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31 Days: The Crisis That Gave Us the Government We Have Today |  | Author: Barry Werth
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Category: Book
List Price: $26.00
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Seller: Azulio
Rating:  13 reviews
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1ST
Pages: 416
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.5
ISBN: 0385513801
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.925092
EAN: 9780385513807
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Product Description
In 31 Days, Barry Werth takes readers inside the White House during the tumultuous days following Nixonâs resignation and the swearing-in of Americaâs âaccidental president,â Gerald Ford. The congressional hearings, Nixonâs increasing paranoia, and, finally, the devastating revelations of the White House tapes had torn the country apart. Within the White House and the Republican Party, Nixonâs resignation produced new fissures and battle linesâand new opportunities for political advancement.
Ford had to reassure the nation and the world that he would attend to the pressing issues of the day, from resolving the legal questions surrounding Nixonâs role in Watergate, to dealing with the wind down of the Vietnam War, the precarious state of détente with the Soviet Union, and the ongoing attempts to stabilize the Middle East. Within hours of Nixonâs departure from Washington, Ford began the all-important task of forming an inner circle of trusted advisers.
In richly detailed scenes, Werth describes the often vicious sparring among two mutually distrustful staffsâNixonâs and Fordâs vice presidential holdoversâand a transition team that included Donald Rumsfeld (then Nixonâs ambassador to NATO) and Rumsfeldâs former deputy, the thirty-three-year-old coolly efficient Richard Cheney. The first detailed account of the ruthless maneuvering and day-to-day politicking behind everything from the pardon of Nixon to why George H. W. Bush was passed over for the vice presidency, to the rise of a new cadre of Republican movers and shakers, 31 Days offers a compelling perspective on a fascinating but relatively unexamined period in American history and its impact on the present.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 13
 Terrific on many levels April 21, 2006
Jon Hunt (Old Greenwich, Ct. USA)
23 out of 27 found this review helpful
For those of us old enough to remember the summer of 1974 when the House Judiciary Committee voted articles of impeachment which ultimately led to the resignation of Richard Nixon, Barry Werth's new book, "31 Days" is a wonderful chronicle of that time. Although the book begins with the Nixon resignation (after the House vote) and ends essentially with Gerald Ford's pardon of Nixon, Werth presents a fascinating view of 1974....not only regarding the political scene but related areas which affected President Ford during his first month in office.
Needless to say, Ford entered the presidency as no one before him had. He needed to make decisions about the soaring inflation the United States was facing as well as growing unemployment on the homefront. In international policy Ford had to address not only the beleaguered American presence in Vietnam, the continuing problems in the Middle East but also a coup and subsequent Turkish invasion of Cyprus. On top of that Ford needed to find a vice-president.... to replace himself. However, the largest piece of the picture was what would Ford do with Nixon? "31 Days" centers around this aspect and it's a fascinating walk down memory lane.
How it was that Gerald Ford decided how and when to pardon the disgraced former president makes "31 Days" riveting. No one had a clue that Ford would use his power of pardon and Werth accurately describes the aftermath of that early September announcement. The honeymoon Ford enjoyed was over in a flash. Yet it is also a good connection that the author makes about how Ford might have decided things with regard to Nixon....he was contemplating a concurrent, limited amnesty for Vietnam draft dodgers and as he wanted them to "work their way back" into American society, so, too, had Ford wished to get a deeper sense of "mea culpa" from Nixon....something he really never got. As Werth points out, Ford's own relationship with his natural father and his peacemaking abilities he demonstrated between his father and mother almost certainly played a role in Ford's pardon. He simply wanted to do what was right for the good of the country and move on with life. However, as Werth points out in his epilogue, Ford's actions made things worse....it cost the Republicans massively in the midterm elections that fall and without a doubt contributed to Ford's narrow loss to Jimmy Carter in 1976.
There are one or two things which reminded me of how long ago 1974 seems, sometimes. One cannot even fathom today a Republican president choosing a moderate to liberal Republican like Nelson Rockefeller as his vice-president. To think as well that Democrats controlled the Congress in large numbers...many of their ranks coming from southern states. Werth makes some good parallels to the current administration, noting that Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney were instrumental characters during the Ford years. And as if the author weren't prescient enough.... how alike the Bush White House is to Nixon's......two secretive administrations dealing with unpopular wars.
"31 Days" is a book I highly recommend....not only for the revelations of the behind-the-scenes White House activities of August, 1974, but the analogies to the current political climate in Washington today....analogies which seem to unfold on a weekly basis. Werth's book is a good lesson in history.
Fascinating on many levels April 28, 2006
Karen Spencer (Granite Bay, CA United States)
18 out of 21 found this review helpful
My first political job was in President Ford's White House in 1975. I went in at a very low level, and on my second day all the Nixon people quit. I had no idea what I was doing, however, people who did were brought in did, it was an open environment, and we did what we had to do. Fortunately, I wasn't in charge of national security.
This book is excellent. I have worked in many political jobs and around many politicians since President Ford. What he did for our country needs to recognized. It's time to do that. This book is an excellent start.
It reads like the show "24." I think then people around President Ford are written well. And it is like reading people's mind.
I do believe that if President Ford's first 31 days were dealing with the Nixon papers, the Nixon people, and the Nixon pardon --- among running the nation, run away inflation, and foreign policy. Thank you, Mr Werth, for reminding us that President Ford is responsible for Alan Greenspan.
The transition from bad to good. September 25, 2006
William D. Tompkins (New York, New York USA)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Nixon falls and we escalate Ford into the Presidency, after Agnew was knocked out of the picture as well. The brillance of our goverment and this book is that there were no tanks, no soldiers, no havoc. There was confusion and this book details how our goverment functioned during the most internal strife in the history of the Presidency that was not Assasination related. The author portrays Ford's intent to be a moral and strong leader very effectively. The book could have benefitted with some pictures from that period in time.
Get this book. May 26, 2006
Timothy S. Hays (Westchester County, USA)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
31 Days is, for those of us who grew up during the period known as "The Watergate Era," a wondrous refresher on the perilous times of Summer 1974, when President Nixon was on the verge of impeachment and Vice President Ford was elevated to the presidency on Nixon's resignation. This period led to the only time in US history where both top officials of our government had not been chosen by voters in a national election.
I remember August 9, 1974 vividly. I was a junior at UCLA, and a Republican who had worked in the campaign of Gov. Ronald Reagan in 1970. (I remain a Republican today.) Nixon's gambit during a constitutional crisis came in a time when news and its analysis was slow to disseminate other than through the reporting of the "Big Three" networks and some responsible newspapers. (Me, I trusted Howard K. Smith and John Chancellor, even when they were at odds with one another.) I gave Nixon the benefit of the doubt, and, truth be told, despised his accusers, a bunch of radical, anti-nuke beards, until Senator Barry Goldwater decided against Nixon's alibis. Gerald R. Ford was inaugurated on August 9th, and told the country, "Our long national nightmare. . .is over." I liked Ford immediately, and do, to this day.
Werth has put together an outstanding book that will remind readers of "No Ordinary Time," Doris Kearns' magnificent history of the White House during World War II. Reason? Werth pieces together the most pertinent secondary sources-- Watergate histories, polemics, biographies, and autobiographies, news clips, court testimonies, etc.-- with some new interview material, then threads it all together to provide a credible, and unslanted, look at the 31 days between Nixon's resignation and Ford's unequivocal pardon of the 37th president following an agonizing thought process. ("Title" is one of the four essential elements of a best-selling book, you may know, and Werth and his editor have hit a home run here with "31 Days." Think "48 Hours" or "Seven Days in May," ad infinitum.)
Disclosure: I voted for Ford in 1976, and, as you might guess, for Reagan, in 1980 and 1984.
Now: there are several omissions which may have otherwise provided the lay reader (without knowledge of the tumult of Watergate) additional information. Werth could have credited William Ruckelshaus, a great public servant, with being the Deputy Attorney General who, in October 1973, as Elliot Richardson's second-in-command, refused to fire Archibald Cox and resigned, with Richardson, in the event popularly known as "The Saturday Night Massacre." Werth could have expounded more on the fate of John Connally, a dynamic man whose hubris led to his downfall-- and, more important, on Connally's lawyer, Edward Bennett Williams, who acquitted the former Treasury secretary after the timeline in this book, but to whom Nixon, in exile, famously told, "I wish you were MY lawyer!" (See Evan Thomas, "The Man to See"; Fireside, 1992).
But Werth more than makes up for these slight omissions by recalling the behind-the-scenes efforts of a young Antonin Scalia, then a junior justice department lawyer, and by revealing more of the Machiavellian, predatory behavior of America's Strangelove, Gen. Alexander Haig.
Go buy 31 Days, now. If you can't afford it, borrow it from your library or steal it from a friend's house. If you are over the age of 40, you will be gratified. If you are in college, in poli sci, or American History, you will enjoy it and marvel at the extremely good organization. There is not an ounce of laziness-- intellectual or otherwise-- in Werth's book. It will grip you. It will also save you the $2,000. or so I've spent over the years on Watergate-era books.
Fantastic account of historical events and future impact June 13, 2006
Tomás Davis (Medellín, Colombia)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
31 Days provides an in-depth account of the first thirty-one days of Gerald Ford's presidency, from the delivery of Richard Nixon's resignation letter to Henry Kissinger to Ford's controversial pardon of the former President. The book provides an insider's perspective on the developments in the White House and at Nixon's residence in San Clemente during this time, and concludes with a fascinating epilogue which traces the progress of key players in the Ford administration through the Reagan, Bush Sr., and Bush Jr. administrations right up to the present-day controversies surrounding the war in Iraq.
I found the book to be engaging for several reasons. First, the day-by-day presentation (thirty-one chapters, one for each day of the period covered) is an imaginative means of communicating the significant events during this time. Additionally, the "behind closed doors" dialogue of individuals whose interests were sometimes aligned and sometimes in conflict constructs a detailed picture of the challenges and uncertainties driving the actions of the major players in power at the time. Finally, the book's development of the political paths not only of Ford and Nixon, but of Reagan, Bush Sr., Rumsfeld, and Cheney generates an intriguing connection between today's political landscape and events which happened over thirty years ago.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 13
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