A memoir from President Nixon's aide and White House deputy presents an insider's view of America's most enigmatic president, relating his most memorable experiences with the people who shaped the future.
The sad and sometimes chilling story of Chapin’s relationship with the cast-iron H.R. Haldeman ... Chapin offers the reader sympathetic and defensive glimpses of Nixon, depicting him as 'a very sensitive man' ... His overall estimation of Nixon remains high but confused ... Chapin’s biggest achievement involved setting up Nixon’s trips, in 1972, to China and the Soviet Union. Understandably, given all the lows that would follow, he oversells the former ... Chapin makes a handful of fair revisionist points ... But when in his acknowledgments he starts climbing onto the grassy-knoll version of Watergate...a reader can only sigh. Before this, Chapin offers some bits of Watergate trivia that may be news to readers ... The President’s Man is an amiable if sometimes lurching and repetitive reminiscence. There is no real spark to most of the prose.
Reveals new facts and insights into the very consequential presidency of Richard Nixon ... Fascinating and page-turning ... The most interesting and revealing chapters of the book deal with Chapin’s involvement in planning and executing Nixon’s trips to China to establish formal relations with the communist regime ... Chapin persuasively contends that he did nothing criminal and was swept up in the mostly political and media-driven prosecutions ... This is also a very introspective book.
His account of the cultural barriers he encountered can provoke laughter ... Chapin’s autobiography offers some entertaining anecdotes about many who passed through his office and will appeal to Nixonians and to those looking for yet another very personal perspective on Watergate.
