a landslide victory for Nixon. Yet even as the president’s highest ambitions were confirmed, White watches aghast as the “new Nixon” of 1968 is eclipsed by the corrupt Nixon of old—a Shakespearean conclusion to an astonishing political epoch.

“The byzantine events of 1972 unfold here like a timebomb ticking away—Nixon’s dramatic foreign adventures, the Muskie bust and the McGovern phenomenon, the President’s deliberate surrogate campaign, the Democrats’ bloodletting at Miami Beach and the beginning of the destruction of George Stanley McGovern as a viable candidate.” —Kirkus Reviews

“One of America’s most celebrated political writers.” —The New York Times

“Among the most influential and gifted journalists of the twentieth century. More than anyone else, White changed the way American politics and government are covered, and in the process he had a major impact on the politicians as well.” —Chicago Tribune

Includes a new foreword by Cokie Roberts