Fall of Richard Nixon, The: A Reporter Remembers Watergate

- Blurb -

Tom Brokaw recounts the endgame of the Watergate scandal and the Nixon presidency in real time, from his perspective in the press corps as a young White House correspondent for NBC News. In August 1974, after his involvement in the Watergate scandal was revealed, Richard Nixon became the first and only President to resign from office in anticipation of certain impeachment. The year that preceded was filled with shocking revelations and bizarre events, with power politics, legal jiu-jitsu and high-stakes showdowns, and with head-shaking surprises every day. Tom Brokaw, the NBC News White House correspondent during the final year of Watergate, writes of justice and judgment, in this nuanced and thoughtful chronicle, a close-up, personal account of the players, the strategies, and the highs and lows of the scandal that brought down a president. Brokaw says, "Now, almost half a century later, I find it instructive to remember what the country went through, and I wanted to share press stories from the inside looking out." He recounts Nixon's claims of executive privilege to withhold White House tape recordings of Oval Office conversations; the bribery scandal that led to the resignation of Vice President Spiro Agnew and the choice of Gerald Ford as VP; Nixon's firing of Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox; travels with Henry Kissinger and how Nixon organized emergency relief for Israel during the Yom Kippur war in the midst of Watergate; Nixon's "I am not a crook" speech; the unanimous decision of the Supreme Court that required Nixon to turn over the tapes; and other insider moments from this important and dramatic period and event. Published in the 45th anniversary year of Nixon's resignation, The Fall of Richard Nixon allows readers to experience this American epic from the perspective of a journalist on the ground and at the center of it all, during this historic time.