In America’s collective consciousness, Pat Nixon has long been perceived as enigmatic. She was voted “Most Admired Woman in the World” in 1972 and made Gallup Poll’s top ten list of most admired women fourteen times. Pat was a highly traveled First Lady, visiting eighty-three countries during her tenure. Back in the United States, Pat greatly expanded upon previous preservation efforts in the White House. In the domestic arena, she was progressive on women’s issues, favoring the Equal Rights Amendment. She was pro-choice, supporting women’s reproductive rights publicly even before the landmark Roe v. Wade case in 1973. She survived the turmoil of the Watergate scandal with her popularity and dignity intact. The real Pat Nixon, however, bore little resemblance to the woman so often described as elusive, mysterious, and “plastic” in the press. In The Mysterious Mrs. Nixon, Heath Hardage Lee presents readers with the essential nature of this First Lady, an empathetic, adventurous, self-made woman who wanted no power or influence, but who connected warmly with both ordinary Americans and people from different cultures she encountered worldwide.
Heath Hardage Lee is an award-winning historian, biographer, and curator. Her second book, The League of Wives: The Untold Story of the Women Who Took on the U.S. Government to Bring Their Husbands Home is being developed into a television series. Heath and her work have been featured on the Today Show, C-Span, and on the Smithsonian Channel’s America’s Hidden Stories. She also writes about history and politics for publications such as Time, The Hill, The Atlantic and White House History Quarterly. Her other books include Winnie Davis: Daughter of the Lost Cause and, most recently, The Mysterious Mrs. Nixon: The Life and Times of Washington’s Most Private First Lady.
