Nixon's Elusive Totality: It Depends on Who Writes the History

“Nixon’s Elusive Totality. It depends on Who Writes the History,” is a new look at Richard Nixon, one of the most controversial leaders in U.S. history. Author Lee Huebner was a White House speechwriter for President Nixon, and has taught a university course about him for 25 years. He seeks in this book to look at Nixon “in his “totality” --as President Bill Clinton urged the country to do at Nixon’s funeral. Huebner argues that both Nixon’s critics and his defenders have missed out on this full story, as he traces in some detail the roots of the man’s complexity, from his difficult childhood through his final Watergate crisis in 1973 and 1974, during which, as Nixon himself later put it, “I did myself in.” Nixon had dominated the U.S. political stage since 1948, when his lead role in the controversial Alger Hiss case established his reputation as a leading anti-communist crusader. His negative campaigning style in races for the U.S.