Flattery was one of Kissinger's principal tools in winning over Nixon, and a tool he employed shamelessly. — Robert Dallek Copy Share Image
Richard Nixon had a kind of Walter Mitty fantasy life. He was a man with a grandiose thoughts: dreams of not simply… — Robert Dallek Copy Share Image
Television has an awful lot to do with the Kennedy mystique and the fact that he's frozen in people's minds at the… — Robert Dallek Copy Share Image
Few American presidents are held in higher esteem than Thomas Jefferson. Though historians have scrutinized every phase of his long public career… — Robert Dallek Copy Share Image
Once the public loses confidence in a president's leadership at a time of war, once they don't trust him anymore, once his… — Robert Dallek Copy Share Image
Truman is now seen as a near-great president because he put in place the containment doctrine boosted by the Truman Doctrine and… — Robert Dallek Copy Share Image
Nixon did not anticipate the extent to which Kissinger, whom he barely knew when he appointed him national-security adviser in 1969, would… — Robert Dallek Copy Share Image
McGeorge Bundy was a brilliant man who'd had a meteoric academic career and was the youngest man ever to be dean of… — Robert Dallek Copy Share Image
McCarthy had ten years in the House of Representatives, only two terms as a senator. What did he pass? Are there any… — Robert Dallek Copy Share Image
Lyndon Johnson is not a comfortable model for President Obama to imitate. He is an all-but-forgotten president - pilloried for the failed… — Robert Dallek Copy Share Image
During his presidency, Truman and the Republicans were locked in a series of furious assaults on each other that outraged him and… — Robert Dallek Copy Share Image
Besieged by lawsuits that threatened to engulf almost everyone at the White House, Clinton assistants shunned paper or e-mail records of their… — Robert Dallek Copy Share Image
President Obama can talk about having no grand schemes and making no big gains, but the reality is he can't get anything… — Robert Dallek Copy Share Image
Experience helped Richard Nixon, but it didn't save him, and it certainly wasn't a blanket endorsement. He blundered terribly in dealing with… — Robert Dallek Copy Share Image
Henry Kissinger never wanted the 20,000 pages of his telephone transcripts made public - not while he was alive, at any rate. — Robert Dallek Copy Share Image
If Roosevelt didn't have World War II, he never would have had a third term. — Robert Dallek Copy Share Image
John Kennedy had so many different medical problems that began when he was a boy. He started out with intestinal problems... spastic… — Robert Dallek Copy Share Image
One doesn't simply write about Lyndon Johnson. You get the Johnson treatment from beyond the grave - arm around you, nose to… — Robert Dallek Copy Share Image
F.D.R. had an economic crisis of unprecedented proportions in 1933 when he drove 15 major bills through the Congress, and super majorities… — Robert Dallek Copy Share Image
Nixon's deep antipathy toward Jews is well known, and he took a strange satisfaction in having Kissinger in his inner circle, where… — Robert Dallek Copy Share Image
The lifelong health problems of John F. Kennedy constitute one of the best-kept secrets of recent U.S. history - no surprise, because… — Robert Dallek Copy Share Image
Ronald Reagan in foreign affairs, I think, was someone who had certain, very general ideas, general propositions by which he lives: To… — Robert Dallek Copy Share Image
Kennedy saw the presidency as the vital center of government, and a president's primary goal as galvanizing commitments to constructive change. He… — Robert Dallek Copy Share Image
From the moment he took office in January of 1961, Kennedy had been eager to settle the Cuban problem without overt military… — Robert Dallek Copy Share Image
When Johnson decided to fight for passage of the law John F. Kennedy had put before Congress in June 1963 banning segregation… — Robert Dallek Copy Share Image
Herbert Hoover was a man of genuine, fine character, but he lacked practical political sense. And he couldn't bend and shift and… — Robert Dallek Copy Share Image
To be sure, Kennedy did not discount the importance of words in rallying the nation to meet its foreign and domestic challenges.… — Robert Dallek Copy Share Image
A national government using New Deal programs and the massive defense spending beginning with World War II and continuing through the Cold… — Robert Dallek Copy Share Image
John F. Kennedy went to bed at 3:30 in the morning on November 9, 1960, uncertain whether he had defeated Richard Nixon… — Robert Dallek Copy Share Image
Despite an unqualified understanding that U.S. national security was inextricably bound up with Britain's survival, F.D.R. knew that his reelection in part… — Robert Dallek Copy Share Image
Don't be intimidated by people who seem to be experts. Hear their points of view and get their judgements. But at the end of… — Robert Dallek Copy Share Image
During his presidency, Truman and the Republicans were locked in a series of furious assaults on each other that outraged him and made Truman… — Robert Dallek Copy Share Image
Experience helped Richard Nixon, but it didn't save him, and it certainly wasn't a blanket endorsement. He blundered terribly in dealing with Vietnam. — Robert Dallek Copy Share Image
When Gingrich attacked CNN's John King for bringing up his alleged proposal of an open marriage to his second wife, Gingrich accused him of… — Robert Dallek Copy Share Image
In seeking an empire of liberty, Jefferson wished not only to expand the country's territorial holdings, but also to extend American institutions around the… — Robert Dallek Copy Share Image
Like Lyndon Johnson, President Obama understands that timidity in a time of troubles is a prescription for failure. — Robert Dallek Copy Share Image
Despite its flaws, the American electoral system has produced Lincoln, the two Roosevelts, and Harry Truman. — Robert Dallek Copy Share Image
For those of us who cry out for gun control, our fears cannot be eliminated as long as the country remains an armed camp… — Robert Dallek Copy Share Image
The Atlantic conference in the North Atlantic off Newfoundland is a dramatic moment in World War II history because for the first time, Roosevelt… — Robert Dallek Copy Share Image
For style and for creating a mood of optimism and hope - Kennedy on that count is as effective as any president the country… — Robert Dallek Copy Share Image
As for Vietnam, what matters is that Kennedy successfully resisted pressure to send anything more than military advisers, a stance that was a likely… — Robert Dallek Copy Share Image
