December 29, 2006

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A Thrilling Tale of Bureaucratic Infighting

Apropos of Gerald Ford’s passing, let me recommend a weird book: 31 Days, by Barry Werth.

I picked it up randomly in a book store because the cover was so striking. But then I read the flap and, because I had just finished Rise of the Vulcans by James Mann, I was actually pretty fired up to snag another story of executive branch infighting.

Werth tells the story of Ford’s first month in office, from the day he’s sworn in to the day he pardons Nixon. It’s actually a pretty revelatory look at how the White House — any White House — works.

My favorite scene is one where a young lawyer from Ford’s team goes out to California to get Nixon to sign something. He finds him sitting at his desk in a dark room, alone, curtains drawn in the middle of the day. Nixon is happy for the attention and tries to give the lawyer a commemorative presidential watch. Whoah.