The

The From the start of the Cold War in the 1940s, American presidents worked tirelessly to contain the threat of communism

and maintain America's strategic advantage in the global chess game.

With the advent of nuclear weapons, they also had to tow the line between maintaining a

credible threat while working to protect the nation from the worst possible outcome,

a nuclear war that could destroy civilization itself and lead to the deaths of hundreds of millions of

people. It was a delicate balance that required wisdom and exquisite statesmanship. Meanwhile,

policymakers who feared the prospect of nuclear war endlessly debated ways in which American and Soviet leaders could

foster stability and predictability in an otherwise unstable global situation. When Richard Nixon

took office in 1969, he introduced a new strategy that seemingly upended the fine line that most cold warriors tried to walk.

Instead of aiming purely for stability, he introduced a new concept, unpredictability.

Maybe the more accurate word is madness.

Nixon believed that to accomplish his foreign policy objectives vis-à-vis the Soviet Union,

the best strategy for him to take would be to cultivate an image of mental instability,

to give America's adversaries the impression that he was irrational or downright insane.

It's been dubbed the Madman Theory. This theory has fascinated historians and

political scientists, but Zachary Jacobson is the first historian to take a comprehensive look at its

origin and history. He's a scholar who has written a book titled On Nixon's Madness, an emotional history. In it, he reveals

how Nixon's madman theory was deeply rooted in Nixon's own personal life story and his psyche,

and we're pleased to have him on this podcast. Professor Jacobson, what made you want to write this

book? Oh, thanks very much for having me.

The book's origin was actually during the early parts of the Trump era. When President Donald

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