Ray Locker's Blog

Thirty-five years ago, The Washington Post burned a source with a story about corruption in the Montgomery County, Md., liquor department. Bob Woodward, then the paper's metro editor, compounded the problem by trying to persuade a source that they could like in print about where their information came from. Those details are included here:

http://www.watergate.com/Disclosure/D...

This looks at William C. Sullivan, the longtime intelligence chief of the FBI and an enabler of Nixon's secret government.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/na...

I wrote this in advance of the release of Nixon's Gamble. It examines the adjective "Nixonian" and what I discovered it meant to me while researching the book.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/po...

This is my column from two weeks about the new book by Bob Woodward, The Last of the President's Men. It was published by the History News Network.

http://historynewsnetwork.org/article...

This just in from Publishers Weekly:

http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1...

Locker, a USA Today investigative reporter focusing on politics and Congress, reconstructs the rise and fall of Richard Nixon. His well-conceived thesis is that Nixon believed the entrenched, self-interested forces of Washington—the national press corps, Congress, and the CIA, FBI, and Pentagon—were making it impossible for him to achieve his goals: reaching an arms agreement with the Soviets, establishing a détente with China, and ending the Vietnam War. Determined to succeed at any cost, Nixon stealthily created a shadow government adept at secret foreign policy initiatives. According to Locker, Nixon’s commitment to secrecy generated a culture of domestic spying, fostering the infamous break-ins, until “cover-up begat cover-up” and led to Nixon’s demise. Locker describes Nixon’s machinations in minute detail, and readers may be overwhelmed by the narrative’s parade of large and small players, but they will marvel at Nixon’s drive, paranoia, duplicity, and accomplishments. Surprisingly, while the unfolding of the world events makes for captivating reading, the debacles of the Pentagon Papers and Watergate seem like an old story. In Locker’s view, Nixon’s successes place him high in the pantheon of effective presidents, but his perfidy makes an equally compelling narrative of failure. (Oct.)

Here's the review of Nixon's Gamble in the Sept. 1 issue of Library Journal, which recommends books for libraries around the world.

Locker, Ray. Nixon’s Gamble: How a President’s Own Secret Government Destroyed His Administration. Lyons: Globe Pequot. Oct. 2015. 352p. notes. bibliog. index. ISBN 9781493009312. $29.95;
ebk. ISBN 9781493019458. BIOG
Richard Nixon (1913–94) remains a fascinating subject for historians of all stripes. Locker, an investigative reporter for USA Today, applies his ample research skills to exploring Nixon’s penchant for secrecy and deception during his six years as president. The focus centers on Nixon’s three primary foreign policy goals: ending the Vietnam War, restoring diplomatic relations with China, and reducing Cold War tensions with the Soviet Union. In order to accomplish these disparate objectives, Locker maintains, Nixon created a complex secretive network so extensive that even his closest advisors, such as Henry Kissinger, didn’t know the whole truth behind his actions. The author utilizes a wide range of primary and secondary resources to spin his tale, and at times the facts are indeed stranger than fiction as he lists the consequences of the National Security Decision Memoranda and concludes that Nixon’s “climate of secrecy” continues to impact politics today. VERDICT A well-told, detailed account that will satisfy even the most dedicated Nixon scholar. ¬Recommended for most collections.—
Ed Goedeken, Iowa State Univ. Lib., Ames

The National Archives released some previously unseen Nixon White House documents. They bolster the central thesis of Nixon's Gamble, which is that policy issues led to the political problems that forced him from office. Today's case: Returning Okinawa to Japanese control.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/na...

In 1991, Richard Nixon told Jonathan Aitken, author of a sympathetic biography, that he had nothing to do with the so-called Chennault Affair in 1968. This column for History News Network gives the details.

http://historynewsnetwork.org/article...

This is an op-ed column I wrote for our web site on Tuesday. It will run in the Thursday, March 12 print edition.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion...