Description
Book Synopsis“Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God.” – Matthew 5:9
“I don’t think any president has been more wrongly persecuted than Nixon, ever. I just think he was a saint.” – Ben Stein
From Ben Stein, New York Times bestselling author, humorist and former speech writer for both Nixon and Ford administrations – a powerful (and humorous) thinker on economics, politics, education and history and motivation – a personal memoir of his friend Richard Nixon: The man, patriot, president, peacemaker and visionary.
The Richard Nixon Stein remembers and lovingly describes has almost nothing to do with the Richard Nixon as portrayed in most media. In Stein’s view, Richard Nixon was a born peacemaker, a saint. Stein believes Nixon was tortured, abused, beat up by the Beautiful People, but through it all, above all, he was a peacemaker, a trait he inherited from his Quaker mother.
Nixon’s goal, as he often explained to Stein and others on his staff, was to create “a generation of peace.” And Stein argues he did it; Nixon gave the United States the longest sustained period of peace since World War II. In Stein’s view, if we no longer have to fear Russian ICBMs screaming out of hell to start nuclear war, we can thank the shade of Richard Nixon.
Why did the media hate him so much? Stein argues it was because Nixon was vulnerable and showed it when attacked. He did not have the tough hide of a Reagan or an Obama. Like the schoolyard bullies they are, the media went after Nixon for his vulnerability.
An insider’s account of Nixon the man, president and peacemaker, The Peacemaker: Nixon: The Man, President and My Friend will make you reconsider the life and legacy of 37th President of the United States.
Trade ReviewPraise for THE PEACEMAKER: Nixon: The Man, President, and My Friend by Ben Stein
“This book is a moving, deeply personal chronicle of the friendship that grew between Ben, the sorcerer’s apprentice, and Richard Nixon, first as a brilliant statesman at the pinnacle of power and then as a brooding sorcerer-in-exile, still surveying the world with a masterful gaze. It is also a treasure trove of Nixon quotes, quips, and candid insights, all painstakingly assembled and shared by Ben over the course of years of intimate conversations. It’s no exaggeration to say that what James Boswell was to Dr. Samuel Johnson, Ben Stein was to Richard Nixon: a confidant whose eyes and ears have captured a great man, close up, unvarnished, and endlessly alive in a way no other writer has. There is more of the real Richard Nixon in the pages of this modest memoir than in all the scholarly tomes—and shoddy, mainstream journalism—that fill the shelves of most university libraries. For all their differences, Ben Stein and Richard Nixon emerge from these pages as kindred spirits: men to whom success did not come easily but through faith, determination, and the guts to try, try, and try again, no matter how bruising the ordeal. In the end, both succeeded. And this book offers a key to appreciating the incredible nature of that success: a monument to friendship, endurance, and ultimate vindication.”
— from the Foreword by Aram Bakshian Jr., aide and speechwriter to Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Reagan, editor-in-chief of The American Speaker, and author of The Candidates 1980: A Professional Handicaps the Presidential Derby
“Writer, economist, pundit, entertainer, friend—Ben Stein is a man of many parts, all of them admirable. But perhaps most admirable is his undying loyalty to one of the most unjustly maligned presidents in American history—a president of great accomplishments who was betrayed, sold out, and railroaded into resigning his presidency. Ben Stein’s deeply felt and evocative THE PEACEMAKER, written with passion and conviction, represents a significant step in redeeming the reputation of one of our great presidents, Richard M. Nixon.”
— from the Prologue by John R. Coyne Jr., speechwriter to President Nixon and author of Strictly Right: William F. Buckley Jr. and the American Conservative Movement
Table of ContentsTABLE OF CONTENTS to THE PEACEMAKER: Nixon: The Man, President, and My Friend by Ben Stein
Foreword: Ben Stein and Richard Nixon: History’s Oddest Couple by Aram Bakshian Jr. xi
Prologue by John R. Coyne Jr. xv
Introduction: Blessed Are the Peacemakers 1
Chapter One: An Ordinary, Solid Citizen American: My First “Meeting” with Nixon 7
Chapter Two: America in the 1950s: A Non boring Decade of Peace, Progress, and Prosperity . . .but We Were Scared 17
Chapter Three: The Real Nixon: He Could Get Things Done, and He Did Not Stop Working until Things Got Done 41
Chapter Four: The Man inside the Nixon Mask 57
Chapter Five: California Part 1:A Big Change in My Life 75
Chapter Six: Plenty to Fear: Media Lynch Mob and the Man Who Saved the Children of Israel 83
Chapter Seven: Lawyer, Politician, Performer 119
Chapter Eight: Guilty First, Trial Second: It Matters a Lot Who Your Lawyer Is 127
Chapter Nine: Au Revoir: A Media Coup d’Etat and the Worst Day Ever in American History 145
Chapter Ten: California Part 2: A Dream Job 163
Chapter Eleven: A Memorable Birthday Party at the Western White House 177
Chapter Twelve: In Charge of Freedom Itself 189
Chapter Thirteen: A Shonda—a Disgrace 203
Chapter Fourteen: The Most Capable People on Earth 213
Chapter Fifteen: An Ordinary Man Wearing a Nixon Mask 221
Epilogue 225
Index 229
About the Author 237
