Richard Nixon , Antoine Coppolani, Fayard, 2012
Here you will find a telling, if anecdotal, excerpt from the book:https://brumes.wordpress.com/2013/10/26/nixon-liddy-et -the-watergate-excerpt-from-nixon-dantoine-coppolani/
I had already written a set of remarks about Richard Nixon, after reading Romain Huret's excellent book about him. https://brumes.wordpress.com/2010/01/13/de-quoi-est-il-nixon-le-nom/.
Four years later, I still subscribe to what I said at the time, and in particular to its conclusion, which I take the liberty of repeating (very slightly amended) as introduction to this note :
At the end of the last century, French public knowledge of American history was limited to a few summaries translated from American, on known and limited historical segments:the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the American intervention in World War II and (for his fate) J.F. Kennedy. Our French specialists generally focused on international relations. It was nearly impossible to find good work on the Founding Fathers, Andrew Jackson, the Gilded Age, President T. Roosevelt, Wilson, or the post-war era. Of course, books by journalists covered, almost live, this or that international intervention, this or that domestic incident, this or that presidency. But this was good journalism at best and not history, compiled, with sufficient hindsight, from the most exhaustive sources possible. Fortunately, over the past fifteen years, things have changed for the better. Publishers frequently publish good, accessible works on American history (I am thinking of Jacques Portes' Lyndon Johnson or the works of the "young" (or at least new) Americanists Ndiaye, Huret, Coppolani, etc.). A generation of dynamic, serious and perfectly English-speaking researchers has reached maturity. I welcome it, it was perfectly damaging that Americanist studies remained focused only on the international aspects of American history or dependent on the rare published translations.
The biography of Richard Nixon by Antoine Coppolani undoubtedly represents a colossal work:980 pages of text, 3500 notes and hundreds of sources consulted. The author did not hesitate, in addition to his massive use of second-hand sources and the writings of Nixon and his former collaborators, to delve into the declassified archives and magnetic tapes offered, since 2007, by the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum by Yorba Linda. The book he draws from his research is an almost definitive synthesis on the subject, updated and rigorous. Fayard, long the specialized publisher of historical biographies, seemed to have abandoned this genre lately. The publication of this masterpiece shows that this is not the case.
Nixon's career, which spans thirty years of American political life (1945-1975), is one of the richest of the 20th century:Representative then Senator from California, Vice- President of Eisenhower, three-time candidate for President of the United States and President for five years. From the dawn of McCarthyism, with the Alger Hiss affair, to the twilight of Watergate and the Imperial Presidency (Schlesinger), Nixon influenced American history so much that we could speak of the “Nixon Era”. The image he left, this disastrous myth made of cheating, lies, crimes and perjury, is not for nothing in this name. Nixon represented, American culture showed it well, from Oliver Stone to Ron Howard, from Andy Warhol to Philip Roth, via George Lucas, a black legend, the black, interior legend, which American democracy lacked. The historian, whom Nixon feared in his time, that he would not be fair to him ("because of the left", he would have added), must take this legend into account and go beyond it in order to approach historical reality.
Mr. In this respect, Coppolani adopts a perfect distance from his subject. He underlines the moral indignities of the Nixonian action (coverage of Watergate, procrastination during the Indo-Pakistani war, actions in Chile, bombing of Cambodia etc.) without ignoring the successes (domestic policy, recognition of China, exit from the Vietnamese quagmire, Relaxation, etc.). It relies as much as possible on the many sources left by Nixon and his teams. Nixon had in fact thought, more or less deliberately, of future historians by recording, to his great detriment, the conversations that took place in the Oval Office. If the author hardly dwells on a necessarily subjective psychological analysis of man, he evokes it enough to shed light on the text, which he enriches with a few revealing anecdotes. The tone is intended to be distanced, as balanced as possible and leaves the reader free to judge.
Richard Nixon was an enigma, his relatives, his allies, his adversaries, all saw in him a series of ambivalences, ambiguities, almost insurmountable contradictions. Solitary and introverted, he chose to lead a “flamboyant” political career. He frequently calls for the most extreme solutions in front of his relatives, but is reluctant to make final decisions. He is pushy and loyal, impulsive and tactician. He hates Harvard intellectuals but shows a curiosity, a culture and a knowledge of international society that is practically only found in the specialized chairs of the universities of the Ivy League . Determined… he lacks self-confidence. A realist in international politics, he nevertheless reveres the supreme idealist of American history, President Wilson. He makes scandalously racist remarks in private but develops without hesitation the fight against segregation and for positive discrimination. Anti-communist since always, he negotiates the balance of armaments and seeks Détente with the USSR... He also recognizes "Red China" and sympathizes enough with Mao Zedong for him to call him to the hospital, end 1974, to hear from him and invite him, as a simple citizen, to return to the People's Republic of China. He is described by Golda Meir, Israeli Prime Minister, as "Israel's best friend" even though he does not hide, in private, his anti-Semitism, even in the face of Henry Kissinger, however Jewish. He wants peace… and makes war. Paranoid, cultivating permanent secrecy, he records all his conversations at the White House, leaving, against the precautions to which his mistrust should have led him, extraordinarily precise proof of his action and behavior.
Nixon was the quintessence of the American politician:moderate, opportunist, ambitious, populist, conservative, shrewd strategist, idealist at times, often fluctuating, always campaigning, apparently middle-brow . He pretended to be the common man of the silent majority .
Nixon was also, at the same time, the antithesis of the American politician:unsympathetic, divisive, closed, unfriendly, misanthropic, solitary, suspicious, liar, intellectual high-brow , coldly realistic, passionate about international affairs. His assumed amorality is exceptional in American history.
Mr. Coppolani points out, this little game of contradictions is endless, one of Nixon's biographers even led it... over nine pages!
For better to understand such a complex man, the test of deeds is the only worthwhile one. Mr. Coppolani's very impressive research allows the reader to get a very precise idea of his political record in each area.
A few examples, chosen from many other possible ones:
Antoine Coppolani closes the Alger Hiss Affair, named after this American diplomat accused of treason, in favor of Nixon. If the Nixonian method could be related, in retrospect, to the unjustified paranoid delusions of Senator McCarthy and to what was worse in the "witch hunts" of the Truman years, the historian shows that Nixon testified above all to a a certain insight, a formidable skill and a great tenacity, weapons which made its later success. Hisstors have proven for some years that Hiss, despite his repeated protestations of innocence, was guilty of treason. He had kept close relations with the Soviet agents well until a late date. Nixon did not attack him out of unwarranted distrust, paranoia, or sheer grandstanding, but with good reason. Cautious and suspicious, he aimed only at real, concrete, serious targets. He thus stood out for his extreme – and commendable – discretion in each of the excesses that discredited those responsible for the “witch hunt”:ridiculous tracking down of Communist Hollywood stars, unjustified accusations against the State Department and the army, etc. . Above all, the Hiss Affair allowed Nixon to make himself known and to pass, with the pundits of the Republican Party, for an interesting vice-presidential complement to the moderate candidacy of Eisenhower in 1952.
Nixon's lack of moral sense can be seen in several situations, one of the most famous and controversial of which, even today, is the Chilean affair. The worldwide popularity and the tragic end of President Allende (71-73), sung by the poems of Pablo Neruda, the infamous crimes of Operation Condor which followed the coup d'etat, the personality of General Pinochet have, for thirty- five years, negatively oriented reading of the action of Nixon and Kissinger. No conspiracy theory here, everyone's responsibilities are clearly established. Of course, the socialist regime that Allende established in Chile was not a Swedish-style social democracy; its allies often pulled towards leftism and Marxism most subservient to Cuba and the USSR; the economic reforms of the Chilean PS failed; Chilean society was sliding little by little in 1972-73 towards civil war. Admittedly, the operation of September 11, 1973 was not directly ordered by the American government and the CIA, which in all probability learned of the launch on the said day. However, this does not absolve the President of his responsibilities. Since 1969, everything had been done to harm the political shift underway in Chile:downward manipulation of copper prices, the Chileans' main resource, financing of the Christian Democrat opposition, pressure on borrowing and public debt, agitation of the CIA, maintenance of excellent relations with the army, encouragement of the conservative military to eliminate the most democratic fraction of the Chilean army, etc. As for the murderous excesses of the Chilean junta at the end of 1973 and during 1974, they did not arouse, in Nixon and Kissinger, any moral indignation (some of their remarks, recorded by the tapes, are quite odious, as they are, at the opportunity for Jews from the USSR, Indians or Cambodians). Realistically, the two men were especially pleased that Chile was returning to the American orbit.
Antoine Coppolani also draws up, in just as much detail, the assessment of American action in Pakistan (here too, Nixon did not shine, from a strictly humanitarian point of view , during the Bengali war of independence), in the Middle East (where, conversely, it built up immense popularity in the Arab world as in Israel and allowed the gradual emergence of the “peace process” – l his expression is from an American diplomat of the time - by giving the Egyptians and the Israelis the possibility of finding an accommodation), in Cambodia (where the American bombings wreaked atrocious devastation on the civilian population) and in North Vietnam (the Nixon's maneuverability was put to the test there, but in 1972 he won the showdown against North Vietnam; this real victory, both military and diplomatic, had short-lived effects, as we know, for the 'America). In domestic policy, medium-term and even short-term strategic imperatives have largely won the day:relaxation of budgetary discipline after two rigorous exercises and, thus, recovery (even overheating) of the economy; rationalization of Johnson's major projects (which were not abandoned until much later); abandonment of dollar convertibility and the Bretton Woods system; launch of positive discrimination in order to integrate into the labor market the African-American labor force, forced into inactivity by the maintenance of segregation in the labor market; etc.
As for Watergate, the excerpt from the previous note constitutes sufficient illumination, I think, to represent the political and moral atmosphere in which this "third-order burglary in Nixon's own words, unfolded. Nixon's responsibility lies less in the burglary and its immediate aftermath than in all the most sordid and shameless manipulations he engaged in to cover it up and cover up his men.
As we can see from reading this quick summary, the record of the Nixon presidency was as ambivalent as the man:far from the image of Satan's rival imagined by Philip Roth at the end, burlesque, of Our Gang , from that of the Emperor of the Saga Star Wars – inspired, as we know, by that of the deposed president – or that of the mentally ill in Oliver Stone’s film, Nixon presents himself as an impenetrable chiaroscuro that it is practically impossible to judge with fairness. The liberals , like Krugman, will miss the man behind the abortive reform of Social Security, more ambitious than that of Obama in 2009; the realists, like Kissinger, will miss the great intellectual and strategic scaffolding allowing the United States to optimize its international influence, without superfluous moral concerns; conservatives will regret the severity and determination of the statesman in the face of the national chaos of 1967-68; African-Americans will recognize his efforts for their better integration into the economic sphere. All, however, will agree on one point:Nixon was, despite everything, one of the worst statesmen who had to exercise power in the United States during the last sixty years. All the ambivalences of the exercise of power are there, synthesized by a man who represents them all. Nixon represents better than any other the founding ambiguity of our democratic societies, between the reality of the balance of power that structures them and the morality of the ideal imperatives that found them.
Was it possible to better represent the complexity of Richard Nixon? I don't think so and I salute the talent of his latest biographer, who knew how to render him in all its shimmers, the darkest as well as the brightest.
Two flaws slightly affect the readability of this excellent text. The five “presidential” chapters (VII to XI, i.e. 600 pages) are organized thematically:domestic policy, Viet-Nam, relations with China and the USSR, international policy, Watergate. As a result, the text goes back and forth frequently between 1969 and 1974, at the risk of repeating itself and lengthening, perhaps unduly, an already extensive work. This defect is observed especially in the three chapters devoted to the very invigorating international action of Nixon. Another defect, more noticeable, in the first part of the text, the many translations of Antoine Coppolani have not always been proofread and improved with the same attention:some awkward formulas, without being illegible, challenge the reader ( “New Delhi” surprises, another example of slight embarrassment, here with the verb to feel:“In retrospect, I feel that his remarks on the Lord remained very general”, p. 320 or with some bizarre positioning of not only / not only , a fairly common pitfall in translation from Anglo-American to French). These two sins are nevertheless perfectly venial because the work, of high quality, deserves the greatest attention of history lovers.
