The Final Days

By: Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward

Narrated by: Holter Graham

Length: 19 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's summary

The Final Days is the number-one New York Times best-selling, classic, behind-the-scenes account of Richard Nixon's dramatic last months as president. Moment by moment, Bernstein and Woodward portray the taut, post-Watergate White House as Nixon, his family, his staff, and many members of Congress strained desperately to prevent his inevitable resignation. This brilliant book reveals the ordeal of Nixon's fall from office - one of the gravest crises in presidential history.

©1976 Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein (P)2018 Simon & Schuster Audio

Outstanding

This is a wonderful read. It captured the corruption, dishonesty, recklessness and pettiness displayed by Nixon and his aides. But it's also a sad story of a man who fell so far so quickly. Nixon's political career was about projecting strength and fighting impossible fights. The book lays out how hard he pressed his aides for "options" before bowing to the pressure to resign. At the end, he was even bracing himself for jail time.

As unforgivable as Nixon's conduct was, I was struck by what an unlikely sequence of events - the arrest of the watergate conspirators, E. Howard Hunt's push for cash and clemency, Dean's cooperation with investigators and the exposure of the taping system - was needed to bring Nixon down. It's very easy for me to imagine Nixon having skated by if all these pieces hadn't come together in exactly the worst way for him.

The book also has some good lessons for lawyers with clients that are hiding things from them. Nixon wouldn't talk to his own lawyers, and he wouldn't let them listen to the tapes. I'm sure these were "red flags" but then again any lawyer would expect that the rules of the game would be different if your client is the president.

I'd be curious to know what (if any) parts of the book have been refuted by more recent evidence. As with any Woodward/Bernstein project, the book feels very meticulously put together.

I'd also be curious to know if there are scholars who would still argue on separation of powers grounds that Nixon would have been within his rights to burn the tapes, or not produce them. It would be the contrarian view, of course, but its not totally crazy. Or maybe it is crazy. I'm not sure.

It gave me a lot to think about, and I'm grateful to Woodward and Bernstein for the many enjoyable hours of listening.

A book for our time.

I decided to read this book as an escape from what is happening in Washington today. It tells in great detail what went on in the White House during the last two years of the Nixon administration, as the Watergate scandal tightened its grip on the nation and Nixon eventually resigned his office.

But it wasn't really an escape. The parallels between President Richard Nixon and our Current Occupant are amazing: their arrogance, disregard for the rule of law, and certainty that lies could be covered up and not discovered. What I take away is sadness that there was once a time where even a bad president would, in the end, succumb to truth, justice and constitutional requirements. I fear that is no longer the case.

all the president's men part 2

after decades of postponing this book i can say i'm glad i read it, but not as much fun as all the president's men. i hoped for more salacious details of nixon talking to statues, but was worth it for the obvious comparisons to trump. i hope we are in for another happy ending. i don't see how anyone can read the final days without acknowledging that he had to go.

Different Look

This book gives a different perspective on those final days of the Nixon Presidency from the News coverage of the day. I found the reading of the book by Holter Graham to be very good. I ended the book having found Nixon to be a sad individual looking for constant approval. Great book and great presentation. If you love political history, this book is a must and listening to it after having read it many years ago, I came away with a different perspective on this period in our history.

Watergate and Beyond...

A part of history that we seem to be reliving in 2018. A painful but necessary read/listen for those of us who lived it as well as a new generation living it now...

Tremendously good

The reality of what went on with all the players in the Nixon family and White House and especially with Nixon himself is a truly mesmerizing account. One of the best I’ve listened to.

Good details, but feels like slo-mo asphyxiation

For fans of legally-fraught, political decision-making history, at a meticulous fine grain of fly-on-the-wall detail, this book is top-rank. I feel as if I was at the elbow of many elite decision-makers, and a few flounderers (lawyers among them), if not inside their minds. And this goes on almost minute by minute. Some folks would find this excruciating. I like it. Obviously dozens of central figures were interviewed at great length. The most interesting character, to my mind, was Alexander Haig as White House Chief of Staff. That was, to use an old football expression Nixon might appreciate, some fancy broken-field running, on Haig's part. He was basically keeping the show running in near-impossible conditions, with all sorts of complex personalities nearly flying off the handle every minute. That this whole unprecedented mess went with any smoothness at all (to an outside viewer) and with our legendary USA political continuity, we owe in no small part to Haig. Surely we do not owe this, at least per this account, to Richard Nixon, that old poker-player, who played his cards (and especially the crucial White House tapes) so close to his vest. Even his own lawyers were in the dark and thus being hung out to spin in the public relations winds for the sake of his own schemes of self-preservation, until absurdly late moments. Many times Nixon's staff would stand up to withering press fire and pressure from Congress and the Special Prosecutor, only to find their public assertions (based on the boss's claims) proven false. This tended to tie ethics-conscious lawyers into knots, and the authors didn't miss this aspect. In other words, Nixon seemed ready to throw any loyal personnel under the bus to preserve his own hide, when there seemed to him any sliver of possibility he might yet slither away clean, even when this perception was beyond absurd (e.g., in the face of a unanimous Supreme Court against him), given what he (and only he) knew at each moment. At the end his self-involvement seemed to blot out everything and everyone around him, though he finally settled down and gave a few good parting speeches. (Thanks to Ray Price for that.) I have great admiration for "the good Nixon," but this was the worst portrayal of "the bad Nixon" I've seen anywhere. And I've looked under a lot of rocks.
The only improvement I could imagine to this account, might be another editing pass that would make it a bit more sprightly in pacing and prose, maybe with a little more political history context sprinkled across it. Moments here actually seem gruelling, though it was plenty worth it.

Fantastic!

This book reads like a suspense thriller. Even though you know how it ends it’s exciting right to the end. Sad time in American history but knowing that we rose up again gives you faith in these troubled times.

Careful and Concise

After a second listen I heard the echoes of history bouncing off the storylines of today. May it be not a warning for today but a recommendation for how rhings could have been.

Unexpected - unforgettable

This was one of the longer books I have read, and I have sometimes struggled to finish them, finding it hard to pick them back up once set down. I struggled with this book too. But the struggle this time was to set it down. Time for lunch. No, maybe just one more chapter. Dinner? Let's order. I'll just read till it gets here. Is it really after midnight..... This was an exceptional and deep look into the events that led so easily, so seductively to the edge and the man who stood there, the abyss at his feet, wondering how did I get here. In our current times, it serves as an eerily prescient warning to those who stand today at that same precipice. Nixon stepped back from that edge, capable and moral men there to help avert the worst. Who now, I wonder, remains to pull us back from the abyss this time? I am very glad to have read this book. Thank you.