No modern President could have been less equipped by nature for political life. Painfully shy, Nixon dreaded meeting new people. Fearful of rejection, he constructed his relationships so that a rebuff, if it came, would seem to have originated with him. Fiercely proud, he could neither admit his dependence on approbation nor transcend it. Deeply insecure, he first acted as if fate had singled him out for rejection and then he contrived to make sure that his premonition came to pass. None of us really knew the...
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