Mike’s Reviews > The Arrogance of Power: The Secret World of Richard Nixon > Status Update

Again, Nixon ordered one of the largest, most destructive bombings in world history, and only a single sentence is dedicated to the casualties. I get that this isn't a history of the war, but as I've said: showing how destructive Nixon was would be an excellent way to destroy his legacy.

I find it interesting that after all the thought and attention put into Watergate from the public, we still don't have a definitive answer for why it was done. I think the fact that something so risky was done with no clear motive says a lot about Nixon's character.

I do think an analysis of the released tapes and what they imply about the motives behind Nixon's actions is extremely valuable. It's very rare that you get this kind of deep insight into a president's private thoughts and motives.

Summers just said that Henry 'I-bombed-the-shit-out-of-Cambodia-and-got-a-Nobel-Peace-Prize-for-it' Kissinger was more qualified to make foreign policy decisions than Nixon, and I'm honestly wondering whether Summers cares at all about anyone except famous political figures. He spends pages on how Nixon bugged various enemy politicians, but only half a sentence on the human tolls of actual wars.

Y'know, if you wanted to destroy Nixon's reputation, instead of portraying him as vaguely unstable, it might've been more effective to emphasize the consequences of his actions, all the senseless deaths and destruction that happened due to his foreign policy. But I guess that might reveal that he's not actually too different than any other president.

Boy, this is not well-organized. It just jumps around his presidency however Summers sees fit - I'm not getting any sense of chronology at all from this.

I'm glad to see that Summers does what I judge to be a pretty fair analysis of Nixon's role in the peace talks of 1968. It makes me think that maybe he hasn't been as harsh toward Nixon as I'd initially thought - maybe Nixon really was that awful.

I think I've been giving the impression that I hate this book, and I don't. It's actually very interesting, there's a lot of cool information. I just have a lot of problems with how it presents Nixon as evil because he was mentally unstable. I like this book better when it focuses on his corruption and abuse of his wife, because then, I actually do believe that Nixon was a terrible person.

I kind of wish this book were better-organized. Like, maybe divided into sections, and the chapters given titles? Or at very least, I wish it went strictly chronologically, rather than covering topic by topic.

This is... weirdly pro-Castro. I mean, yes, the CIA overthrowing foreign governments was starting to become a huge problem around this time, and it remains so to this day, but that doesn't necessarily mean that every government they overthrew was good. It's odd that Summers paints Nixon's determination to kill Castro as a personal grudge, rather than a part of American imperialism.