Chasing Shadows

In this provocative predecessor to Fatal Politics, presidential tapes expert Ken Hughes provides a shocking new perspective on a pattern of illegal actions by Richard Nixon only partly exposed by the Watergate scandal. Going back to the final months of the Johnson administration, Hughes reveals how Nixon secretly undermined the Paris peace talks with the Vietnamese. He goes on to show how Nixon’s fears of his treasonous act's being exposed eventually led to illegal covert actions guided by the Oval Office. Through his unrivaled command of the secret White House tapes, Hughes builds an argument about Nixon that goes far beyond what we think we know about Watergate.

With hundreds of books on Watergate, it might seem as though there is nothing left to learn about the scandal. Hen Hughes's new book proves otherwise. --author of APS, Chasing Shadows tells a fascinating story of intrigue, lies, and deception, almost as if out of a soap opera. It is the most detailed study of the 1968 election as told through the White House tapes that I have seen. This book is now the most complete and comprehensive look at this episode. --Thomas A. Schwartz, Vanderbilt University, author of Lyndon Johnson and Europe: In the Shadow of Vietnam, Chasing Shadows, the best account yet of Nixon's devious interference with Lyndon Johnson's 1968 Vietnam War negotiations, shows just how early Nixon's dirty tricks began and just how deeply he was involved. --author of Washington Post, [A] chilling and compelling look at one of the multiple origins of the Watergate scandal, which toppled a president and heightened American's cynicism about their leaders. --author of Richmond Times-Dispatch, [I]mpeccably sourced, with extensive use of White House tapes and documents, memoirs by the various protagonists and other citations. The Chennault saga has dribbled out in bits and pieces over the years. Here it is told--or at least what we know is told, as Nixon's personal involvement is still a mystery--in one concise, thorough volume. --author of Politico

Ken Hughes, author of Fatal Politics: The Nixon Tapes, the Vietnam War, and the Casualties of Reelection, is a researcher at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center Presidential Recordings Program, USA. His work as a journalist has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe Magazine, and Salon.