Theodore H. WhiteBesprekingen

$4.

I read this not much after it was published, when I was beginning to be interested in politics and its effects on ordinary life. I'm sure I learned a thing or two from White, without now, years later, recalling what.

FE - signed by the author - DJ has minor issues, otherwise VG overall½

White comes across as incredibly naive, and lacking any perspective whatsoever. I can't take his reporting seriously.

This was a great book and such a interesting look at an election that should have never materialised. With the death of JFK, suddenly Johnson was President and had to face into an election. Theodore Whites books are essential reading for anyone Interested in American politics in the 60s and 70s.

Again, an amazing series that is a must for anybody that is interested in America politics throughout the 60s and 70s. This was a landmark work and still has much to give in this modern age.

A generally good account that tends to fall prey to White's characteristic veneration of the winner as if they are a saintly classical hero (particularly ironic given the way Nixon's presidency ended). This extends to strange self-contradictions such as the chapter which insists the Nixon "southern strategy" was a myth before then going on to describe the Nixon campaign deliberately stoking concern in southern whites along racial lines to make Nixon feel like the safer choice. That was the southern strategy which White denied the existence of pages earlier and is just one example (to my mind, the most egregious) of the massaging of history to fit White's preferred "cometh the hour, cometh the man" narrative approach.

Ho-hum. In the years before Jack Germond and Jules Witcover started collaborating on accounts of presidential elections, Theodore H. White was pretty much the only game in town, for anyone looking for a one-volume, accessible chronicle of a presidential election. White's reputation as a journalist was made as a reporter for Time magazine, in China, but he will always be remembered as a "presidential historian," which is unfortunate. Political and historical junkies will find far more "inside information" in the books by Witcover and Germond, without any of the stuffiness. Not recommended.

This book has been a delight, with fascinations on nearly every page. His account of China during WW2, Paris and postwar Germany during the Marshall Plan, and New York's rapid changes in the 1950s were all illuminating in countless ways.

White seemed to have a gift for being at just the right place at just the right time, from showing up in Chongqing just before the first large-scale aerial bombing campaign in history, to visiting Mao just as the CCP convened for its first gathering in years, to hobnobbing with Eisenhower in Europe as he mulled running for president, and even traveling the campaign trail with JFK in 1960.

Much of it might be lost on a college student, but if you've read history long enough to have a substantial scaffolding on which to hang various facts, as they say, it's a worthwhile read.

The biography of N. Eldon Tanner's ([b:N. Eldon Tanner, his life and service|3224506|N. Eldon Tanner, his life and service|G. Homer Durham|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1309673606s/3224506.jpg|3258600]) mentioned that this book was very meaningful to him. Therefore I became interested in it.

I read this book at the same time as [b:The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion|11324722|The Righteous Mind Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion|Jonathan Haidt|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1351393217s/11324722.jpg|16252969]. They both deal with politics and reading them at the same time I made a lot of connections that I might not have otherwise gotten.

There is a lot of history in here, and although it painted a very different picture than I had ever heard before, it felt credible. As I got into the last chapter or two, it began to feel more like a position paper. Unfortunately, the warning wasn't enough.

Written more than 50 years ago, the blunders described in here are common throughout history, and thus this book is still meaningful. I was impressed with the depth and to a lesser extent the breadth of coverage of China starting within the time of WWII, and continuing until about a year after Japan surrendered. I had hoped to learn how the Communists came to power, but as of the end of the book, it was about an equal match between them and the old government. I looked up what happened, and learned a little about what happened after the end of the book. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Civil_War

I have long wondered how the Chinese went from a millennium of being perhaps the greatest power on the earth to being a backward country. This book didn't directly address that question, but from having read it, I now have an intriguing piece of the puzzle filled in.

It gave enough information that now I have a rudimemtary understanding of why the Communists came into power. The abuse of the people was a continual scene throughout the book. Before reading this, I had little love for Communists and thought that Chiang Kai-shek was a "good guy". Now I have a much better feel for why the people found them attractive. Chiang Kai-shek had one "good" trait in that he was violently anti-Communist. On the other hand as an oppressive dictator who tolerated graft and corruption, he did not alleviate the suffering of the people. "Believing that corruption and a lack of morals were key reasons that the KMT lost mainland China to the Communists, Chiang attempted to purge corruption by dismissing members of the KMT accused of graft." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiang_Kai-shek)


If a person read and understood this book, they would have a good idea what not to do. Doing things right is a lot harder task, but understanding history is a good start.

A wonderful book which manages to impart a real (as closely as I can remember it - I was born in mid 1961) feel for the early 1960s as well as for the characters involved. Paradoxically, though he is far and away less psychologically "attractive" I found myself drawn to the figure of Nixon -- not as a fan of his political stances but as an informal student of human psychology (which we must all be to some extent in order to navigate life). There is real pathos there: conflict, darkness and suffering. I'm of the opinion that this bore fruit in his presidency and eventual disgrace ... but seriously, if one were to draw parallels between this story and that of Milton's Paradise Lost (and those are some REMOTE PARALLELS), Nixon is definitely Satan, and more interesting in his way than Kennedy.

And, no, I'm not calling Richard Nixon Satan. Nor am I calling John Kennedy Jesus. I'm merely making a call here similar to William Blake when he said of Paradise Lost "Milton was of the Devil's Party without knowing it." Losers can be more interesting and complicated than winners, and I thought that was the case here.

Note: I always squirm internally when writers use the term "stock" with reference to human groups. White does this a lot.½

Theodore White was an accurate and careful reporter on the presidential races of the time. He was of a progressive frame of mind, and so the reader should not look for lurid conspiracies, or much speculation about campaign finances here. But the account is clear, and readable.

A pivot in the end of the First triumvirate is played out before our eyes. It seems to be a dusting off of the Great Man theory, with some elements pertaining to the Kennedy Family in American politics.

Every American election summons the individual voter to weigh the past against the future.

Last Tuesday my wife worked half the day and came home. We then walked the two blocks or so to vote. Early voting allows one to go to the polls weeks in advance yet there is something uplifting about going out on Election Day. Walking back, I rattled off my list of those I voted for which failed to find victory. That was likely just nerves.

Theodore White leaves the reader with a different sort of anxiety. The election process remains such an experiment, so prone to caprice and misunderstanding. It was difficult to not frame the 2016 election in the terms revealed. Instead I found pleasure in measuring the temperament of Nixon and Johnson, leaving the Kennedy cool for another day. 1960 was the campaign where the candidates pushed hard for the primaries to give mandate ahead of the convention. Such is a remarkable process. the idea that Kennedy's Catholic faith was an issue strikes me as almost quaint. The concluding chapter fleshes out the opening days in Camelot, though the spectre of Asia that White sniffs is from Laos -- not Vietnam.

There is always a tendency to look ahead, to imagine omens for the future. That is likely a reckless pursuit. I did appreciate White on race which features prominently, perhaps at the expense of foreign policy.

The book is concerned with the quotidian drudgery of the presidential candidate. There is much to appreciate. I am not sure much has changed in the interim despite advances in technology.

A great political story . I look forward to the later elections too.

Subtitle: A Narrative History of American Politics in Action.

About a year before the November 1960 election, Theodore H White began studying the likely candidates. He focused on a handful of men with aspirations and/or apparent qualifications: Humphrey, Kennedy, Stevenson, Johnson, Nixon, Rockefeller. He travelled from state to state reporting on the primaries or state caucuses / conventions. (In that era, there were only sixteen states that held primaries!) He attended the Democratic and Republican national conventions. And he closely followed the candidates as they campaigned for the presidency.

I was fascinated to learn some of this history, and the first-hand look at the “political machines” that produced these two candidates, and ultimately President John F Kennedy. I also found this a surprisingly nostalgic book … It was published in 1961, shortly after Kennedy’s inauguration, so there is no hint of what is to come in November 1963.

It’s somewhat dated – the process is different more than half a century later. And yet, there is something timeless about this story. Serious issues of race, the economy, potential for nuclear war, etc still plague our country. Good men and women still struggle to find solutions. My face-to-face book club had a fascinating and spirited discussion of this work.

The Landmark Political Series

Mr. White, starting in 1960 covered every USA presidential election with a slight Democratic bias. The books are clear and useful starting places for the student. Hunter Thompson is livelier, but not so trustworthy as regards facts. The world was saddened by the resurrection of Richard Nixon after the more progressive Johnson administration, but Nixon promised an end to the messy police action in Vietnam so he was let back in. It didn't work out. But if one is looking for an artifact of a simpler and faux-golden era it is a useful book.½

I am always pleased to find a novel that illuminates an area of World War II history that I am unfamiliar with. Theodore White (not to be confused with T.H. White, the English author of The Once and Future King) based this novel on his war-time experiences as a journalist in China. It provides a fascinating look into the dying days of the war and touches on issues of leadership, racism and the judicious use of power.

It is fascinating to read an "in-the-moment" account of history, as opposed to a historical look back at history. This really gave me a great sense of the issues of the day and the sense of driven energy JFK used, not to mention a good bit of family connections and money, to win the 1960 Presidential race. It also was interesting to see how when the chips were down, Kennedy acted without regard to politics, calling Coretta Scott King at a crucial moment in the campaign. Nixon, in contrast, refused to comment because that was the politically astute play, in his mind. Nixon considered the political outcome, rather than the morality of his action, or inaction. In that sense, JFK earned the right to be President.

I love political books- I rate Richard Ben Cramer's "What it Takes..." as my favourite ever book in fact. This however was an utterly tedious read.

Although it covers an exciting election, and it does give you a somewhat new perspective on Nixon/JFK and the challenges they faced before and after their nomination, it is done in a painfully unreadable way. For example entire lists of names are hurled at the reader, with a brief explanation of each person's role. These become impossible to recall- and yet paragraph after paragraph are filled with these names and their minor duties. No personalities, just duties- and even these are described in a way which is difficult to understand. Another example is the final chapter, which is as irrelevant as it is dull.

When I saw that a book about each election from 1960 to 1972 had been written by the same author I was excited, and was looking forward to reading every book. Now however I am certain I will not be picking up another book by this author.½

Fascinating in that it was written in 1961, antipicating 4 more years of Kennedy. Otherwise perfectly prescient, cognizant and detailed. Dragged at the end with too much flourish.

One of the monumental contributions of a "journalist" in the days when that word referred to the professionals who reported the actual news.

This report offers perspective and context, but is essentially a facts-only unbiased report on the election of 1960 between Nixon and Kennedy. There are inserts -- "Only one other nation in modern history has ever tried to elect its leader directly by mass, free, popular vote. This was the Weimar Republic of Germany, which modeled its unitary vote of national leader on American practice. Out of its experiment with the system it got Hitler." [12]

{Cf. Note to Patriots: We know that fascist thugs were able to take over the most civilized educated prosperous nation on the planet. They did it by bullying, pretending to love the Homeland, and by telling lies. Is there a Party today that ignites the anger and fear of white men?}

Some of the facts are obviously not "eyewitnessed", but they are largely corroborated and confirmed from eyewitness sources. For example, on election night "Eisenhower was angry that evening,..upset by Nixon's behavior throughout the campaign, bitter against Kennedy." [16]

The IBM programs, with data from every state fed into computers to make advance projections, as late as midnite were predicting a Nixon victory. No certainty. First reports from Texas, when Laredo reported for Kennedy, it was obvious that Mexican-americans of South Texas were delivering for the Democrats with such force that the Republicans in Dallas and Houston could be matched. [23] {Texas will be blue within 4 years}

Nixon did not have the grace to concede his defeat. [29] ..."the twisted barely controlled sorrow of Mrs. Nixon" [29]. I have corroborated this myself. {It has since emerged that Nixon was not only criminal, but gay. Nixon traveled without his wife, and the "friendship" with Bebe Rebozo included being in bed together.}[73, noting the bachelor home where Nixon's campaign for VP in 1958 began.]

This election clearly "stirred every nerve end of the American political system, and that system would never be the same". The author does not skip past details concerning the actual, named, persons involved in this transmogrification.

The numbers: On November 8, 1960, 68,832,818 Americans voted. About 4 million were active Party participants. Of these, less than a thousand had any idea of what was being done a year earlier by the one who would be their candidate. And less than 50 may have been involved in that activity.

"Truman, one of the greatest Presidents on the grand scale of world history". [50]

The South sends approximately 1/4 of the delegates to the DNC. "Now that the Democrats have captured the liberal imagination of the nation, it is forgotten howmuch of the architecture of America's liberal society was drafted by the Republicans." [71] This liberality led to the most prosperous period of our history and saved us from centuries of slavery and of plutocracy.

"The Republican Party depends for support on the executive class of the great corporations as intimately as does the liberal wing of the Democrats on support from labor-union leadership." [86]

"These corporation executives are not generally backward forces; by and large, they are far more enlightened than the regulars they finance...and force the regulars to support the liberal citizen wing." [86]

"No measurable group in American life...has made so remarkable a stride in education and development over the past decade as the Negro." [279]

The author documents the malice the press held for Nixon, and its roots in the fact that they hated being lied to.[329]

"This was the greatest food-producing civilization in history, and Iowa, in the summer of 1960, had planted more acres of corn than ever before...".[332]

The author missed many details, such as the fact that Bebe had the adjoining room on hotels in which Nixon was staying "alone". [343]

The Index pin-points the people involved. What strikes one is the high quality of Americans involved in politics. Although Nixon was running things on the GOP side, and in the subsequent eventually winning campaign, he brought in a different set of operatives. See the change as Lee Atwater and his trainees, began taking over -- the trickster academy in which Ralph Reed, Grover Norquist, Frank Luntz, and Karl Rove got their first taste of national politics. What strikes one is the dramatic shift in the GOP from a party with a liberal wing so clearly apparent in 1960, to a party with only a Right Wing.

The author concludes, from studying the text of the speeches as well as the video, that Kennedy won the first debate largely because Kennedy appeared to be the equal statesman to Nixon, and that what Nixon had been saying about him all along was obviously a lie. [346] He was not a communist, immature, and inexperienced!

Nixon based his campaign on "home talk" and civic values. But he had no home. His room was in a hotel. [381] {The subsequent unraveling of Nixon's usurpation of legitimacy was yet to come.}

669. The Making of the President 1960, by Theodore H. White (read 26 Aug 1961) (Pulitzer Nonfiction prize in 1962) I read this still exulting in the magnificent victory of JFK in 1960 and this book enabled me to relive that glorious political year.

303. Thunder Out of China, by Theodore H. White and Annalee Jacoby (read 11 Jan 1947) This is a report on China's political situation and a review of pertinent war incidents. A pretty good book.½