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85tarheel's review against another edition
4.0
This was a very interesting book, and Mr. Woodward has lost none of his writing chops, but it was just a bit unfocused which keeps it from being a 5 star review. I think that was an inevitable consequence of the genesis of the book, which was a review of boxes and boxes of documents Mr. Butterfield took with him when he left the White House. As we meander through the interesting pieces, many truths come out, some of them things we still didn't know about the Nixon White House, but I never felt a strong "story line" in the book. Fascinating insight though into the paranoia that eventually caused the resignation of a President.
judyward's review against another edition
3.0
Just when we think that we have heard everything about the Watergate scandal, Bob Woodward publishes another book, this time a brief examination of Alexander Butterfield who left a career in the Air Force to work for Bob Haldeman in the Nixon White House. Butterfield was promoted to Deputy Assistant to the President from 1969 to 1973 and he paints a picture of Nixon as an intelligent but extremely petty and vindictive man. Butterfield was the staffer who oversaw the installation of the secret taping system in the Oval Office and it was Butterfield who revealed the existence of that taping system to the Watergate Committee on national television. The text is augmented by dozens of documents, most of them originials, that Butterfield took with him when he left the White House to become the chairman of the Federal Aviation Administration.
irinagoldberg1's review against another edition
5.0
This book was fascinating and I am now obsessed with Richard Nixon's presidency...
bkish's review against another edition
4.0
I read various books about Richard Nixon. This one is different since it is Woodward's discussion of the Nixon aide - Alex Butterfield - who not only left Nixon after his first term ended. He actually brought him down fully. He was one of 4 people who knew about Nixon's secret taping system in the WH with microphone recorders connected by security to lamps and phones. ....
greatlibraryofalexandra's review against another edition
4.0
A continuation of the (insane, unhinged) account recorded by Woodward and Bernstein in 1974.
Woodward resents this without giving any idea of his own opinions of Butterfield, which is fantastic. It is (like its predecessor) a sweeping read that engages you in a "conversation" style of reporting, giving an almost "outsider" look at the Watergate scandal from a guy who sort of blew it all wide open by just answering a question truthfully. Its also a quick read - the meat of the book is barely 200 pages; the rest is scanned documents from which Butterfield/Woodward took their facts.
Its chaotic and poorly organized and at times boring; at times, I couldn't figure out if there was a thesis to this or if it was a sort of deathbed confessional on Butterfield's part (although Wikipedia indicates that Butterfield is in fact still alive - 96 years old).
Reading this was wild because the portrait of Nixon was so unbelievably bizarre. Multiple times I felt actively gaslit, as if Butterfield was playing some kind of joke on us - his descriptions of Nixon are so whack that I seriously considered the possibility that Nixon was some sort of alien cyborg. Butterfield, too, comes off as almost sociopathic - he is unable to explain his motives, and like a good journalist Woodward refrains from editorializing and attributing any to him, so the whole result of this book is a hodgepodge of unbelievable reflection on a potentially deranged president.
When I do get to Nixon in my presidential biographies reads, I am going to choose my author very carefully. Suffice it to say I may actually go down a Watergate rabbit hole now, too. I hate to keep using this word, but it really describes it - this entire affair was UNHINGED.
Woodward resents this without giving any idea of his own opinions of Butterfield, which is fantastic. It is (like its predecessor) a sweeping read that engages you in a "conversation" style of reporting, giving an almost "outsider" look at the Watergate scandal from a guy who sort of blew it all wide open by just answering a question truthfully. Its also a quick read - the meat of the book is barely 200 pages; the rest is scanned documents from which Butterfield/Woodward took their facts.
Its chaotic and poorly organized and at times boring; at times, I couldn't figure out if there was a thesis to this or if it was a sort of deathbed confessional on Butterfield's part (although Wikipedia indicates that Butterfield is in fact still alive - 96 years old).
Reading this was wild because the portrait of Nixon was so unbelievably bizarre. Multiple times I felt actively gaslit, as if Butterfield was playing some kind of joke on us - his descriptions of Nixon are so whack that I seriously considered the possibility that Nixon was some sort of alien cyborg. Butterfield, too, comes off as almost sociopathic - he is unable to explain his motives, and like a good journalist Woodward refrains from editorializing and attributing any to him, so the whole result of this book is a hodgepodge of unbelievable reflection on a potentially deranged president.
When I do get to Nixon in my presidential biographies reads, I am going to choose my author very carefully. Suffice it to say I may actually go down a Watergate rabbit hole now, too. I hate to keep using this word, but it really describes it - this entire affair was UNHINGED.