Richard Nixon: Fanfare for an Uncommon Man

Only two of the founders were left now, thought Jerry Ford: himself and John Allen, the old Congressman from Oakland, California, off someplace in Idaho now. Richard Nixon had been among the three surviving founders of the Chowder and Marching Society, formed in 1949 by 15 fractious young Republicans of the House to oppose monthly bonuses for war veterans, which they considered too costly. Chowder and Marching welded exuberant friendships and accidentally founded a power matrix that helped produce three Presidents and shape an American half-century.

So much history, thought Ford as he listened to the eulogies on that clouded and...