Ike and Dick: Portrait of a Strange Political Marriage

Frank (former senior editor, The New Yorker; "Washington Trilogy" novels) offers an engaging narrative of the 16-year relationship between Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon: a political marriage not made in heaven. This deeply researched account, which includes more than 60 author-conducted interviews, is the only complete book treatment of the enduring yet shaky political connection that guided the United States through some of the most critical decades of the Cold War. All significant events are thoroughly covered—Nixon's $18,000 secret fund, which almost got him bounced from the 1952 Republican ticket; his assigned role as hatchet man during his eight years as Ike's vice president; Ike's halfhearted attempt to force Nixon off the 1956 ticket; Eisenhower's late and reluctant 1968 presidential endorsement of Nixon; and Nixon's reliance on Ike as an informal adviser until Ike's death in 1969. Frank speculates that had Eisenhower lived longer he might have steered Nixon clear of Watergate and guided a Nixon presidency to international and domestic success.