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.
[Brokaw] doesn’t overplay the parallels between now and then. He doesn’t need to ... an engaging account of a nation in turmoil. It is a breezy, often gossipy and at times surprising memoir that encompasses more than Watergate ... The author takes the reader not only inside a beleaguered White House, but also into tony Georgetown salons where the political and cultural glitterati mingled with journalists and ruminated on the scandal du jour ... A note of caution is warranted. While this slim book leaves the reader wanting more pages, it also suffers from choppy prose and lax editing in places. Often dates and pertinent details are left out, such as the year and month when the Arab oil embargo began ... That said, this book should be required reading inside the Beltway, and beyond.
While this memoir doesn’t break new ground on the historic scandal that gripped the nation 45 years ago and brought about Nixon’s resignation, it delivers a variety of scenes and reflections that only Brokaw could provide as a relatively young — 33 — White House correspondent for NBC News.
Humorous anecdotes about traveling with the president and life among Washington’s political elite lighten the mood ... This fast-paced account nicely captures the spirit of the times and will appeal to political junkies and scholars. See Patrick Buchanan’s Nixon’s White House Wars and Keith Olson’s updated Watergate for in-depth investigations.
