The Peacemaker

Praise for THE PEACEMAKER: Nixon: The Man, President, and My Friend by Ben Stein

“This book is a moving, deeply personal chronicle of the friendship that grew between Ben, the sorcerer’s apprentice, and Richard Nixon, first as a brilliant statesman at the pinnacle of power and then as a brooding sorcerer-in-exile, still surveying the world with a masterful gaze. It is also a treasure trove of Nixon quotes, quips, and candid insights, all painstakingly assembled and shared by Ben over the course of years of intimate conversations. It’s no exaggeration to say that what James Boswell was to Dr. Samuel Johnson, Ben Stein was to Richard Nixon: a confidant whose eyes and ears have captured a great man, close up, unvarnished, and endlessly alive in a way no other writer has. There is more of the real Richard Nixon in the pages of this modest memoir than in all the scholarly tomes—and shoddy, mainstream journalism—that fill the shelves of most university libraries. For all their differences, Ben Stein and Richard Nixon emerge from these pages as kindred spirits: men to whom success did not come easily but through faith, determination, and the guts to try, try, and try again, no matter how bruising the ordeal. In the end, both succeeded. And this book offers a key to appreciating the incredible nature of that success: a monument to friendship, endurance, and ultimate vindication.”

 — from the Foreword by Aram Bakshian Jr., aide and speechwriter to Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Reagan, editor-in-chief of The American Speaker, and author of The Candidates 1980: A Professional Handicaps the Presidential Derby

“Writer, economist, pundit, entertainer, friend—Ben Stein is a man of many parts, all of them admirable. But perhaps most admirable is his undying loyalty to one of the most unjustly maligned presidents in American history—a president of great accomplishments who was betrayed, sold out, and railroaded into resigning his presidency. Ben Stein’s deeply felt and evocative THE PEACEMAKER, written with passion and conviction, represents a significant step in redeeming the reputation of one of our great presidents, Richard M. Nixon.”

— from the Prologue by John R. Coyne Jr., speechwriter to President Nixon and author of Strictly Right: William F. Buckley Jr. and the American Conservative Movement