ABSTRACT
Early in 1972, the first edition of The Presidential Character was published, at a time when Richard Nixon was criticized mainly for being shifty rather than obsessed. To get at the enduring features of Nixon's character, world view, and style, one need to look at those factors in the process of construction. Long before he was a famous man, Nixon the child, the boy, and the young man put together his remarkable and elusive political personality. Nixon mapped his own plans and executed them himself. He saw his victory as a "tremendous achievement". In the end, the most significant of all the many "lessons" of Nixon and Watergate was this: our political system did not protect us from an enormous and longlasting Presidential confidence game. Watergate was Nixon's rigidification, his political nemesis and tragedy. Nixon's confused inner feelings about power would have had little political importance had not the President acted politically on them.
