Passed Presidents - # 37 – Richard M. Nixon

We will be taking a break from the Dead Presidents Quest after this story.  May is the only month of the year when no president has died.  However, the hiatus begins with a bang as we remember a personal favorite of mine.

(Copied from Google Images)

“It was twenty years ago today...”

So begins the Beatles’ classic Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and so begins this look at the president who died twenty years ago today.

Born into a modest Quaker family in California, Richard Nixon was studious and hard-working...maybe too much so.  His fellow law school students called him ‘Gloomy Gus’.  I believe he was humorless.  Regardless of what came first – the absence of social skills or perceived snubs and rejections - he had a chip on his shoulder his entire life. 

When he first ran for Congress in 1946, he took advantage of those tense, early post-war years by painting his opponents as Communist sympathizers.  He earned the nickname ‘Tricky Dick’ in 1950 when he won a Senate seat with some sleazy campaign tactics that also suggested his opponent was a Pinko.  After only two years in the Senate, he became Eisenhower’s running mate in the 1952 election.  He got in trouble when a secret $18,000 fund was revealed.  Ike ordered him to clear his name and he did on national TV with the famous “Checkers Speech”.  

Richard Nixon and Checkers

Shot at an exhibit of presidents and their pets

at the Newseum 15 May 2011

The presidential election of 1968 was the first time I voted.  I was no fan of Richard Nixon.  I remember the first ever televised presidential debate in 1960 when that young, handsome Kennedy boy just outshone gloomy Dick and his sweaty five o’clock shadow.  But I could not vote for the party that got us so deep into Viet Nam.  Hubert Humphrey was a nice guy but I had to vote for change...the first of my regrettable choices in the voting booth.

His time in office spanned the most tumultuous and impactful years of my life.  In that six-year period, I left home, married and separated.  I graduated college, went to grad school and dropped out before getting a Ph.D.  I faced the draft and induction into an army that, at one time had over a half million troops in Southeast Asia.  These were stressful times.

In my opinion, Nixon rightfully deserves all the infamy we can heap on his paranoid, anti-Semitic, foul-mouthed ass and it’s a shame since he had many significant accomplishments.  Détente with the USSR, opening China, arms reduction, creating OSHA and EPA and slowing inflation were all important achievements. 

He is also credited with obtaining the cease-fire in the Viet Nam War.  While it did happen on his watch, I still take issue with it.  I believe he strung out that conflict as long as he could with escalations, invasions and bombings of neighboring countries.  The Old Commie Fighter had to take it to the enemy as long as possible rather than face the fact it was a losing proposition.  On October 9, 1968, then candidate Nixon said that an administration that can’t get us out of Viet Nam in four years should not be re-elected.  In 1972, as he ran for re-election while the war continued to rage, George McGovern supporters wore this button.  I guess it was too subtle a message since Nixon won in a landslide.

I never parted with my little piece of history...even though I can get $13 for it today on E-Bay. 

“When the president does it, that means it is not illegal”

Richard Nixon to David Frost April 6, 1977

The problem was that Nixon really was a crook.  He lied, stonewalled and did everything he could to hide his involvement in the Watergate crimes.  After all the obstruction and lying, the Supreme Court ruled he had to turn over tape recordings he made in the Oval Office and lo and behold...there he was, just six days after the break-in, telling H.R. Haldeman how the CIA could pressure the FBI to back off its investigation. He was impeached and became the only president to resign from office...rather than face the shame of a slam dunk trial.

Cartoon by Blaine MacDonald, Hamilton Spectator (1973)

Taken from Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year – 
1974 Edition, Pelican publishing, LA

Dick and Pat are buried on grounds of the Nixon Library and birthplace in Yorba Linda, California.  The boyhood home is in view, a short distance from this final resting place.

He was a dirt bag.  His vice president also resigned in disgrace and more members of his administration were sent to prison than any other.  However, when I think about it, one very positive impression comes to mind.  As much as that president did to stain his office, the system worked.  An independent Congress, a free press, the Constitution and the laws of the land prevailed and justice was served.  Is this a great country or what?

 Richard Milhous Nixon

37th President; Served 1969 -1974

Born: January 9, 1913, Yorba Linda, CA

Died: April 22, 1994, New York, NY

Grave Location: Nixon Library and Birthplace, Yorba Linda, CA

Date Visited: 6/22/2004