SOURCE: “The Man Who Came Back,” in Contemporary Review, Vol. 261, No. 1518, July, 1992, pp. 45-6.

In the following review, Wright offers praise for Nixon: Ruin and Recovery, 1973-1990.

Despite the high drama of a now-familiar story, and despite the daunting detail, this is a remarkably fair study. Indeed, Ambrose comes gradually to like Nixon [in Nixon: Ruin and Recovery, 1973-1990]. ‘That is not easy to do, as he doesn't really want to be liked.’ What he admires—and what he conveys—is that Nixon never gives up, and is always true to himself.

The main strength of the book lies in its variety: beginning in the triumph in the Presidential election of November 1972 to the slow two-year agony, from the (foolish, unnecessary and unauthorised) Watergate break-in until the resignation of August 1974; the roll-call of the now near-fictional characters, Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Dean and Mitchell, Colson and the Cubans; Nixon's awareness...