Six Crises.

NIXON, Richard.

Item Number: 79012

Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co, 1962.

First edition of Nixon’s first book. Octavo, original cloth. Presentation copy inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, “Best wishes to Ruthella McDowell from Richard Nixon.” Fine in a near fine dust jacket. Jacket design by Sydney Butchkes. Photograph by Philippe Halsman.

Six Crises was Nixon's response to the John F. Kennedy book, Profiles in Courage, which described the courage of eight US Senators. Kennedy sent Nixon a copy of his book, which Nixon thanked him for the next day. In 1961, following his 1960 presidential defeat to Kennedy, Nixon was encouraged by Mamie Eisenhower to write a book about his experiences. On April 20, he visited Kennedy in the White House where Kennedy urged him to write a book; he said that doing so would raise the public image of any public man. Nixon met with a Doubleday book editor the same month. Years later, Nixon's editor at Doubleday, Kenneth McCormick, recounted: "I enjoyed working with him on 'Six Crises.' He had the concept for the book. He had the whole thing in his head, but he said, 'I'm not much of a writer,' and I said, 'I know.' So Nixon talked the book into a tape recorder and another writer came in to help. Then Nixon said, 'Why don't I try the chapter on defeat? In the course of doing this I think I've learned to write.' Well, he wrote that chapter himself, and it was fine. He really was an example of someone who could learn."