The Professor and the President: Daniel Patrick Moynihan in the Nixon White House
What happens when a conservative president makes a liberal professor from the Ivy League his top urban affairs adviser? The president is Richard Nixon, the professor is Harvard's Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Of all the odd couples in American public life, they are probably the oddest. Add another Ivy League professor to the White House staff when Nixon appoints Columbia's Arthur Burns, a conservative economist, as domestic policy adviser. The year is 1969, and what follows behind closed doors is a passionate debate of conflicting ideologies and personalities.

Who won? How? Why? Now nearly a half-century later, Stephen Hess, who was Nixon's biographer and Moynihan's deputy, recounts this fascinating story as if from his office in the West Wing.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1927–2003) described in the Almanac of American Politics as ""the nation's best thinker among politicians since Lincoln and its best politician among thinkers since Jefferson"", served in the administrations of four presidents, was ambassador to India, and U.S. representative to the United Nations, and was four times elected to the U.S. Senate from New York.

Praise for the works of Stephen Hess

Organzing the Presidency

Any president would benefit from reading Mr. Hess's analysis and any reader will enjoy the elegance with which it is written and the author's wide knowledge and good sense.—The Economist

The Presidential Campaign

Hess brings not only first-rate credentials, but a cool, dispassionate perspective, an incisive analytical approach, and a willingness to stick his neck out in making judgments.—American Political Science Review

From the Newswork Series

It is not much in vogue to speak of things like the public trust, but thankfully Stephen Hess is old fashioned. He reminds us in this valuable and provocative book that journalism is a public trust, providing the basic information on which citizens in a democracy vote, or tune out.—Ken Auletta, The New Yorker

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The Professor and the President: Daniel Patrick Moynihan in the Nixon White House
What happens when a conservative president makes a liberal professor from the Ivy League his top urban affairs adviser? The president is Richard Nixon, the professor is Harvard's Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Of all the odd couples in American public life, they are probably the oddest. Add another Ivy League professor to the White House staff when Nixon appoints Columbia's Arthur Burns, a conservative economist, as domestic policy adviser. The year is 1969, and what follows behind closed doors is a passionate debate of conflicting ideologies and personalities.

Who won? How? Why? Now nearly a half-century later, Stephen Hess, who was Nixon's biographer and Moynihan's deputy, recounts this fascinating story as if from his office in the West Wing.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1927–2003) described in the Almanac of American Politics as ""the nation's best thinker among politicians since Lincoln and its best politician among thinkers since Jefferson"", served in the administrations of four presidents, was ambassador to India, and U.S. representative to the United Nations, and was four times elected to the U.S. Senate from New York.

Praise for the works of Stephen Hess

Organzing the Presidency

Any president would benefit from reading Mr. Hess's analysis and any reader will enjoy the elegance with which it is written and the author's wide knowledge and good sense.—The Economist

The Presidential Campaign

Hess brings not only first-rate credentials, but a cool, dispassionate perspective, an incisive analytical approach, and a willingness to stick his neck out in making judgments.—American Political Science Review

From the Newswork Series

It is not much in vogue to speak of things like the public trust, but thankfully Stephen Hess is old fashioned. He reminds us in this valuable and provocative book that journalism is a public trust, providing the basic information on which citizens in a democracy vote, or tune out.—Ken Auletta, The New Yorker

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The Professor and the President: Daniel Patrick Moynihan in the Nixon White House

The Professor and the President: Daniel Patrick Moynihan in the Nixon White House

by Stephen Hess
The Professor and the President: Daniel Patrick Moynihan in the Nixon White House

The Professor and the President: Daniel Patrick Moynihan in the Nixon White House

by Stephen Hess

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Overview

What happens when a conservative president makes a liberal professor from the Ivy League his top urban affairs adviser? The president is Richard Nixon, the professor is Harvard's Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Of all the odd couples in American public life, they are probably the oddest. Add another Ivy League professor to the White House staff when Nixon appoints Columbia's Arthur Burns, a conservative economist, as domestic policy adviser. The year is 1969, and what follows behind closed doors is a passionate debate of conflicting ideologies and personalities.

Who won? How? Why? Now nearly a half-century later, Stephen Hess, who was Nixon's biographer and Moynihan's deputy, recounts this fascinating story as if from his office in the West Wing.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1927–2003) described in the Almanac of American Politics as ""the nation's best thinker among politicians since Lincoln and its best politician among thinkers since Jefferson"", served in the administrations of four presidents, was ambassador to India, and U.S. representative to the United Nations, and was four times elected to the U.S. Senate from New York.

Praise for the works of Stephen Hess

Organzing the Presidency

Any president would benefit from reading Mr. Hess's analysis and any reader will enjoy the elegance with which it is written and the author's wide knowledge and good sense.—The Economist

The Presidential Campaign

Hess brings not only first-rate credentials, but a cool, dispassionate perspective, an incisive analytical approach, and a willingness to stick his neck out in making judgments.—American Political Science Review

From the Newswork Series

It is not much in vogue to speak of things like the public trust, but thankfully Stephen Hess is old fashioned. He reminds us in this valuable and provocative book that journalism is a public trust, providing the basic information on which citizens in a democracy vote, or tune out.—Ken Auletta, The New Yorker


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780815730996
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date: 03/28/2017
Edition description: Reprint
Pages: 192
Product dimensions: 5.00(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Stephen Hess, senior fellow emeritus in Governance Studies at Brookings, began his career in Washington as a young speechwriter for President Eisenhower (1958–1961). He was Distinguished Research Professor of Media and Public Affairs at the George Washington University (2004–09). His numerous books, now translated into thirty languages, include the acclaimed seven-volume Newswork series (1981–2012).

Table of Contents

The Cast ix

Preface: Between Nixon and Moynihan xiii

Introduction: Politics Makes Strange Bedfellows xvii

Part I The Transition: November 1968 to January 1969

Why Nixon Wants Moynihan 3

Why Moynihan Wants Nixon 7

The Courtship 10

The Memoranda 15

Nixon: "The Durable Man" 19

Part II A Year of Turmoil: 1969 23

A Full Agenda 25

Inauguration Day: January 20 30

Nixon's Team of Rivals 34

At Work in the West Wing Basement 40

The Urban Affairs Council 48

Beyond the Great Society 60

Tutorial 70

Social Scientist at Large in the White House 73

The 75-Day Mark: April 14 84

Moynihan at Notre Dame: June 1 88

Nixon Alone 92

Welfare Reform: Moynihan's White Whale 96

Nixon's Address to the Nation: August 8 104

Time for Change: November 4 109

Planting Greatness 112

On Fertile Ground 116

Part III A Year of Departures: 1970 119

Unfinished Business 121

An Unexpected Invitation 133

Afterword 139

Notes on Writing This Book 149

Index 157

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