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Kennedy and Nixon: The Rivalry That Shaped Postwar America | 
 enlarge | Author: Christopher J Matthews
Publisher: Free Press
Category: Book
List Price: $16.00
Buy Used: $0.63
You Save: $15.37 (96%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  37 reviews
Sales Rank: 128939
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 0684832461
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.9220922
EAN: 9780684832463
ASIN: 0684832461
Publication Date: August 28, 1997
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Amazon.com Review
Christopher Matthews, the Washington bureau chief for the San Francisco Examiner and a former aide to Tip O'Neill, offers a fascinating look at the connections between the two most well-known politicians in the last 40 years. He traces the symmetries of their beginnings--both were elected to the House of Representatives in 1946 and assigned to the same committee--as well as their similar thirst for power. While both men's rise and fall, events that had profound effects on America, have been well chronicled, Matthews' book is one of the few, if not only, that places the two in parallel historical context.
Product Description
A nationally syndicated columnist and political pundit explores the personal and political relationship of Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy, showing how the course of that relationship reflected that of the whole nation. Reprint. 35,000 first printing."
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| Customer Reviews: Read 32 more reviews...
 A Sad bending of the Facts October 28, 2008
I have read nearly everything ever penned on Nixon and Kennedy, and I was excited to find that someone had finally decided to fill the gaps in the relationships of these two fascinating Americans. Sadly, this was not the book I expected it to be.
The facts unique to the book makeup about 10 percent. The rest is filled with one-sided Kennedy bashing and Nixon sugar-coating.
This is the first I've read from this author, but being formerly an assistant to Tip O'Neil, I was blown away by his slant. I can only guess that he was trying too hard to hide his background.
The truth would have been a better read.
 Friends become Rivals in the Drive to Wear the Beltway Crown October 18, 2008
Before he became a wise-cracking cable-TV political commentator, Christopher Matthews was a first-rate writer/historian and this concise look at the formative years of the two men who influence the post-World War II politics of this nation is very interesting.
Though the lives of RMN and JFK were on different paths, their ambition as public servants found them ultimately pointed to Washington, D.C. and - ultimately - with their eyes on the ultimate prize...sitting in the Oval Office. And that this initial friendship as a new generation of leaders could not survive seems to be caused not only by national party politics, but the by-product of the game within the game to claw to the top of the mountain and wear the crown of the leader of the free world.
Matthews brings a human aspect to a time and place in American politics that has been oftentimes dominated by misinformation, partisan rhetoric and/or legend disguised as fact.
Kennedy and Nixon: The Rovalry that shaped postar America August 30, 2008
This book ties in perfectly with Theodore Whites 'The Making of the President 1960.' The recently Ted Sorenson published book on JFK should be read in conjunction with Matthews book. It is too bad that this book has seemed to become lost in today's world. This book should be used in classrooms and by book clubs in order to show how modern political America has been shaped by the Kennedy-Nixon rivalry and its historic outcome.
 Jack and Dick: a Friendship that could not survive politics August 8, 2008
Historians sometimes like to propose a theory and then find facts that support only that theory. One could argue that Chris Matthews (of Hardball fame) did that here. It is interesting, however, to view post-war American history through only one lens. Sure, other facts are removed and only a simplified perspective emerges but that doesn't mean the facts are wrong.
I found many of Matthews anecdotes interesting and, frankly, learned a few things. I knew that Nixon and Kennedy both came to Congress in the same year, 1947. They landed on the same committee in the House, a mixed-up pair that had many of the same ideas, outlooks, and ambitions. They both saw communism as the global threat it was back in the early days of the Cold War. They conversed in each other's offices, as they were across the hall from each other, even when Nixon was VP and Kennedy in the Senate. During Nixon's 1950 run for the U. S. Senate, JFK hand delivered a check from Joe Kennedy, Sr., an incident JFK denied in his 1960 presidential race.
So wrapped up in their intertwined stories that the 1960 presidential race that pitted the two men against each seemed almost destined by fate. Two friends, two allies, fighting for the same chair. Matthews describes the presidential debates of 1960 in fine detail. What I failed to realize was that there were four debates that year but it is the first that everyone remembers. A sad fact that emerges in the 1960 race was the friendship that died. JFK was first to brush off Nixon's friendship and it was Nixon who followed suit, years later. Ironically, during that first debate, Nixon was reticent to attack JFK, even being couched not to do so. This from the man who, in 1946 and 1950, unleashed some underhanded tactics of his own. The third debate was unique in format. Nixon was on the west coast, JFK on the east, both men sitting in a television studio, not even able to see the other man. I can't help but wonder how that even made it off the ground. But, in 1960, presidential debates were something new. So devastating were the effects of that first debate (Nixon `won' the other three), seen by an estimated 9 our of 10 households that owned a television, that it was sixteen years before another presidential debate occurred. LBJ, in 1964, learned the lesson of Nixon's failings in 1960s and, you know, in 1968 and 1972, Nixon would never debate. (For a nice overview of presidential debates, go to the website "The Great Debate and Beyond: The History of Televised Presidential Debates" with photos and footage.)
As the story progresses, irony begins to emerge. The way Matthews presents this history, it's somewhat difficult to see how the Nixon hatred emerged. Sure, Matthews takes pains to note Nixonian tactics in 1946 and 1950 as paving the way for Nixon vitriol from the press as well as the man's own animosity right back at them that crystallized in his having to give the 1952 "Checkers" speech. But this hostility seems just seems to emerge. It's certainly a cause for further research. Moreover, it was amusing to read about the college-prank-like tricks played on Nixon by various Democratic operatives. One involved a guy who managed to join Nixon's team and sabotaged a Nixon speaking engagement at a local California college. The operative managed to reserve a huge room but invited no one. The pictures made many laugh, including JFK back in Washington.
And it's true that JFK employed similar shenanigans, mainly involving his father's money. But, once both JFK and Nixon became president and had the power of the Oval Office behind them, pranks become something more. Both men welded that power but Nixon was the one who took it over the top and got caught. JFK, LBJ, and Nixon all had tapes recording conversations in the White House. And, I assume, every president since has had some way of recording the day-to-day activities of their administration. It's great for historians but somewhat damning for the occupants for they and their operatives cannot gloss over cold hard facts.
I listened to the audio version of this book, read by Nelson Runger. Runger is one of the best readers of non-fiction out there. In an amusing way to enliven the recording, Runger affects a Kennedy or Nixon accent whenever Matthews quoted directly from either man. It's not distracting and, actually, helped the reading. It was interesting, however, to see how the Massachusetts accent changed from John to Robert to Edward Kennedy. Runger also read John Adams as well as Founding Brothers. His rich voice really brings these historical figures to life. Runger is to the point now where I'll listen to almost anything he reads.
Many academics lambaste works like Matthews book as popular history. Some even criticize him for using only one frame of reference and throwing out extraneous details that don't conform to the set frame. These would be the academics who write impenetrable books that only other academics read and review. The American populace has, in many ways, lost its sense of history. Too many gym teachers who `teach' history as merely a series of dates have driven the life from history and truly made it the boring story of dead people. Popular histories like Kennedy and Nixon strive to bring these dead people alive again for a new generation of readers. True, the book reads like a novel but aren't some of the best stories ever told those accounts of real-life heroes? If it takes a popular work of non-fiction like Kennedy and Nixon or an HBO miniseries on John Adams to get people to learn about history, so be it. At least history and the spirit of those that came before will emerge--the good and the bad, the triumphs and the mistakes--and, hopefully, say something to future generations. (excerpted from http://scottdparker.blogspot.com)
Easy Reading, but that's the problem July 6, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Chris Matthews is no stranger to anyone interested in American politics, though unfortunately some may be more familiar with the caricature of him on Saturday Night Live than the real Chris Matthews. None of which should matter as far as reading his book, though it does explain the approach he's taken.
The book is easy reading; it's written in decent prose, flows nicely (though there are some unsubtle bits of repetition throughout the text, these are minor, at most a sentence here and there) and is easy to comprehend even if one does not have a hardcore interest in politics. But the reason it flows so well is that it seems superficial in places, and from a scholarly point of view the placement of the notes/sources at the back is frustrating. A good choice for making this a readable and "popular" history, but bad for easily figuring out where Matthews draws his conclusions from. Many of his inferences seem on the face of it to be drawn from thin air, and he steps into the mind of President Kennedy or President Nixon quite readily at times, leaving one to wonder if he has taken an enormous amount of liberty or not.
Nonetheless, for someone with no background at all in the history of these two political careers, the book does draw on a lot of fascinating information. The emphasis is firmly on how the two careers influenced each other. Even if all one did was read the photo captions, that reader would come away with a new and unique perspective on the events of the 1950s-1970s in American history.
The book treats many of the events superficially, however; familiar and dramatic events are discussed briefly (the Assassination of John F. Kennedy is breezed through in a page or so) and others are conspicuous by their absence (no mention of the missing 18-1/2 minutes?).
The largest criticism is that the book is drawn from secondary sources. Of necessity, naturally, since the two main subjects have passed on. However, despite a functional telling of how they became elected to their various offices, we never really learn why. Their ambition is taken as a given and I think Matthews' background as a political observer may have been a stumbling block here; his knowledge of the subject matter, the political world, the reason why either man would do something in a particular situation for a political motive, is so ingrained, he probably sees no reason to explain it to a layperson audience. But for someone outside the political realm with little idea of the very different world that these power brokers lived in, it becomes very hard to relate to the naked ambition of these historical figures, and Matthews does little to help the reader understand why anything is happening. In that regard the book comes across as pedantic.
The book also presents all the events of the era through the lens of the rivalry; the other influences - particularly during the Nixon presidency - are hardly discussed at all, and Matthews tries too hard to make his point that his fear of the Kennedy family drove everything he did, when other sources suggest that other forces were also at least occasionally at work.
Still, there is much food for thought here, and the book should please both the serious student of the eras involved, as well as those doing some light reading.
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