The story of Richard Nixon—the only American president to resign from office—is one of great promise and bitter disappointment. Born into a humble Quaker family in California, young Nixon excelled at Duke Law School. He ran successfully for the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate and went on to serve two terms as Eisenhower's vice-president. He launched his own campaign for president in 1960, but was edged out by the charismatic John F. Kennedy following a classic series of television debates. He finally won the nation's highest office in 1968. His great successes were in foreign policy—Nixon became the first U.S. president to visit the People's Republic of China and he negotiated a policy of détente with the Soviet Union. But after the 1972 burglary of Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate, the trail of evidence led to the White House, and Nixon avoided impeachment only by resigning. 

In this political biography, Richard M. Pious, a professor of political science at Barnard College and Columbia University and a leading authority on the U.S. presidency, demonstrates that Nixon was a man of talent and vision, but with a fatal flaw: He believed that political ends justified the means necessary to achieve them.

From the back of the book