This consistent graciousness was all the more remarkable because, side by side with the decisive and thoughtful Nixon described in these pages, there was another Nixon – insecure about his image, uncertain of his authority and plagued by a nagging self-doubt. This other Nixon was accompanied by a version of Adam Smith’s ‘impartial spectator’: that is, a second ‘you’, standing outside yourself, observing and judging your actions. Nixon seemed to me to have been haunted by such critical self-awareness all his life.
