University Press Copublishing Division / Fairleigh Dickinson University Press
Pages: 368
•
Trim: 6¼ x 9½
978-1-68393-000-6 • Hardback • April 2018 • $142.00 • (£109.00)
978-1-68393-002-0 • Paperback • September 2019 • $53.99 • (£42.00)
978-1-68393-001-3 • eBook • April 2018 • $51.00 • (£39.00)
Victor Li is an assistant managing editor with the ABA Journal, covering the business of law and legal technology.
Acknowledgements
Prologue
Chapter 1: “You Won’t Have Nixon To Kick Around Anymore!”
Chapter 2: “A Politician Does Not Change His Base.”
Chapter 3: “The Fast Track.”
Chapter 4: “I Have Never Asked Anybody For Business.”
Chapter 5: “There But For The Grace Of God, Go I.”
Chapter 6: “Mentally Dead In Two Years And Physically Dead in Four.”
Chapter 7: “Why Are These Men For Nixon?”
Chapter 8: “A Chronic Campaigner.”
Chapter 9: “I Always Knew I Wouldn’t Be Permitted To Win A Big Appeal Against
The Press.”
Chapter 10: “The Purpose Of This Group Is To Begin Planning, Now, To Win The
Nomination.”
Chapter 11: “He Wanted Prestige.”
Chapter 12: “The Word Is Out That Mudge Is In.”
Epilogue
After losing the California governor’s race in 1962, Nixon announced the end of his political career, and he accepted a partnership in a prestigious New York City law firm. He became a valuable rainmaker for the firm, and he used his position to reconstitute his political base with wealthy contributors, a deep and talented campaign staff, and enhanced international experience. This culminated in his victory in the 1968 presidential campaign. The assistant managing editor of the American Bar Association’s trade journal, Li provides an excellent, straightforward narrative of how this transpired. The author places these transformational years within a quick survey of Nixon’s prior political career and a brief overview of his two administrations. The consistency of Nixon’s talents and flaws is evident in each phase of his career. The final chapter treats former colleagues and legal issues of the firm during Nixon’s presidency. The epilogue touches on recent presidential players’ engagements with prestigious law firms. Although this focused and manageable account relies more on interviews and printed sources than on extensive archival research, it deserves consideration in competition with John Farrell’s or Evan Thomas’s recent, massive Nixon biographies.Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers; upper-division undergraduates through faculty.— Choice Reviews
Victor Li’s “Nixon in New York: How Wall Street Helped Richard Nixon Win the White House” illuminates Richard Nixon’s crucially important “wilderness years” as a Wall Street lawyer. Li provides new insight and understanding OF this period, from Nixon’s crushing 1962 defeat in the campaign to become governor of California – “You won’t have me to kick around anymore” – to his successful bid for the presidency in 1968. Well-researched and illuminating.— Thomas Byrne Edsall, NY Times columnist and professor at Columbia University School of Journalism