A Newsman in the Nixon White House: Herbert Klein and the Enduring Conflict between Journalistic Truth and Presidential Image

(Hardback)

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Herbert G. Klein was a significant figure in both journalism and political history during the mid- to late Twentieth Century. Klein is best known as longtime advisor to Richard Nixon, and was with Nixon at peak moments in his career, including the Checkers Speech and Nixons 1960 and 1962 campaigns. Upon Nixons election as President, Klein became the White House Director of Communications, a new position Klein was tasked with designing. For four years, Klein was known as one of Nixons chief advisors. But then, for reasons historians have never fully explored, he disappears from Nixons political landscape as well as from scholarly and public prominence. This book establishes Herbert G. Klein as a formative figure in the Richard Nixon White House, whose contributions to Nixons press strategies, their subsequent impact on the presidents actions, attitudes, and eventual fall, have been largely overshadowed in scholarly literature. It explores the then-emerging, and now enduring, conflict between journalistic truth and presidential image. The work draws from previously unexplored materials on Klein in the Richard Nixon Presidential Library. The account is notable for the first examination of Kleins only known oral history, lessening a gap in the existing literature on Nixons aides and his relationship with the media.

Reviews

Professor Unus has foundone of the untold tales of the Nixon presidency inher portrait of Herb Klein -- a "newsman" and "journalist" in the bestmeaning of those words. In fact, if Nixon had listened to Herb, rather than merely exploiting his considerableskills and good standing with hisprofessional peersto spread Nixon's image-buildingmessages from the White House,history could have been very different. This book is not merelyexcellent scholarship, it is a good read anda story well told. -- John W. Dean, Former Nixon White House Counsel

Author Bio

Wafa Unus is assistant professor of journalism at Fitchburg State University.