The Real Nixon

He writes a primer on power

In case anyone is still searching for the real Richard Nixon, he may be found in the former President's latest book: The Real War (Warner Books; 341 pages; $12.50). This impassioned call to arms expresses Nixon's combative view of the world. In his way, Nixon has updated Machiavelli's The Prince and written a primer for power politics. "World leadership," he warns, "requires something in many ways alien to the American cast of mind. It requires placing limits on idealism, compromising with reality, at times matching duplicity with duplicity, and even brutality with brutality."

Nixon believes that ever since the end of World War II, the U.S. has been engaged in an undeclared Third World War with the Soviet Union, "and we are losing it." The Soviets are relying on a grand strategy to undermine the West. He quotes Leonid Brezhnev telling Somali President Siad Barre: "Our aim is to gain control of the two great treasure houses on which the West depends--the energy treasure house of the Persian Gulf and the mineral treasure house of central and southern Africa."

The primary purpose of American foreign policy, writes Nixon, should be to prevent this from happening. All other causes are secondary: arms negotiations, relations with less developed nations, enforcing "human rights" around the globe. Nixon has Machiavellian contempt for people who find excuses for Soviet aggression, like those who justify the invasion of Afghanistan on the grounds that the giant empire needs secure borders. "The Russian appetite for 'security' is insatiable," he writes.

The Soviet drive for domination cannot be blunted by what he calls "American purists who inspect the world with white gloves and disdain association with any but the spotless." Nixon feels it is imperative not to weaken our allies by insisting too rigidly on internal reforms, but he skips over the fact that a repressive regime may fall of its own weight. Part of the dilemma for the U.S. is to decide at what point an allied regime is still viable.

The Soviet threat must be countered, says Nixon, by a dramatic military buildup and by a willingness to confront the Soviets whenever they embark on some aggressive act. By way of illustration, he cites his own action in 1973 when he ordered a military alert to warn the Soviet Union against sending troops to intervene in the Arab-Israeli war.

Like the Prince, Nixon thinks a leader should be more feared than loved. In the open society of the U.S., he writes, "we have all but one of our cards face up on the table. Our only covered card is the will, nerve, and unpredictability of the President." Nixon favors playing that card for all it is worth, even to the point of never letting the enemy be sure whether the President might in extreme circumstances launch a pre-emptive strike. Since 1974, Nixon points out, several countries have come under Communist domination. Among them: Cambodia, South Yemen, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Afghanistan. Advises he: "We have to recover the geopolitical momentum, marshaling and using our resources in the tradition of a great power."

Nixon as Machiavellian realist also pulls the strings in Spiro Agnew's account of how he was forced out of the vice presidency: Go Quietly . . . or else (Morrow; 288 pages; $10.95). Agnew says he would never have given up the post if his boss had supported him. But when word leaked that Agnew was under investigation for accepting kickbacks even while in the White House, the President dexterously arranged to jettison him. His Chief of Staff, General Alexander Haig, finally warned that if Agnew did not step down, things could "get nasty and dirty."

In a burst of hyperbole that seems wildly excessive even for the darkest hours of the Watergate White House, Agnew writes that he feared for his life at the hands of Nixon aides who would stop at nothing to save the President. After vigorous bargaining, he pleaded nolo contendere to one count of income tax evasion and left office. Had he known Nixon was so vulnerable, he says now, he might have fought for his job and thus become President. It was that possibility that alarmed so many people in government, even the Prince.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.