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From Barnes & Noble"I thought that he was nuts or something!" That was Patricia Ryan Nixon's initial response to young law student Richard Nixon's marriage proposal on their first date. It took two years of campaigning to convince the young college graduate of his sanity and good intentions. Their 1940 marriage marked the beginning of a 53-year alliance that was, as this intimate book describes, both close and occasionally turbulent. Using primary documents, biographer Will Swift (The Roosevelts and the Royals) gives us a clear sense of the intricate interactions of this complicated pair. Editor's recommendation. Library Journal? 02/01/2014 Swift's book begs the question: Could Richard M. Nixon have become president if not for his wife, Pat? Relying on newly released materials housed at the Nixon Presidential Library, including the couple's earliest correspondence and other of Pat's archives there, Swift (The Kennedys Amidst the Gathering Storm), a psychologist, begins with the Nixons' courtship, when the Quaker lawyer Richard, unrelenting in his attentions, convinced his independent and beautiful girlfriend to marry him, making what was arguably the most astute decision of his life.



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