The Contender, Richard Nixon: The Congress Years, 1946-1952

Rescuing Richard Nixon from the myths that have long distorted our understanding of him, this carefully documented work will open the eyes of Nixon critics and supporters alike -- and radically change the way history will view our thirty-seventh president.In the first of a three-volume biography and the first study of Nixon since his death, historian Irwin Gellman takes a new look at Nixon's early political career: the 1946 race for Congress against Jerry Voorhis, his relentless prosecution of Alger Hiss, and his infamous campaign for the Senate against Helen Gahagan Douglas. For the first time -- after the release of more than a million long-classified documents -- a full picture of the Nixonian drama is possible.Gellman, the first researcher to have complete use of Nixon's personal papers, presents startling new evidence that Nixon's early career has been grossly misinterpreted. If anything, Gellman shows, the corruption clouding the Nixon presidency is all the more tragic in light of the fierce partisan controversy that captured him in its crossfire. The Contender is sure to become the must-have, definitive biography on the subject.