Introduction

This will be a blog that tracks news about Richard Nixon. Although he's been dead for 13 years, he's been prominent this year: three new books about Nixon were published this spring, with a massive biography by Conrad Black on the way (published in Canada and the U.K. this month and in the U.S. in the fall). There's also a new play on Broadway, Frost/Nixon, about David Frost's 1977 interviews with Nixon, and last year there was a revival Off-Broadway of another Nixon play, Nixon's Nixon, about Nixon and Henry Kissinger during Nixon's last night in the White House.

Why me? I have a fascination with Richard Nixon. It's an apolitical fascination. I was born during Watergate, and I don't feel any particular passion for or against Nixon. I just find him an intriguing character.

Part of it is Watergate - it's a great story, filled with suspense, starting with a minor burglary and eventually snowballing into a political crisis for Nixon, ending in his resignation under threat of impeachment.

Pat of it is the dramatic arc of his life story - rise (Congress, Senate and the vice presidency), fall (two electoral defeats in a row - for president in 1960, and for California governor in 1962), rise (twice elected president), fall (Watergate), and then his attempted vindication as an elder statesman until his death.

And Nixon himself is such an engrossing, flawed character. The paranoia; the paradox of a man raised as a Quaker who, in private, cursed like a sailor and made drunked late-night phone calls; a man who rose to the presidency even though he lacked a natural politician's charisma and could come across as awkward in public.

This blog is an experiment. I intend to collect news about Nixon, his life, and his administration. Maybe there won't be much or maybe there'll be a lot.

We'll see.