Last of the President's Men by Bob Woodward (review)

Bob Woodward's recent book Last of the President's Men is a work that reexamines already heavily trodden ground. Woodward is synonymous with the Nixon administration and Watergate, and his book is reminiscent of a 1960s or 1970s rock star going back on tour and playing all his greatest hits. Woodward offers no earth-shatteringly new information about the Nixon administration but does give readers a more detailed look at the inner workings of Richard Nixon's White House through the eyes of Deputy Chief of Staff Alexander Butterfield.

Woodward explains in his prologue that Butterfield approached him in 2014 and 2015 with a trove of unpublished original memoranda, letters, and personal papers from the Nixon White House that he acquired as deputy chief of staff. Over the next year Woodward began interviewing Butterfield to learn more about his relationship with President Richard Nixon. The resulting book is a glimpse into a sometimes friendly and often contentious relationship.

The first two chapters describe Butterfield's career in the Air Force before coming to the Nixon White House. After approaching H. R. Haldeman, an old college friend who was serving as Nixon's Chief of Staff, Butterfield was offered a job. He learned quickly that his job in the White House would involve much more than organizing the president's schedule. During his first meeting with Nixon, Butterfield noticed that the president seemed ill at ease at a small staff gathering. Butterfield wondered: "why couldn't he be at ease surrounded by his own people and in what was now his own house?" (p. 20). Later, he observed that the president seemed markedly agitated by him, and he asksed Haldeman about the situation. Haldeman responded, "He's a funny guy. It's hard for him to deal with new people he doesn't know well" (p. 20).

Later chapters are filled with similar stories about the president's awkwardness in public settings or inability to discuss problems openly with staff or family members. In one instance Butterfield was asked to draft a memorandum to Nixon's wife on behalf of the president, asking for a larger bedside table in their bedroom. When Butterfield asked why Nixon did not just talk to his wife, he was told, "You don't understand Alex, the president doesn't discuss these kinds of things with Pat. We do" (pp. 25–26).

By the end of 1969, Butterfield had begun to get a feel for how the president handled news concerning Vietnam. After reading an article written by independent journalist Seymour Hersh about the My Lai Massacre, Nixon saw it as a threat to the success of his strategy in Vietnam. Nixon ordered staffers to go after Hersh and any of the witnesses he interviewed for his story. Nixon noted in a memorandum, "Check Out Claremont Man. [one of the witnesses interviewed] Check all talkers. The Army Photographer. Another vulnerable spot. $ passed Claremont, fellow Jewish? (lib jew)" (p. 53). From this exchange, Butterfield concluded that Nixon was more concerned with his own image and political standing than the soldiers or civilians involved in the incident.

Despite Nixon's numerous shortcomings, Butterfield notes that he was a brilliant strategic thinker. In several memoranda Nixon explained that he wanted John Erhlichman, the White House counsel, as his reelection campaign manager because of Erhlichman's ability to manage large operations. Butterfield also noticed the president's capacity to reflect on past events, referring to a memorandum in which Nixon wrote, "as I look back over the past three years our great failings particularly in the domestic area, has been that once the President shoots off the big gun the infantry doesn't follow" (p. 132).

In later chapters of the book Butterfield reflects on his involvement in the Watergate hearings and his admission that the Nixon White House had a secret taping system in the Oval Office. He says that his motivation was not entirely altruistic, that "I'm not trying to be like a...