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Richard M. Nixon
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Richard Milhous Nixon, 1913-1994. 37th President of the United States. Limited leather-bound first edition of Nixon's book The Real War, signed Richard Nixon.
This is number 359 of a limited edition of 2,500 copies of the first printing of The Real War. This edition is gilt-embossed, tooled crimson morocco leather with moiré endpapers. Nixon has signed it on the limitation page. The publisher's certificate of authenticity accompanies the book.
This book is interesting, but all the more so with the hindsight of nearly 30 years after Nixon wrote it. Nixon decries Soviet expansionism, the push toward Communist domination that Nixon described as World War III. That war, he said, began before World War II ended and had “proceeded from the Soviet seizure of Eastern Europe, through the communist conquest of China, the wars in Korea and Indochina, and the establishment of a western hemisphere outpost of Soviet power in Cuba, to the present thrusts by the Soviet Union and its allies into Africa, the Islamic crescent," in countries such as Afghanistan and Iran, “and Central America." It was, he said, a "total war . . . waged on all levels of life and society,” one that involved, among other things, military and economic power, willpower, and “the strength of a nation's galvanizing ideas and the clarity of its sense of purpose.”
This book belonged to William W. Stover, whose name appears on the publisher's certificate of authenticity. Stover, a longtime friend and supporter with whom Nixon stayed in regular contact, was a 1955 graduate of Stanford University Law School. He also served as the chief of staff for California Senator George L. Murphy.
This edition of The Real War is difficult to find. Our survey of auction results disclosed only one other on the market in the past several years. Nixon has signed this copy in blue fountain pen. The book itself has a couple of unobtrusive spots on the cover, and the board corners are a bit worn, but overall it is in virtually mint condition.
This item is sold.
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