Ezra's Bookshelf

The Final Days

by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein · 484 pages · ~9 hrs

HistoryPolitics & GovernmentBiography & Memoir

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Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who had exposed the Watergate scandal's scope in their earlier reporting, turn to Nixon's final months in office with unprecedented access to participants' memories and documents. The book captures an administration unraveling under pressure, from the Supreme Court's ruling that Nixon must surrender the tapes to his resignation in August 1974. We see Alexander Haig trying to hold the White House together, Henry Kissinger managing foreign policy while monitoring Nixon's stability, and the Nixon family moving from denial to acceptance. The most dramatic moments occur when Nixon, drinking heavily and increasingly erratic, alarms those closest to him. Defense Secretary James Schlesinger takes the extraordinary step of instructing the military to check with him before following any unusual orders. The book's intimate details—Nixon kneeling in prayer with Kissinger, his final speech to the staff—brought readers inside the presidency's collapse in ways previously unimaginable. Though some participants later disputed specific characterizations, the book established a new genre of access journalism and remains the essential account of a presidency's end.

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