In 1966 Richard Nixon hired Patrick J. Buchanan, a young editorial writer at the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, to help lay the groundwork for his presidential campaign. Fiercely conservative and a whiz at messaging and media strategy, Buchanan continued with Nixon through his tenure in office, becoming one of the president’s most important and trusted advisors, particularly on public matters. The copious memos he produced over this period, counseling the president on press relations, policy positions, and political strategy, provide a remarkable behind-the-scenes look into the workings of the Nixon White House—and a uniquely informed perspective on the development and deployment of ideas and practices that would forever change presidential conduct and US politics. Of the thousand housed at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library, presidential scholar Lori Cox Han has judiciously selected 135 of Buchanan’s memos that best exemplify the significant nature and reach of his influence in the Nixon administration. Here, in his now-familiar take-no-prisoners style, Buchanan can be seen advancing his deeply conservative agenda, counterpunching against advisors he considered too moderate, and effectively guiding the president and his administration through a changing, often hostile political environment. On every point of policy and political issue—foreign and domestic—through two successful campaigns, Nixon’s first term, and the fraught months surrounding the Watergate debacle, Buchanan presses his advantage, all the while honing the message that would push conservatism ever rightward in the following years. Expertly edited and annotated by Han, Advising Nixon: The White House Memos of Patrick J. Buchanan offers rare insight into the decision-making and maneuvering of some of the most powerful figures in government—with lasting consequences for American public life.

In 1966 Richard Nixon hired Patrick J. Buchanan, a young editorial writer at the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, to help lay the groundwork for his presidential campaign. Fiercely conservative and a whiz at messaging and media strategy, Buchanan continued with Nixon through his tenure in office, becoming one of the president’s most important and trusted advisors, particularly on public matters. The copious memos he produced over this period, counseling the president on press relations, policy positions, and political strategy, provide a remarkable behind-the-scenes look into the workings of the Nixon White House—and a uniquely informed perspective on the development and deployment of ideas and practices that would forever change presidential conduct and US politics. Of the thousand housed at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library, presidential scholar Lori Cox Han has judiciously selected 135 of Buchanan’s memos that best exemplify the significant nature and reach of his influence in the Nixon administration. Here, in his now-familiar take-no-prisoners style, Buchanan can be seen advancing his deeply conservative agenda, counterpunching against advisors he considered too moderate, and effectively guiding the president and his administration through a changing, often hostile political environment. On every point of policy and political issue—foreign and domestic—through two successful campaigns, Nixon’s first term, and the fraught months surrounding the Watergate debacle, Buchanan presses his advantage, all the while honing the message that would push conservatism ever rightward in the following years. Expertly edited and annotated by Han, Advising Nixon: The White House Memos of Patrick J. Buchanan offers rare insight into the decision-making and maneuvering of some of the most powerful figures in government—with lasting consequences for American public life.

What happens when presidential advisors, in Machiavellian terms, think more of themselves than of the prince and seek their own profit more than the goals of the president or the "good of the realm"? In Games Advisors Play, Jean A. Garrison examines case studies of foreign policy in the Nixon and Carter administrations and addresses how and why advisors manipulate the group process, under what conditions advisors engage in power games, and in what situations they are most effective in influencing presidential policy choices. Given the high stakes, policy advocates employ various tactics to manipulate the advisory process and decision outcome. Three types of tactics are used: structural maneuvers, procedural maneuvers, and interpersonal maneuvers. Although these tools are important to the success of an advisor, the advisory process is a dynamic group process, and advisors must recognize that others have potential influence as well. The effectiveness of advisors therefore also depends on their power and authority, their manipulative skills, their interpersonal communication skills, and the relationships among members of the inner circle. Using the internal policy debate over arms control to trace the influence advisors have on specific decisions, Garrison compares the power games in Nixon's hierarchical system Number Three: Joseph V. Hughes, Jr., and Holly O. Hughes Series in the Presidency and Leadership Studies to Carter's more open advisory system. The disparate advisory systems provided advisors with different opportunities to influence the president and overall policy making. As a contribution to the decision-making literature in foreign policy, Games Advisers Play challenges static conceptions of the advisory process. Foreign-policy scholars, presidential scholars, and political psychologists will find this an exciting and thought-provoking study.

What happens when a conservative president makes a liberal professor from the Ivy League his top urban affairs adviser? The president is Richard Nixon, the professor is Harvard's Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Of all the odd couples in American public life, they are probably the oddest. Add another Ivy League professor to the White House staff when Nixon appoints Columbia's Arthur Burns, a conservative economist, as domestic policy adviser. The year is 1969, and what follows behind closed doors is a passionate debate of conflicting ideologies and personalities. Who won? How? Why? Now nearly a half-century later, Stephen Hess, who was Nixon's biographer and Moynihan's deputy, recounts this fascinating story as if from his office in the West Wing. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1927–2003) described in the Almanac of American Politics as "the nation's best thinker among politicians since Lincoln and its best politician among thinkers since Jefferson", served in the administrations of four presidents, was ambassador to India, and U.S. representative to the United Nations, and was four times elected to the U.S. Senate from New York. Praise for the works of Stephen Hess Organzing the Presidency Any president would benefit from reading Mr. Hess's analysis and any reader will enjoy the elegance with which it is written and the author's wide knowledge and good sense. -The Economist The Presidential Campaign Hess brings not only first-rate credentials, but a cool, dispassionate perspective, an incisive analytical approach, and a willingness to stick his neck out in making judgments. -American Political Science Review From the Newswork Series It is not much in vogue to speak of things like the public trust, but thankfully Stephen Hess is old fashioned. He reminds us in this valuable and provocative book that journalism is a public trust, providing the basic information on which citizens in a democracy vote, or tune out. — Ken A

From the late 1940s to the mid-1970s, Richard Nixon was a polarizing figure in American politics, admired for his intelligence, savvy, and strategic skill, and reviled for his shady manner and cutthroat tactics. Conrad Black, whose epic biography of FDR was widely acclaimed as a masterpiece, now separates the good in Nixon -- his foreign initiatives, some of his domestic policies, and his firm political hand -- from the sinister, in a book likely to generate enormous attention and controversy. Black believes the hounding of Nixon from office was partly political retribution from a lifetime's worth of enemies and Nixon's misplaced loyalty to unworthy subordinates, and not clearly the consequence of crimes in which he participated. Conrad Black's own recent legal travails, though hardly comparable, have undoubtedly given him an unusual insight into the pressures faced by Nixon in his last two years as president and the first few years of his retirement.

For the past 50 years a select group of scientists has provided advice to the US President, mostly out of the public eye, on issues ranging from the deployment of weapons to the launching of rockets to the moon to the use of stem cells to cure disease. The role of the presidential science adviser came under increasing scrutiny during the administration of George W. Bush, which was highly criticized by many for its use (and some say, misuse) of science. This edited volume includes, for the first time, the reflections of the presidential science advisers from Donald Hornig who served under Lyndon B. Johnson, to John Marburger, the previous science advisor, on their roles within both government and the scientific community. It provides an intimate glimpse into the inner workings of the White House, as well as the political realities of providing advice on scientific matters to the presidential of the United States. The reflections of the advisers are supplemented with critical analysis of the role of the science adviser by several well-recognized science policy practitioners and experts. This volume will be of interest to science policy and presidential history scholars and students.

In this enlightening volume, Brownell--the man Dwight D. Eisenhower said would make an outstanding president--recounts his achievements and trials as the GOP's most successful presidential operative of the 1940s and '50s, and as Attorney General at a crucial time in American history. Political science professor an coauthor, Burke is the author of The Institutional Presidency. 26 photographs.