The Final Days

New York: Simon and Schuster, 1976. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Good. Dirck Halstead (Jacket photograph) and Joan Bingha. 476 pages. Illustrations. Footnotes. Chronology. Index. DJ has some wear and soiling, and back flap creased. Corners of two pages creased. Robert Upshur Woodward (born March 26, 1943) is an American investigative journalist. He started working for The Washington Post as a reporter in 1971 and now holds the title of associate editor. While a young reporter for The Washington Post in 1972, Woodward teamed up with Carl Bernstein, and the two did much of the original news reporting on the Watergate scandal. These scandals led to numerous government investigations and the eventual resignation of President Richard Nixon. The work of Woodward and Bernstein was called "maybe the single greatest reporting effort of all time" by longtime journalism figure Gene Roberts. Woodward continued to work for The Washington Post after his reporting on Watergate. He has written 21 books on American politics and current affairs, 13 of which have topped best-seller lists. Carl Milton Bernstein (born February 14, 1944) is an American investigative journalist and author. Bernstein and Bob Woodward, did much of the original news reporting on the Watergate scandal. These scandals led to the eventual resignation of President Richard Nixon. Bernstein's career has continued to focus on the theme of the use and abuse of power. He is the author or co-author of seven books: All the President's Men, The Final Days, and The Secret Man, with Bob Woodward; His Holiness: John Paul II, with Marco Politi; Loyalties; A Woman in Charge; and Chasing History, a memoir of his early years in journalism. Derived from a Kirkus review: The unveiling of the new Woodward and Bernstein bombshell—headlines in the daily press, excerpts in Newsweek—has maximized its exposure at the expense of the limited "truth" of the book. Anyone who's been awake knows the worst: Kissinger's contempt for "our meatball President" and his siege with a kneeling, sobbing Nixon the night before resignation; Mrs. Nixon's estrangement and the son-in-laws' fears of insanity or suicide; the wire-pulling of Alexander Haig, the waffling of James St. Clair, the bullishness of Ronald Ziegler. Here, however, the infinite indiscretions emerge in the course of events from the April 30, 1973 departure of Haldeman and Ehrlichman to the August 9, 1974 take-off of Nixon himself. For months all hands fight to keep Nixon in office and control the tapes. On July 24,1974 the Supreme Court rules for special prosecutor Jaworski, and Fred Buzhardt, listening at last, finds "the smoking pistol"—the Nixon-Haldeman confab on June 23, 1973, six days after Watergate—which, he and other aides demonstrate, Nixon listened to in May. In the two weeks following Nixon is nudged toward resignation—balks, wavers—and by the time the cat is bagged you wonder not that he eventually fell apart but that he held up so long. Which leaves one doubtful of how much of this dramatic narrative—composed of direct quotes and desk-side detail—to credit, since none of it is substantiated in any assessable way.