By Edwin Cooney
I hadn’t intended to write about Richard Nixon again anytime
soon, but his 100th birthday last Wednesday compelled my sense of
nostalgia (which probably lies at the core of my love for history) and
sentimentality (my personal soft spot) to bubble to the surface once again.
Between about 1957 (when I began to be intrigued with the
drama of political affairs) and 1973 (when I sadly decided it was time for him
to leave public life), Richard Nixon was a hero of mine. Without boring you with too much
detail, here are some of the reasons.
(1.)
As Ike’s vice president, he seemed to effectively and most
eloquently articulate America’s legitimate diplomatic, military and moral
resistance to the advancement of world Communism.
(2.)
Although fiscally conservative, he appeared to me to possess a
genuinely progressive social conscience.
(3.)
His views on most issues appeared to be balanced and practical
rather than doctrinaire.
(4.)
He seemed to represent middle class rather than elitist
values.
(5.)
At his best, he gave very eloquent speeches with his 1960 GOP
acceptance speech and his 1969 inaugural address being his two finest.
(6.)
Finally, until severely buffeted by the trials of his 1969-74
presidency, he seemed to me to be a pretty steady fellow. To me, his 1962 public show of
frustration in view of his second political defeat in less than two years only
proved that he was human after all!
In celebration of the anniversary of Nixon’s birth on
January 13th, 1913 in Yorba Linda, California, William Whalen, a
former speechwriter for Pete Wilson (California’s 36th Governor and
a friend of the former president) wrote a tribute to Mr. Nixon called “The Many
What-Ifs of Richard Nixon.” This
tribute covered his narrow presidential loss to JFK in 1960, his loss to
Governor Pat Brown in the 1962 gubernatorial campaign, and a number of personal
“what-ifs" extending throughout Mr. Nixon’s time. However, it ignored why and how a Nixon
presidency in the early 1960s might have been different from the one Nixon ran
for in 1968 -- so, let’s speculate a bit on that topic.
The presidency JFK inherited from Dwight D. Eisenhower on
January 20th, 1961 was a much honored office. The presidency Richard Nixon so
ambitiously sought to obtain in November 1968 had been tainted by a credibility
gap. I am referring, of course, to
Lyndon Baines Johnson and the much divisive Vietnam War. By January 20th, 1969,
millions of Americans were dubious as to whether there was either wisdom or
truth in any president’s domestic or foreign policies.
Had Richard Nixon become President in 1961 rather than 1969,
he would have inherited the political benefit of the doubt that sustained Ike
so well in the previous eight years.
His chief antagonists would have likely been the men in the Kremlin
rather than the legitimate and unhappy critics of the Vietnam War. Beyond that, a more experienced and
still vibrant eastern Republican establishment headed by Ike and guided by such
luminaries as an energetic and ambitious Nelson Rockefeller, Senators Everett
McKinley Dirksen of Illinois and Leverett Saltonstall of Massachusetts, former
Secretary of State Christian Herter, and former President Herbert C. Hoover
(just to name a few) would have been looking over Nixon’s presidential
shoulder. There would have been
much less room for the Watergate "yes men" of the 1970s in a younger
Nixon administration.
Sadly, Richard Nixon’s insecurities ultimately did him
in. It’s arguable however that the
presidency he occupied had been so tainted by the unhappy Vietnam War and the
struggle over civil rights that Nixon’s character type no longer fitted him for
the task. Hence, he allowed the
outrage of angry political and cultural critics to overwhelm and break
him. Chronic Nixon haters (and
once there were legions of them) will always insist that Nixon was a bad apple
with nothing but political shrewdness and ambition to recommend him. Many of them still smile the smile of
the righteous to remind those of us who once believed in this man how very
naive we were and -- of course -- how much foresight they possessed.
Am I, you ask, sorry that I once loved Richard Nixon? No, I
insist not. Although the ride was a bit of a roller coaster, even roller
coasters sometimes rise to dizzying heights. Still, although I was cured of infectious Nixonianism after
the infamous 1973 "Saturday Night Massacre," the firing of Watergate
special prosecutor Archibald Cox, Attorney General Elliot Richardson, and
Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus as the Watergate investigation got
too tight, I’ve never been able to hate or even resent Nixon. Some of his final words as president
ought to remind all of us that we must never allow ourselves to be overwhelmed
by resentment or hatred:
“…others may hate you,” the outgoing president asserted on
that hot August morning in Washington D.C. as he left for permanent political
oblivion, “but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them. Then you destroy yourself.”
Hmmm! I wonder if anyone will remember me on my
one-hundredth birthday! Nah! Why
should they? After all, I haven’t
yet made enough enemies!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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