King Richard: A deeply flawed president tripped up by his own paranoia
Richard Nixon veers between Shakespearean tragic hero and pantomime villain in historian Michael Dobbs’s detailed reconstruction of the Watergate scandal
HISTORY
King Richard: Nixon and Watergate, an American Tragedy
By Michael Dobbs
Scribe UK, €25.65
“If you want a friend in Washington,” President Harry Truman supposedly once said, “get a dog.” Richard Nixon took his predecessor’s advice, acquiring an Irish setter named King Timahoe after the Co Kildare village where his Quaker ancestors had come from. When the man nicknamed “Tricky Dicky” sought some canine company, however, he usually ended up hopelessly tangled in King ...