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Happy Birthday, Mr. President

January 9, 2009 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Richard Nixon 

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On a windy afternoon in Yorba Linda, Rear Admiral Garland Wright placed a wreath at the grave site of the 37th President, part of a daylong celebration of what would’ve been his 96th birthday.

The Florida-born admiral is a sailor in more ways than one. An all-American athlete, he was co-captain of Annapolis’s first-ever national championship sailing team. In their remarks to a crowd of 150, he and Commander Sheri L. Snively, chaplain of Miramar MCAS in San Diego, talked about RN’s own naval service. Snively — a Quaker minister and distant Nixon cousin — stressed the significance of the future President going to his peaceloving Quaker mother Hannah and asking permission to seek his naval commission at the beginning of World War II.

After the wreath laying, I gave a talk about President Nixon in the White House East Room — after being introduced by the great Bruce Herschensohn. It should’ve been the other around! Read an account of the day at the Library here.



Comments

3 Responses to “Happy Birthday, Mr. President”

  1. Maarja Krusten on January 10th, 2009 1:27 pm

    Thanks for the good account of the ceremony and remarks. For decades, I have thought of RN on January 9th. It’s nice to have a place to come and look at what others are saying on that date! Thanks, also, for linking to your very interesting references to non-ideological actions by RN and BO , as reported in the OC Register.

  2. John H. Taylor on January 10th, 2009 3:52 pm

    Thanks for checking in, MK.

    At times like this, I always wonder what RN would think about what was going on!

  3. John Underwood on January 11th, 2009 4:53 pm

    I was one of the very last persons in this country who stood by you, President Nixon, till the very end when Marine One lifted from the White House lawn on August 9, 1974.

    I was there because I benefited from your policies and adminstration greatly and still to this day your policies and stands on certain issues lives on. Funding Cancer Research, implementing the Environmental Protection Agency, giving breaks to minority business owners, yes, and the ever so controversal breaking down the walls of segregation in schools thoughout the south and initiating equal opportunities for all through in jobs & housing, without regard to race, sex, or national origin, the strict stand you took on separation of church and state, signing into law the Clean Air and Water acts. Ended the longest war in American history by bringing home over half a million military men and women, brought de’tante to Foreign Policy and signed the first of two Strategic Arms Limitations agreements with Russia. Traveled in the name of peace to the Peoples Republic of Chinia, and opened the door to them to the western world, knowing in time we could no longer ignore this massive country and potentially most powerful. You did not grant pardons to draft dodgers, you signed into law a All Volunteer Army that has served us well ever since. Your stand on (yes) gun control to give the upper hand to law enforcement, and leave issues of passion such as abortion out of politics all together. These are not “conservative” or “liberal” stands you took, they were stands that was in the best interest of America. That label is as then and today being what an American is all about, and you made that possible to me, you never broke a promise to me, you stood tall.

    Unlike all of those so called “conservatives” that litter your library with appearances to capitalize on themselves by selling books you would not even agree with. Because again, you are not a label as many people today would like to place on you for their benefit, you were of America’s greatest leaders known worldwide.

    This is why I, unlike all of the “conservatives” in 1974 abandoned you, I did not.

    John Underwood
    born and raised in Owosso, Michigan in the ’70’s and now reside in Palm Springs, California.

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