Reading this book reminded me of reading a high schooler’s (sometimes a 6th-grader’s) history paper. The sentences are simple and short, with very basic vocabulary and sentence structure. Anyone who has ever read about this time period or the key individuals covered here (ie: JFK, Nixon, LBJ, RFK) will have heard everything here before. I just couldn’t believe how amateur the writing style and content were. Oh, and so trite! It was a little embarrassing to read an otherwise respected journalist resort to well-worn, completely unoriginal and dumbed-down phrases and images as often as he did. There is nothing new here, and the reading level is juvenile. I would only recommend this to high school students for whom the election of 1960 and its participants is all new material. This should be marketed as a young readers nonfiction title.

Countdown 1960 by Chris Wallace is an exploration of a pivotal moment in American political history, giving readers a dynamic, insider view of the events that shaped the presidential election of 1960. The author traces Senator John F. Kennedy’s campaign journey, navigating the complexities of being the first Catholic candidate, securing Lyndon Johnson as his running mate, and facing Richard Nixon in the era’s groundbreaking televised debates. The vivid storytelling not only brings political heavyweights to life, but also highlights the influential roles of civil rights leaders and Hollywood icons, while capturing the cultural pulse of the time. Drawing parallels to contemporary politics, including voter fraud claims and challenges to the peaceful transfer of power, this book will deeply resonate with readers today.

Thank you, Dutton, for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I just finished Countdown 1960: The Behind-the-Scenes Story of the 312 Days that Changed America’s Politics Forever, by Chris Wallace.

This book will be released to public on October 8.

I have mixed views on this book. On the one hand, it was a good review of the 1960 election. The author divided the book into short chapters, each entitled “Countdown: [number of days left until the election]” and then discussed something from that day about the election. The book started with the campaigns for the party nominations and ran through the election and Nixon challenging the election.

The contents of the book were good and enjoyable, until I realized the book had a clear trend, which once I realized that, it became obvious that the flaw was there from the start. It was as if Wallace had sat down plotting his themes of the book and determined the storylines were: Kennedy: gratuitous mentions of his sex life, throw in as many mentions of the mob as he could, everything single thing involving campaign money was suspect, liar about his health, bad record on civil rights. As for Nixon: no personal flaws at all in his character. The book never missed a chance to make a gratuitous attack on Kennedy, almost always on matters that played no role in who won the election, while continuing to portray Nixon as just another candidate, one whose potential flaw would be having a bad luck of seeing a psychiatrist at a time that the American public wouldn’t accept that from a candidate (which, the book makes it sound like just bad timing for Nixon, while it is something that continues to this day).

The content otherwise was good, but I was knocking it down to around a B because of the bias. Then, we got to the part about Nixon contesting the election. Does the author deserve credit for not going along with the whitewashed version of the story in which Nixon conceded without a fight, for the good of the country? The author wouldn’t even have to explain how Nixon would have acted so unNixonian since he was already writing about a sanitized Nixon character who, unlike Kennedy, was flawless. He does describe how they challenged results in Texas and Illinois, but then makes the claim that they didn’t pursue it.

Unfortunately, the facts show otherwise. There wasn’t just challenges made in those states. Challenges were done in 11 states and lawsuits were filed in Texas and Illinois. The book whitewashes that.

As Rachel Maddow pointed out in seasons 2 of her excellent podcast series, Ultra, the plan to file alternate electors to create January 6 chaos had originated with the Nixon 1960 campaign. I am the last person to ever criticize a book for criticizing Trump, but in this case, I had to. The author went to great lengths trying to argue how differently Nixon handled the election than Trump did. Other than the quantity of lawsuits and the violence, that wasn’t really the case.

If the author hadn’t continued to show his bias at the end, he could have brought this up to a B+ by refusing to go along with the whitewashed popular version. But, Wallace doubling down on his bias had the opposite effect, making another downgrade necessary.

I didn’t want to have to downgrade it all the way to a C. So, I figured out a good compromise. It has been years since I have given out a grade with either a plus or minus, except for A+ and B+. I haven’t given out a C+ since July 2021, but I think that’s what this one should get.

It was disappointing to have to give this one book that grade. Throw out the bias and you get a shorter book, but one that would have been a good candidate for an A.

Maybe my expectations for Wallace were too high. Even though he had been a FOX News personality, I thought his reputation for fairness was enough to overcome that. But, this book is not a good datapoint to support that.

Goodreads and NetGalley require grades on a 1-5 star system. In my personal conversion system, a C+ equates to 2 stars. (A or A+: 5 stars, B+: 4 stars, B: 3 stars, C: 2 stars, D or F: 1 star).

This review has been posted at NetGalley, Goodreads and my blog, Mr. Book’s Book Reviews

I finished reading this on August 30, 2024.