After being sworn in as president, Richard Nixon told the assembled crowd that “government will listen. ... Those who have been left out, we will try to bring in.” But that same day, he obliterated those pledges of greater citizen control of government by signing National Security Decision Memorandum 2, a document that made sweeping changes to the national security power structure. Nixon’s signature erased the influence that the departments of State and Defense, as well as the CIA, had over Vietnam and the course of the Cold War. The new structure put Nixon at the center, surrounded by loyal aides and a new national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, who coordinated policy through the National Security Council under Nixon’s command. Using years of research and revelations from newly released documents, USA Today reporter Ray Locker upends much of the conventional wisdom about the Nixon administration and its impact and shows how the creation of this secret, unprecedented, extra-constitutional government undermined U.S. policy and values. In doing so, Nixon sowed the seeds of his own destruction by creating a climate of secrecy, paranoia, and reprisal that still affects Washington today.
"The story we only thought we knew. Ray Locker gives us back our lost perspective on Richard Nixon and the governance we inherited from his tragedy. This courageous, graceful book is a major achievement and lasting public service.” -- Roger Morris, author of Richard Milhous Nixon: The Rise of an American Politician
“Richard Nixon accomplished a great deal--opening up China, arms control with Russia, ending the Vietnam War--but he did this, in no small measure, by deceit. In a tour de force of historical research, Ray Locker reveals a mind-boggling web of lies and half-truths. A gripping read and an important book.”--Evan Thomas,New York Times bestselling author of Being Nixon: A Man Divided and Ike’s Bluff: President Eisenhower’s Battle to Save the World
“Ray Locker has assembled a masterful study that asks a question no one else has – was the Nixon White House flawed by design? A deep dive of government documents and primary sources, Locker examines the very foundations of the Nixon administration and finds something very troubling. A must read for anyone wanting a better understanding of the time period.”--Luke A. Nichter, co-author of New York Times bestselling series The Nixon Tapes: 1971-1972 and The Nixon Tapes: 1973
Even more impressive, that’s not the most important part of this richly illuminating history of Richard Nixon’s many layered attempt to govern by secret. In uncovering the huge hidden wager that Nixon took, playing for his place in world history and going all in with nothing less than the presidency itself, Ray Locker shows us Nixon’s hole cards and how badly he misplayed them. We’re all still trying to recoup the loss.”--Ed Gray, co-author with his father L. Patrick Gray III of In Nixon’s Web: A Year in the Crosshairs of Watergate
