One Man Against the World: The Tragedy of Richard Nixon

by Tim Weiner

  * The Irgun was commanded by Menachem Begin, who became Israel’s prime minister in 1977.

  * The United States had a 3.5-to-1 advantage in warheads over the Soviets due to its decade-long development of MIRVs. American missiles also were more sophisticated and accurate. If the Soviet Union agreed to a freeze on nuclear weapons, it would be frozen into inferiority. The Soviets had more missiles, but in a nuclear war, targets are destroyed by warheads, not missiles.

  * The “state secrets” doctrine derived from a 1952 case where the government withheld information about an air force jet that had crashed and killed four fliers. Their widows sought compensation. The courts ruled that the jet’s defective design was a state secret shielded under a principle of executive privilege.

  * Nixon discussed Justice Marshall on a tape recorded on February 28, 1973: “Marshall, of course, is a black,” Nixon said. “He is so goddamn dumb.” That section of tape was redacted from public view until after Marshall died.

  * Ransom went on to a notable diplomatic career, serving in Iran, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Yemen. He was the American ambassador to Bahrain from 1994 to 1997. He received the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, the Pentagon’s highest civilian award, retired from the Foreign Service, and recorded his recollections in an oral history two years before he died at the age of sixty-five in 2005.