THE LAST WEEK: THE UNMAKING OF THE PRESIDENT

THE LAST WEEK

When the nation's worst political scandal finally rendered the presidency of Richard Nixon inoperative, it did so with savage swiftness. Hopelessly entrapped in the two-year tangle of his own deceit, forced into a confession of past lies, he watched the support of his most loyal defenders collapse in a political maelstrom, driven by their bitterness over the realization that he had betrayed their trust. Yet, as throughout his self-inflicted Watergate ordeal, Nixon remained unwilling to admit, perhaps even to himself, the weight of his transgressions against truth and the Constitution. He was among the last to appreciate...