Although Perlstein has produced an exuberant reconstruction of these years, he does, regrettably, adopt one of the period's less admirable qualities. He embraces hyperbole and, as columnist George F. Will noted in his recent review of "Nixonland" for the New York Times, chalks up a few errors along the way. None are devastating, but they are distracting; one reveals a weakness in Perlstein's reliance on secondary sources. Describing the 1970 Kent State massacre, he writes that residents of Kent, Ohio, "were thrilled to see the tanks and jeeps rumble through town" and later describes children climbing around the tanks. That appears to be drawn from James A. Michener's account (in "Kent State: What Happened and Why"), but no tanks appear in the extensive photographic and journalistic record. (There are references to armed personnel carriers, but not tanks.)
Dividing lines
Nixonland The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America Rick Perlstein Scribner: 882 pp., $37.50
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ANOTHER error, harder to explain, caught my eye, in part because it detracts from what should be a signature scene, Nixon's 1969 inaugural address, when the long-suffering politician finally claimed the presidency. The occasion had special resonance because the oath was administered to Nixon that January day by Chief Justice Earl Warren, who had sparred with Nixon for decades, going back to Warren's time as California's governor. So deeply did Warren detest Nixon that the chief justice had tried to retire earlier the previous year, in part to prevent Nixon from choosing his replacement on the court. (Warren eventually left in 1969, and Nixon replaced him with Warren Burger.) Perlstein, however, incorrectly reports that Justice Hugo Black administered the oath, not only getting the moment wrong but also robbing it of much of its consequence.
These mistakes are distracting, but hardly debilitating. Once they are remedied, what will be left is a superb history of a period too often glamorized beyond recognition. Perlstein's grand epic revolutionizes the history of those revolutionary times and does something more as well. Through it, through Nixon, he delivers a new understanding of some of the divisions of our modern life. The coarseness and recrimination that undermine our political civility today have deep roots in the Nixon era. If we now live in a country where politics swallows its victims, where victory must be total, where opponents are demonized rather than having their arguments debated, well, Nixon carries his share of the blame.
