12.21.1970

December 21, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Entertainment, Music, Nixon Administration figures, Richard Nixon | Leave a Comment 

The story told by White House official Bud Krogh, the famous letter (written on American Airlines stationery) read by Priscilla Presley:

Oral Roberts   1918 – 2009

December 21, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Faith, In Memoriam, Presidents, Religion, Richard Nixon, U.S. History | Leave a Comment 

Oral Robert died last week.  His death was widely noted, but most of the obituaries either overlooked or underestimated the importance of his life and career and his major impact on American religion and life.  Many reflected the ridicule that resulted from his claim in January 1987 that God would “call him home” unless his supporters ponied up $8 million by March, and the fact that other, younger, televangelists were now commanding the scene.   Notable exceptions were Keith Schneider’s piece in The New York Times and a few of the posts on the Washington Post’s “On Faith” blog.

The latter quoted Grant Wacker, professor of Christian history at Duke University, assessing Roberts’ influence on the religious history of America:

I’d say if we set aside Billy Graham and Martin Luther King and Falwell in the sense that their influence was religious but also political and social, outside them Roberts was the most important religious figure in the second half of the 20^th Century. Just as a religious figure. And in lots of ways.

The most obvious way was he brought Pentecostalism out of the backwoods and made it respectable. One cannot imagine the modern day Pentecostalism without him. He transformed its image, but also its practice.

And in the Times, Schneider noted that:

His influence derived from his intimate understanding of those who turned to him for worship. They were white and black and Hispanic, the poor and the ill, hard-working people who could not afford an abundance of material possessions but whose dreams of health and prosperity were tied to an abiding love of God.

The rise of his ministry coincided with the development of television. Mr. Roberts was among the first American religious leaders to recognize and deploy this new communications tool to touch people, and he seized on its extraordinary national and global reach. It helped that he was a natural showman, capable of booming, florid oratory. But he could also be intimate and tender, relying on a homespun speaking style, a gentle touch and a deep knowledge of Scripture to connect with his followers, many of whom viewed him as heroic.

He began his television career in 1954 by filming worship services conducted under a traveling tent, the largest of which held 10,000 people.

Mr. Roberts’s will to succeed, as well as his fame, helped to elevate Pentecostal theology and practice, including the belief in faith healing, divine miracles and speaking in tongues, to the religious mainstream. During the 1970s, Time magazine reported, his television program “Oral Roberts and You” was the leading religious telecast in the nation.

Oral Roberts University estimated that Mr. Roberts, its founder and first president, had personally laid his hands on more than 1.5 million people during his career, reached more than 500 million people on television and radio, and received millions of letters and appeals.

Mr. Roberts’s prominence and will to succeed were important factors in building the Pentecostal and charismatic movements and combining them into the fastest-growing Christian movements in the United States in the 1980s and 1990s.

By the 1960s, Roberts had a powerful base in Oklahoma. This was partly thanks to the formidable infrastructure he was building there.  (By the 1980s, Oral Robert Evangelistic Association and Oral Roberts University were $110 million operations employing more than 2,300 people.)

And it was partly thanks to the fact that Oklahoma congressman Carl Albert was the Majority Leader of the House of Representatives from 1962 until 1971 when he became Speaker of the House, and to the arrival (with RN in 1969) of Henry Bellmon, Oklahoma’s once and future Governor, for the first of his two terms in the United States Senate, followed, thanks to RN’s 1972 landslide,  by Dewey Bartlett, another former Governor, to fill the state’s other Senate seat.

Roberts met with President Kennedy in the White House in 1963; in 1972; he gave the invocation at the Democratic National Convention; in 1977 President Carter entertained him to dinner there. In 1972, through the agency of Oklahoma’s newly-elected Republican Senator Dewey Bartlett, Roberts visited with RN. Their meeting was described by David Edwin Harrell in Oral Roberts: An American Life:

Senator Dewey Bartlett of Oklahoma informed Nixon that Roberts would like to meet him, and the president issued Oral three invitations — the first two the evangelist could not accept because of schedule conflicts. When Oral entered the Oval Office, he thanked Nixon for the inspiration he had been to him, recalling that Nixon’s struggle to overcome political setbacks had been an encouragement to him in 1968 when it seemed his ministry was near collapse. The two compared television techniques; Oral gave the president a portfolio of materials about ORU, and Nixon gave him a Bible. “I’m going to pray for you, then I want you to pray for me.” Wallis [sic] Henley, a young White house aide and a former religion writer from Birmingham, Alabama, bolted to attention, wondering “how the president would react.” The small group clasped hands in the middle of the Oval Office, and Oral prayed first. Then Nixon prayed, Henley recalled, “A simple utterance in the straightforward Quaker style.” Oral later described his impression of the prayer: “He opened up in a strong voice, ‘Our Father,’ and I mean he prayed a prayer. He prayed for me. He prayed for my ministry; he prayed for Oral Roberts University; he prayed for the faculty; he prayed for the students. I’ve been considering adding him to our team ever since. In all seriousness, I was deeply moved by the prayer the may prayed.”

Qn article by Erika I. Ritchie in the Orange County Register quoted an interview with the Register last April in which Roberts recalled the presidents he had met.

Q. What presidents have you met with?

A. John Kennedy, (Richard) Nixon and Jimmy Carter.

Q. What were they like?

A. John Kennedy, he was the most powerful man. The first question he asked me was, “How are your crusades, Rev. Roberts?”

Nixon was interested in my television ministry. He asked me, “How can I be as relaxed as you are on TV?”

Jimmy Carter was a different breed. He was the first born-again man in the White House. He was not prepared for the job, but he was brilliant and intellectual and he loved the Lord.

And Samuel Rodriguez, founding pastor of Third Day Worship Centers and President of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, wrote that:

Roberts repudiated all vestiges of racism and emerged as one of the initial advocates of a multi-ethnic Kingdom culture movement. He refused to participate in evangelistic outreaches if African American churches were not represented, a commitment to diversity that preceded the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. Roberts also helped to open and broaden the Pentecostal Charismatic movement beyond specific denominations to welcome independent Charismatics, including Catholics.

Critics of Roberts will remember him for an extemporaneous claim that God would take him home if millions would not be raised for his university. But many Christians will remember him as the leader of a movement committed to healing — not just the body, mind and soul, but communities, nations and a church divided by theological and ethnic differences.

The Watergate Hotel Back In The News

December 20, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under U.S. History, Watergate | 2 Comments 

In July I wrote here about the uncertain status of the Watergate Hotel, best remembered, of course, for the break-in that ultimately brought about the end of Richard Nixon’s presidency. At that time, the hotel had been put up for auction by Deutsche Bank, after Monument Realty, the company that had owned the hotel and planned to convert it to condominiums (until tenants of the Watergate apartment complex challenged the move), had lost the property as a result of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, which had been the primary financial backer of the project.

The auction in July produced no buyers, and the hotel has remained in limbo since. But recent weeks have seen a change in this status. Monument, with new backing, put in a bid this fall to reacquire the Watergate. It was outbid by the Jumeirah Group of Dubai, a leader in the luxury hotel field. But thanks to Dubai’s financial crisis in recent weeks, the Jumeirah bid fell apart. Now, the Washington Post reports that Monument’s bid has been accepted and the deal is expected to close next month. The company’s plans are to reopen the structure as a luxury hotel.

I stayed at the Watergate for Thanksgiving weekend in 2001, when it was part of the Swissotel group, and well remember the excellent Continental-themed cuisine of the restaurant. I’m keeping my fingers crossed and hoping that, although “Watergate” for most of America will always bring to mind wiretaps and taped doors, the reopened hotel will again be a fine place to visit.

Transition At ABC News

December 20, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under News media, Nixon Administration figures, Presidents, Richard Nixon | 6 Comments 

Last week, Diane Sawyer, onetime aide to President Nixon in the White House and, after his resignation, at San Clemente, concluded her decade-long run as anchor of ABC’s Good Morning America; in rather symmerical fashion, she was replaced on Monday by George Stephanopoulos, who came to national notice as one of Bill Clinton’s top advisors in 1992 (and White House communications advisor during that president’s first term).

On Friday, Charles Gibson, after three years anchoring ABC’s World News Tonight, made his final broadcast. This Monday, Sawyer will replace him.

These transitions, as Phil Rosenthal of the Chicago Tribune points out, are being made with a minimum of fuss. ABC’s top executives keenly recall the backlash that resulted from the hoopla surrounding Katie Couric’s debut as anchor of the CBS Evening News, and the corresponding decline in that network’s ratings. Their object is to maintain ABC’s place as the second-most watched evening news show (after Brian Williams at NBC Nightly News) and, hopefully, build from there.

Only time will tell if Sawyer can increase viewership from the base generated by Gibson’s low-key appeal. But her presence in the anchor chair serves as another reminder of the wide-ranging impact the Nixon era has had on today’s world.

A Dream Ticket

December 20, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under Presidents, Richard Nixon, Sports | 2 Comments 

Almost every pro football fan over the age of, say, 50 – and a good number younger than that – knows about the NFL championship game in Yankee Stadium on December 28, 1958, in which the seemingly invincible New York Giants, led by Frank Gifford, was upset by Johnny Unitas and the Baltimore Colts, when the teams went into a sudden-death overtime for the first time in the league’s history, and the Colts emerged with a 23-17 win.

Much less well remembered is the rematch a year later, when the Colts, after trailing 9-7, scored 24 points in the fourth quarter to demolish the Giants 31-16. That game was played before a roaring crowd at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, still the only time an NFL championship has been decided in that city. But, as Mike Klingaman of the Baltimore Sun notes, even some of those who played for the Colts that day have trouble remembering the game:

“Don’t remember it at all,” said Hall of Famer Lenny Moore, who caught a 60-yard touchdown pass in the 31-16 victory that day. “Man, oh man. Can you believe that? I don’t remember me.”

But one moment at the game’s end was noted by the sportswriters of the day:

Vice President Richard M. Nixon stopped in to slap some backs and proclaim the game “the best I have ever seen.”

As Nixon left, a fan shouted, “We’ll give you a ticket [for the 1960 election] — Unitas and Nixon.”

“If you can do that,” the vice president replied, “we’ll let Unitas call the signals.”

The fan’s idea of a dream ticket brings to mind David Maraniss’s biography of legendary Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi, When Pride Still Mattered. There, Maraniss tells how Richard Nixon, looking over vice-presidential possibilities before the 1968 Republican convention in Miami, started to wonder if Lombardi might be a good choice for a running-mate.

Future Attorney General John Mitchell was asked to look into Lombardi’s background, and brought back the disappointing news that although the coach’s wife Marie was a Republican and a keen fan of RN, Vince himself was a lifelong Democrat who recently had supported Sen. Robert F. Kennedy in his tragic bid for his party’s nomination. (Indeed, after Lombardi left the Packers in January 1968, Kennedy phoned him and asked: “Would you come and be my coach?”)

Johnny Unitas never did seek political office, but, until his death in 2002, was the uncrowned king of Baltimore.

RN and Day Care

December 19, 2009 by Jack Pitney | Filed Under American Politics, Richard Nixon | Leave a Comment 

In The New York Times, Gail Collins writes:

Back in 1971, Congress passed a bill aimed at providing high-quality early childhood education and after-school programs for any American family that wanted them. It was bipartisan, which in those days meant more than a whole lot of Democrats and somebody from Maine. “Having been a working mother, I knew what day-care problems were like,” said Martha Phillips, who was at that time a staffer at the Republican Research Committee in the House.

Then Richard Nixon surprised almost everyone by vetoing it, with a scathing message written by Pat Buchanan, claiming the bill would “commit the vast moral authority of the National Government to the side of communal approaches to child rearing.”

The social right, which was just beginning to come into its own, was delighted! Opponents reinforced the message with a massive letter-writing campaign. They accused members of Congress of plotting to deprive parents of the right to take their offspring to church, give children the power to sue their parents for forcing them to do chores, and, in general, turn the country into a Maoist concentration camp.

Collins is wrong:  Nixon’s decision surprised no one.  For months, administration officials had objected to its cost and intrusiveness.  More than two weeks before, on November 21, 1971, the New York Times reported that the measure faced “an almost certain veto.”  Notwithstanding Collins’s out-of-context quotation, the veto message made clear that Nixon strongly supported day care:

Federal support for State and local day care services under Head Start and the Social Security Act already totals more than half a billion dollars a year–but this is not enough. That is why our H.R. 1 welfare reform proposals, which have been before the Congress for the past 26 months, include a request for $750 million annually in day care funds for welfare recipients and the working poor, including $50 million for construction of facilities. And that is why we support the increased tax deductions written into the Revenue Act of 1971, which will provide a significant Federal subsidy for day care in families where both parents are employed, potentially benefitting 97 percent of all such families in the country and offering parents free choice of the child care arrangements they deem best for their own families. This approach reflects my conviction that the Federal Government’s role wherever possible should be one of assisting parents to purchase needed day care services in the private, open market, with Federal involvement in direct provision of such services kept to an absolute minimum.

In Honor Of Ron Thomsen

December 18, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under In Memoriam, Nixon Administration figures, Richard Nixon | 1 Comment 

On Tuesday, we posted the very sad news that Ron Thomsen passed away. Steve Bull, who worked as a special assistant to President Nixon, also remembers his dear friend:

Ron Thomsen, a good friend of so many of the Nixon White House Staff and its volunteer Advancemen, died on Tuesday after a long struggle with brain cancer.   When we first met him he was in the Army and was assigned to the White House Communications Agency (“WHCA”), travelling with many of us on various Presidential trips.  After retiring from the Army he launched a second career, spending twenty years with the United States Secret Service where he was in charge of communications, performing essentially the same job that he did when with WHCA.

About fifteen years ago he and Melinda Maury were married.  Melinda, most will recall, worked in the White House for John Ehrlichman and later worked with Dewey Clower at the National Association of Truck Stop Operators.  It was Melinda who oversaw and managed the growth of the February Group for many, many years.

I know that those in the February Group who had the privilege of knowing, working, and socializing with Ron and Melinda are grateful to both of them for their friendship and goodwill, and will join me in expressing our condolences to Melinda at this difficult time.

Following is a summary of the information that will be posted in a death notice appearing in the Washington Post and the Washington Times on Monday, December 21st.

Thomsen also worked closely with Foundation President Ron Walker during the Nixon administration.

“Ron Thomsen and I traveled all over the world preparing RN’s trips.” Walker said. “He was a valuable member of our advance team and a dear friend. Anne and I express our deepest sympathies for his wife Melinda and family.”

The Little Church In The East Room

December 18, 2009 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under Faith, First Ladies, History, Nixon Administration, Nixon Administration figures, Pat Nixon, Presidents, Religion, Richard Nixon, Supreme Court, U.S. History, Vietnam, White House | 6 Comments 

As the first streaks of dawn quietly announced the arrival of morning on Sunday, November 16, 1969, a 35-year old preacher from Ohio named Harold Rawlings had already been awake for a while after a fitful night of what-could-barely-be-called sleep in a room at Washington, D.C.’s storied Mayflower Hotel. He would in a few hours face a crowd punctuated by the most powerful men and women in America, assembled in the most unusual of venues for any clergyman – the East Room of the White House.

These days, most Americans have moved on from wondering about Barack Obama’s church attendance habits now nearly a year into his presidency. Some of this inattention is due, no doubt, to the swirl of events, but a measure of it is likely because Mr. Obama is demonstrating a kind of ambivalence to church attendance that has become par for the presidential course over the years (though with some exception, e.g., Jimmy Carter).

Most presidents have likely never read Theodore Roosevelt’s “Nine Reasons A Man Should Go To Church.” Among the things TR said was this gem: “Yes, I know all the excuses. I know that one can worship the Creator in a grove of trees, or by a running brook, or in a man’s own house as well as in church. But I also know, as a matter of cold fact, that the average man does not thus worship.”

Richard Nixon decided in the first days of his presidency to reconcile the ethic of church attendance with the realities of security and logistics during his time in the White House, by having regular Sunday services in the East Room. Of course, he was criticized for it. Some saw it as political grandstanding and others (many in the clergy) feared Nixon might be setting a trend for “stay at home” worship. Billy Graham noted, though, that in the early days of Christianity churches met almost exclusively in houses. So, on Nixon’s first Sunday in the White House, Graham shared a sermon, beginning a long run of non-sectarian religious services at 11 o’clock most Sunday mornings.

Rev. Rawlings had received an invitation, via the recommendation of his congressman, Donald “Buzz” Lukens, to bring the message during one of those services. But the preacher had to pay his own expenses to the nation’s capital, something gladly accomplished by his church, Landmark Baptist in Cincinnati, Ohio, where the lanky clergyman shared pastoral duties with his father, the senior minister of the church.

The preacher also had no idea when he accepted the White House invitation that he would be performing his prelatic duties against the backdrop of a city in turmoil.

Pastor Rawlings and his wife Sylvia made their way to Washington, D.C., on Saturday, November 15, while 250,000 protestors were in virtual control of the city’s streets and parks. The Washington Post headline the next day said, “Largest Rally in Washington History Demands End to Vietnam War.” There was a lingering hint of tear gas in the air and the remnants of torn and burned flags littering the ground. Other flags were prominent and not burned, but they bore only one star and just two stripes – the banner of the Viet Cong (National Liberation Front or “NLF”). The night before, 76 nearby buildings had been damaged, and nearly that many more would experience the same fate that day.

The swarm on Washington had been organized by an outfit called the New Mobilization Committee. This group was the successor to the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, which had been part of the infamous Chicago riots at the Democratic Convention in 1968. Basically, it was a leftist mosaic made up of people from Students For A Democratic Society (“SDS”), the Youth International Party (“Yippies”), and assorted fellow travelers.

And though the “festivities” had ended late Saturday night, thousands remained in the streets overnight continuing to shout things like, “Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh, NLF is Going to Win!” This made sleep that much more difficult for Rev. and Mrs. Rawlings.

The couple enjoyed breakfast in the Mayflower’s restaurant, their waitress discreetly pointing out the famous “psychic”, Jeanne Dixon, who was sitting across the room near the booth where J. Edgar Hoover regularly ate lunch. This brush with celebrity would be nothing compared to the experience awaiting Harold and Sylvia when they arrived at the White House.

They climbed a stairway to the second floor and were immediately met by the First Lady, Mrs. Pat Nixon, who invited them into the beautiful Yellow Oval Room, where they sat in Louis XVI style chairs. Tricia Nixon soon joined them, followed a few minutes later by President Nixon, who took Pastor Rawlings on a personal tour of the adjacent rooms, sharing details about their history. Nixon was in a great mood, no doubt bolstered some by the latest Gallup Poll showing that around 70% of Americans gave him high marks, this in the wake of his already famous “Silent Majority” speech a few days earlier.

They then made their way to the East Room, with Sylvia taking her seat next to Mrs. Nixon and Tricia. President Nixon, as was the custom, opened the service, “After a very awesome display yesterday,” pausing briefly for effect, knowing that some would think he was referring to the demonstrations, he continued, “of football, we thought it would be proper to have someone here from Ohio.” Ever the football fan, he was referring to the Buckeyes’ 42-14 win over Purdue.

Pastor Rawlings had been asked to suggest two hymns for the service and did so several weeks in advance, only to be called back by the White House and told, “President Nixon doesn’t know those – could you choose two others?” He did, and the service that day included the majestic strains of “All Hail The Power Of Jesus’ Name,” a song Nixon knew well. A choir from New York Avenue Presbyterian Church sang.

The President then introduced Rawlings, who chose as his theme that day, “The World’s Most Amazing Book.” Many notables were in the crowd of about 350, including Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger, Secretary of State William P. Rogers, Treasury Secretary David M. Kennedy, Labor Secretary George P. Schultz, and United States Senators Claiborne Pell, Mark Hatfield, John Sherman Cooper, Gale McGee, John Williams, and Charles Percy. And the service was broadcast live across the country via the Mutual Broadcasting System.

“If men and women would spend more time in the serious study of the word of God,” said Rev. Rawlings, “earth’s questions would seem far less significant and heaven’s questions far more real.” He then quoted former President Eisenhower, among others. The great man had died eight months earlier and his life and career had intersected with Nixon’s so significantly.

Rawlings affirmed that, “The Bible is not only good for the soul, but also for the body.” He illustrated this point with a moving story about a soldier in Vietnam, Army Private Roger Boe, who after being ambushed found an enemy bullet “lodged in his Bible, just short of the ammunition clip.” The preacher, describing America as “a haven for freedom and peace,” urged prayer, “to make us morally worthy of protection against outward aggression.” He also issued a reminder about praying for the men of Apollo12, at that moment racing through space, “our three astronauts that they might be blessed with safety and good health on their voyage to the moon.”

During a recent conversation with Harold Rawlings, who is a long-time friend, he told me that following the service Chief Justice Burger told him that his sermon was “the kind of message America needed to hear.”

A reception followed, with President and Mrs. Nixon personally introducing Rev. and Mrs. Rawlings to those filing by. Nixon, though, was at least a little bit in a hurry. He was going out to Robert F. Kennedy stadium that afternoon to see the Redskins play the Cowboys. In fact, this would itself be historic – the first time a sitting President of the United States attended a National Football League game. He was pulling for the home team, but conceded to a reporter that the Cowboys would come out on top, “I think they’ll win because of their running attack.”

But it turned out that the Redskins lost because Sonny Jurgenson threw 4 interceptions – three of them in the fourth quarter. The one bright spot of the game for Nixon was the play of Ricky Harris, who returned a punt 83-yards for a touchdown – only to have it called back because of a penalty. Harris then intercepted a pass at a crucial moment – only to have Jurgensen then quickly proceed to throw his own interception (Harris these days sits every Sunday on the front row of the church I pastor.)

Possibly, the fate of the Redskins that day was a harbinger of things to come that week for Mr. Nixon. The very next day, American newspapers first mentioned something about a massacre in Vietnam at a place called My Lai. And later that week, the President’s nominee for the Supreme Court, Clement Furman Haynsworth, was rejected by the Senate, 55-45.

This just reinforces something else Teddy Roosevelt said about why people should go to church: “In this actual world, a churchless community, a community where men have abandoned and scoffed at or ignored their religious needs, is a community on the rapid down grade.”

Safire As Person Of The Year

December 17, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under News media, Nixon Administration figures, Richard Nixon | Leave a Comment 

Though Ben Bernanke took the honors, Peggy Noonan wanted fellow speechwriter and columnist William Safire to win Time Person of the Year:

As a speechwriter, William Safire made Spiro Agnew sound fizzy — “nattering nabobs of negativism” was his alliterative classic — and helped Richard Nixon explain his policies. But it was in his Pulitzer Prize–winning newspaper column that Safire became Safire. There he honed a natural pugnacity — a desire to “mix it up,” as he put it. And boy, did he wade in. When everyone was putting down Washington Mayor Marion Barry, he was alone in criticizing violations of Barry’s privacy. He voted for Bill Clinton but pulled no punches toward him or Hillary. He gave me some of the best professional advice I’ve ever received: Write what you experience and see, because “what history needs more of is first-person testimony.” Once, when I got a tough book review, he called and joyfully barked, “Welcome to the NFL!” At the time, it was not a cliché. He probably made it a cliché. He probably coined it.

Will Kirkuk Bring Down Iraq?

December 16, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Iraq War, Middle East, Nixon Center | Leave a Comment 

Joost Hiltermann at the Nixon Center’s National Interest:

THE FATE of Iraq may well rise or fall on Kirkuk as Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen and Christians grapple for control of the province and the safety of their people. Oil riches abound in this land that straddles the border of Arab and Kurdish Iraq. And command of these resources is the prize for the taking. As the powers that be in Baghdad fight to hold on to the tenuous peace wrested from civil war, deciding the political fate of Kirkuk is treacherous enough to bring down the state. So far, the battle has largely taken place in a never-ending political drama, but if compromise cannot be reached—and soon—bloody conflict may well be the next step.

Read more.

“Intelligence, Energy, And Devotion To Duty”

December 15, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Presidents, Richard Nixon | Leave a Comment 

Former President Bill Clinton celebrates the life and Presidency of RN nearly 16 years ago:

Another In Favor Of RN’s Diplomacy

December 15, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under International Affairs, Richard Nixon | 1 Comment 

Aluf Benn from Israeli’s Ha’aretz:

Obama believes in diplomacy and nonviolent means, like sanctions, as leverage for changing the conduct of problem nations. His model is Richard Nixon’s trip to China in 1972, at the height of the cruel Cultural Revolution. This was a masterpiece of reaching out to an adversary, encouraging it to change and all at once altering the balance of world power. We can imagine Obama planning such a trip to Tehran.

R.I.P. Ron Thomsen

December 15, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Nixon Administration, Richard Nixon | Leave a Comment 

Our dear friend Ron Thomsen has passed away, our thoughts and prayers are with his wife Melinda and his family.

The Nixon Foundation’s 20th Anniversary Newsletter

December 14, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Nixon Foundation, Richard Nixon | 5 Comments 

History And President Obama’s Oslo Imprimatur

December 14, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Barack Obama, History, Nixon Administration, Nixon Center, Nixon Library, Presidents, Richard Nixon, U.S. History | 4 Comments 

In President Obama’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech last Thursday, he cited President Nixon’s trip to China as an example of a bold and controversial action by a leader that furthered the cause of peace:

In light of the Cultural Revolution’s horrors, Nixon’s meeting with Mao appeared inexcusable — and yet it surely helped set China on a path where millions of its citizens have been lifted from poverty and connected to open societies.  Pope John Paul’s engagement with Poland created space not just for the Catholic Church, but for labor leaders like Lech Walesa.  Ronald Reagan’s efforts on arms control and embrace of perestroika not only improved relations with the Soviet Union, but empowered dissidents throughout Eastern Europe.

In his speech, the President named some of the men and women whose “vision, hard work, and persistence” led history to bestow on them the title of peacemaker:

Henri Dunant*

John Paul II

Martin Luther King, Jr.*

Mohandas Gandhi

John F. Kennedy

Nelson Mandela*

George C. Marshall*

Richard Nixon

Ronald Reagan

Albert Schweitzer*

Aung Sang Suu Kyi*

Lech Walesa*

Woodrow Wilson*

*asterisks indicate Nobel Peace Prize laureates; Henry Dunant, founder of the Red Cross, received the first Peace Prize in 1901.

The President’s inclusion of RN amongst this noble company drew little attention and scant controversy.  Indeed, writing in Politico about the Oslo speech, Larry Sabato observed:

Obama also smartly included Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan in his parade-of-history salutes. Reagan properly receives some credit for the fall of Communism, but if any modern Republican deserved the Nobel Peace Prize, it was Nixon. Yes, Nixon-and this is written by someone who wasn’t exactly a Nixon fan during the Vietnam War and Watergate. But in the light of history, Nixon’s opening to China and his policy of détente with the U.S.S.R. made enormous contributions.

In fact, President Obama’s inclusion of RN as one of these leaders, visionaries, and peacemakers may be seen as the thirty-seventh President’s passage from the exurbs of rehabilitation to the outskirts of apotheosis.

There have been many turning points and milestones on the long and winding road from 9 August 1974 in Washington to 10 December 2009 in Oslo.

In 1978, the publication of RN’s memoirs –RN— following on the broadcast of David Frost’s four 90-minute TV interviews, marked the return of the former President as an active presence on the American scene.

The Frost interviews were broadcast in May 1977 and RN was published in the fall of 1978.

In the summer of 1980 the Nixons moved to New York —“the fastest track in the world” as he called it— and the former President began enjoying a busy life as a best-selling author, adviser to politicians and presidents, globe-trotting traveler, committed sports fan, and doting grandfather.

In 1984 CBS broadcast an hour of Nixon interviews on 60 Minutes, and in 1986 he appeared on the controversial and widely discussed Newsweek cover that announced: “HE’S BACK.”

In 1987 John Adams’ three act opera Nixon in China —commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Houston Opera, and the Kennedy Center in Washington— was premiered to great acclaim.  Alice Goodman’s free-wheeling libretto took liberties with the characters’ psychologies, but the work rose above controversy and introduced the idea of RN’s life and career as subjects of rich dramatic significance and potential.

Nixon in China is now considered one of the major operas of the 20th Century; it is also one of the few modern operas that has actually found a popular audience and continues to be presented in opera houses around the world.  The original Peter Sellars production will be revived in the 2010-2011 season at the Metropolitan Opera in New York; and the work’s Canadian debut will coincide with this summer’s Olympics in Vancouver.  Another new production will be mounted in March 2010  — by the Long Beach Opera — just up the road from Yorba Linda.

Cover art for Nonesuch’s 1990 complete recording of Nixon in China.  The 3-CD set became a surprise classical best-seller and is still in print.   This summer it was joined by a new complete live recording conducted by Marin Alsop.

On 19 July 1990, the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace was opened in Yorba Linda.  President and Mrs. Bush and former Presidents Ford and Reagan and their First Ladies joined RN and PN and their family for the celebration.

The Nixon Library Opens —  on 19 July 1990, RN and PN hosted several of their successors at the opening of the Nixon Library and Birthplace in Yorba Linda.

In 1992 RN hosted President George H. W. Bush at a conference on “America’s Role in the Emerging World” presented by the Nixon Library and Birthplace in Washington.

In January 1994, RN established the Nixon Center as a foreign policy think tank in Washington.  In March 1995, President Clinton was the guest of honor at a Nixon Center dinner at the Mayflower Hotel.  He spoke warmly and admiringly about President Nixon, who had died eleven months earlier.

Indeed, President Clinton’s heartfelt and thoughtful eulogy, delivered on 27 April 1994 in the presence of his four living predecessors and their First Ladies at President Nixon’s funeral at the Nixon Library and Birthplace in Yorba Linda, was one of the major turning points on the road from August 9^th:

27 April 1994: President Clinton eulogizes President Nixon during the funeral at the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda.

President Nixon’s journey across the American landscapes mirrored that of his entire nation in this remarkable century. His life was bound up with the striving of our whole people, with our crises and our triumphs.

When he became President, he took on challenges here at home on matters from cancer research to environmental protection, putting the power of the Federal Government where Republicans and Democrats had neglected to put it in the past, and in foreign policy. He came to the Presidency at a time in our history when Americans were tempted to say we had had enough of the world. Instead, he knew we had to reach out to old friends and old enemies alike. He would not allow America to quit the world.

Remarkably, he wrote nine of his ten books after he left the Presidency, working his way back into the arena he so loved by writing and thinking and engaging us in his dialogue. For the past year, even in the final weeks of his life, he gave me his wise counsel, especially with regard to Russia. One thing in particular left a profound impression on me. Though this man was in his ninth decade, he had an incredibly sharp and vigorous and rigorous mind. As a public man, he always seemed to believe the greatest sin was remaining passive in the face of challenges, and he never stopped living by that creed. He gave of himself with intelligence and energy and devotion to duty, and his entire country owes him a debt of gratitude for that service.

Oh, yes, he knew great controversy amid defeat as well as victory. He made mistakes, and they, like his accomplishments, are a part of his life and record. But the enduring lesson of Richard Nixon is that he never gave up being part of the action and passion of his times. He said many times that unless a person has a goal, a new mountain to climb, his spirit will die. Well, based on our last phone conversation and the letter he wrote me just a month ago, I can say that his spirit was very much alive to the very end.

That is a great tribute to him, to his wonderful wife, Pat, to his children and to his grandchildren, whose love he so depended on and whose love he returned in full measure. Today is a day for his family, his friends, and his nation to remember President Nixon’s life in totality. To them, let us say: may the day of judging President Nixon on anything less than his entire life and career come to a close.

Every living former President and First Lady joined President and Mrs. Clinton at RN’s funeral in Yorba Linda.  Other eulogists included Henry Kissinger, Bob Dole, Pete Wilson, and Billy Graham.

In the summer of 1995, Joan Hoff published Nixon Reconsidered.  A history professor at Indiana University and Co-Editor of the Journal of Women’s Studies, Hoff attempted to put RN’s presidency in an “historical rather than histrionic perspective.”   The book received widespread —and surprised— attention for its bold (and impressively researched) thesis that RN’s domestic contributions would be seen as even more important and enlightened than his widely admired foreign policy.  Professor Hoff wrote that RN:

exceeded the accomplishments of the New Deal and the Great Society in the areas of civil rights, social welfare spending, domestic and international economic restructuring, urban parks, government reorganization, land-use initiatives, revenue sharing, draft reform, pension reform, and spending for the arts and humanities.

Other books had played a part in preparing for a reconsideration of RN.  Stephen Ambrose’s three-volumes (1988-1992), and Jonathan Aitken’s 1993 biography supplemented RN.  And Tom Wicker’s One Of Us appeared just a few months before Professor Hoff’s bombshell.

Throughout this period, RN himself was a prolific and best-selling author whose books were widely reviewed and discussed.  They included The Real War (1980), Leaders (1982), Real Peace (1984), No More Vietnams (1987), Victory Without War (1988), In the Arena: A Memoir of Victory, Defeat, and Renewal (1990), Seize the Moment (1992), and the posthumously published Beyond Peace (1994).  He traveled widely and appeared strategically on op-ed pages.

After his 1978 memoirs RN, RN’s post-presidency best-selling books ranged from profiles of leaders he had known, to on-going analyses of American foreign policy, to personal essays.

In 2006 playwright Peter Morgan turned the unlikely material of the David Frost interviews into a compelling and highly successful play.  Frost/Nixon, directed by Michael Grandage, and with Frank Langella as the former President, filled houses and won awards in London and New York.  A road company starring Stacy Keach as RN toured across America.

In 2008 it was made into a Golden Globe, BAFTA, and Oscar-nominated film directed by Ron Howard, with Frank Langella reprising his West End and Broadway role.  The Morgan-Grandage-Howard-Langella version introduced a new generation of worldwide play and moviegoers to the notion of a smart, witty, complex, and compelling Richard Nixon.

It’s possible that President Obama’s thinking about his thirty-seventh predecessor has been influenced by the most recent milestone passed between ‘74 and today — which came last August from a little-suspected source.  In his column in the Washington Post, Steven Pearlstein wrote about Edward Kennedy, who had died three days before: “Asked about his greatest regret as a legislator, Ted Kennedy would usually cite his refusal to cut a deal with Richard Nixon on health care.”

Writing in Newsweek , J. Lester Feder expounded on this idea:

It must pain those fond of Senator Ted Kennedy that his death comes just when the current health-reform effort is threatened by the same kind of attacks that tanked previous efforts. In fact, the Obama health-reform package Kennedy supported in his last days is similar to one Kennedy helped defeat when proposed by President Richard Nixon. If anything, the Obama plan is more conservative. Nixon would have mandated that all employers offer coverage to their employees, while creating a subsidized government insurance program for all Americans that employer coverage did not reach. It would take a miracle to pass such a plan today—a public insurance plan and an employer mandate are two provisions of the proposals now in Congress that are most in doubt.

RN had no illusions about the time it would take for history to be ready and able to assess him realistically and objectively.  In RN, he described the scene as he left the Oval Office after delivering his resignation speech on the night of 8 August 1974:

Kissinger was waiting for me in the corridor.  He said, “Mr. President, after most of your major speeches in this office we have walked together back to your house.  I would be honored to walk with you again tonight.”

As we walked past the dark Rose Garden, Kissinger’s voice was low and sad.  He said that he thought that historically this would rank as one of the great speeches and that history would judge me one of the great Presidents.  I turned to him and said, “that depends, Henry, on who writes the history.”  At the door of the Residence I thanked him and we parted.

RN was aware that the process of historical rehabilitation is usually measured more in centuries than decades.  Privately, he thought that fifty years (the passage of two generations and their passions) would be the minimum amount of time required.  (The most recent example, David McCulloch’s Truman, had appeared twenty years after HST died and four decades after he left office with a 22% approval rating and mired by scandals.)

Now, thanks to President Obama’s Oslo imprimatur, the timetable for reconsideration has been considerably moved forward.  It may even be that in 2010 —twenty years after RN’s Library opened and sixteen years after his death— it might be well begun; and, that by his 100^th birthday in 2013, it might even be well under way.

A Once and Future Slogan: a bumper strip from the 1972 campaign.

Obama, Nixon, and Peace Through Strength

December 13, 2009 by Jack Pitney | Filed Under Annals of the Obama Administration, Presidents, Richard Nixon, Terrorism | 1 Comment 

President Obama mentioned RN in his Nobel acceptance speech.  Michael Goodwin of the New York Post perceptively notes what the president left out:

Black And White And Red (Ink) All Over

December 12, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under New Media, News media | 3 Comments 

Recently I wrote about the editorial chaos erupting at the Washington Times, the daily that has provided a conservative viewpoint in the nation’s capital for twenty-seven years. Earlier this month came the news that within the next few months the paper will undergo radical changes. At least 40% of the staff will depart and the paper will switch to primarily free circulation, apparently planning to compete to some degree with Colorado billionaire Philip Anschutz’s conservative giveaway daily the Washington Examiner. The price for paid subscriptions will increase substantially as the Times de-emphasizes that part of its distribution. Local and entertainment news will be diminished, as the paper focuses on covering national and international stories, and providing conservative op-eds. Greater “synergy” will be developed with the Times’s new talk-radio show and with its website.

When these changes were announced, Editor & Publisher, the magazine which has been the bible of the newspaper business for over a century, put up an informative article on its website, and normally I would link to this. But I’m linking to the Los Angeles Times’s article on the subject instead because yesterday brought the news that E&P, after years of chronicling one newspaper closing after another, will itself end publication effective immediately, since its corporate parent, Nielsen (the TV-ratings company), was not able to find a buyer. This puts E&P’s staff of ten out of work, including the magazine’s editor, Greg Mitchell, who made his name with two books on California elections of years past: The Campaign Of The Century (about Upton Sinclair’s 1934 run for governor) and Tricky Dick And The Pink Lady (describing RN’s contest with Helen Gahagan Douglas for the Senate).

With the departure of E&P, Jim Romanesko’s Medianews site sponsored by the Poynter Institute becomes the leading clearinghouse for news on journalistic happenings. Since it’s in cyberspace, it looks set to stay – at least for a while.

Farewell to “Butterstick”

December 12, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under China, Nixon Administration, Presidents, Richard Nixon | Leave a Comment 

One legacy of the Nixon Administration that has never ceased to enjoy widespread popularity in America is the tradition of “panda diplomacy,” in which the People’s Republic of China sends giant pandas to the National Zoo, to the delight of visitors of all ages.

This saga began some weeks after President Nixon’s visit to the PRC in 1972, when Chinese leader Mao Zedong sent two pandas, Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing, to the National Zoo. They were the Zoo’s most popular attractions by far until they died in the 1990s, the two oldest pandas to survive in captivity. During their decades in Washington, efforts were made to breed them, but all the offspring died after a few days.

In 2000, the PRC sent two pandas to replace them. Unlike Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing, which were gifts to the United States, Mei Xiang and Tian Tian are on loan to this country. For five years, the two new animals enjoyed an effective monopoly on American panda-mania.

That changed in 2005, when the black-and-white couple welcomed a son. According to Chinese tradition pandas are not given names until they are 100 days old, so it was not until then that the youngster was christened Tai Shan. But a zoo worker’s remark that the animal, at birth, weighed about as much as an average stick of butter resulted in the nickname by which the panda is far better known.

For the four years since his birth, “Butterstick” has effortlessly projected a charisma unequaled by any other Washington resident, including the current President, and each year on his birthday, thousands descend on the zoo to celebrate, lining up to wait for hours before opening time.

But all good things must, sometime, come to an end, and Tai Shan is no exception. From his birth he belonged to the PRC, under the terms of the agreement which brought his parents to the Zoo, and that nation had the right to ask for his return. This month, the Chinese government asked for his return, and so “Butterstick” must leave the zoo before long, probably at the end of next month. But he’ll be long, long remembered by a city, and a nation, for whom he provided countless hours of fascination and joy. And as he leaves, he has the distinction of being part of a great tradition founded by the two leaders who shook hands in Beijing twenty-seven years ago.

Beware Of Green Sheep Bearing Urgent Messages

December 11, 2009 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under American Politics, Environmental issues, History, International Affairs, Obama administration, Political Philosophy, Public Opinion, UN | 2 Comments 

Long ago, the wisest of all men who ever trod earthly sod reminded us to beware of those peddling false information, noting that they often appear in “sheep’s clothing,” but really they are nothing more than “ravenous wolves.” These days we are bearing witness to the resurgence of ideas that have long since been discredited in former form, so the wool suit has been brought out for stealthy reasons. But a closer look reveals that those sheep have really big teeth.

Dust off your old Orwellian “newspeak” dictionary, where words are set free from actual meaning. There is a new code in town and it is worthy of being broken – a barely cryptic puzzle, but one that may, in fact, deceive many. Socialism is not only on the comeback trail via a full frontal political assault in our country (never mind that is has never actually worked anywhere), it is also on the march under a new banner – though to see this we must look through the looking glass. Not only has terminology been tweaked, the political color chart is being revised, as well – while too few actually notice.

Green is the new Red.

The actual practical application of so-called socialist dogma since the days when its seeds were hydrated in the bloodbath of the French Revolution has never come close to living up to its utopian promises. The goals of equality and liberty – noble concepts themselves – have never been achieved through coercive collectivism. Countries have certainly tried to level the playing field – or, if you prefer “spread the wealth around” – but it has always been done at the expense of personal freedom, not to mention the fact that wealth has tended to disappear in the process of that “spreading.” Some of the wealth did, of course, survive – for a time at least – in the coffers of those who happened to be the ruling elite du jour.

In other words, although socialism has regularly been presented as the cultural and political pathway to fairness and prosperity for all, it has had a poor record in history. In fact, it has tended to actually make matters worse. But never mind that: let’s give the tired doctrine one more try. After all, we have smarter people in charge now and the fact that the math still doesn’t add up is irrelevant.

It’s the same with environmentalism. As the world watched what happened this past week in wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen, the mantra was about saving the planet. But lurking beneath and behind the machinations and rhetoric of this latest climate-change-kum-by-ya moment is the same old ideology, albeit with a leafy facelift. Saving the planet, we are regularly told by the smart people, requires more centralization of power and less individual liberty.

And if there is any doubt as to this agenda, we need only look back to a few days ago when Environmental Protection Agency Czarina, Lisa Jackson, told us all that the EPA regards carbon dioxide as a grave threat to mother earth and that the pollutant must therefore be controlled by government guardians. They’ll be the people wearing those special biohazard suits – yep, you guessed it, the ones made of wool.

It is emerging that there are plans, if the Congress doesn’t do the bidding of the new greed reds, to simply do a smack down on the economy with a method described as “command-and-control.” This is a management style popularized in the now deceased HBO series, “The Sopranos,” as in that memorable line, “I got your ‘command-and-control’ right here – badda bing, badda boom.”

You say, “cap-and-trade,” others say, “command-and-control,” why don’t we call the whole thing off?

Please don’t miss the significance of what Jackson has said. Our entire economy is based just as much on carbon as it is the dollar. A “command-and-control” approach is another way of saying: “You think a take over of health care is a power grab? Wait until you see this!”

What does this have to do with socialism? Environmentalism relates to socialism in much the same way that Marxism relates to Leninism – and for the same reason. Neither is really about giving people a better life or saving the planet. The ultimate agenda – the wolf in sheep’s clothing – is political power and the micromanagement of individual lives through collectivism, with all the strings pulled by an emerging political aristocracy made up of the “really smart” people. And I use that word “aristocracy” deliberately, though with tongue-in-cheek, because the word comes from the Greek and literally means: “the rule of the best.”

The problem is that this latest group of “the best and the brightest” has a clear and present problem with priorities. We are facing some very great crisis-level challenges in America, the top two being, 1. It’s the economy, stupid, and 2. The war against Islamism (or, reverse the order, if you like). But the body language of those “really smart” people is all about matters that, well, don’t actually matter to most Americans – at least not right now.

Seventeenth century British preacher, Thomas Fuller, a man who would have done well in the age of the sound bite, once said: “He that is everywhere is nowhere.” This is the same idea Steven Covey and other management gurus talk about when they warn that the “urgent” can be the enemy of the “important.” And Americans right now are living under a new tyranny – that of the neo-urgent. However, the present “urgent-priority” is being orchestrated by those who seem to simply want power centralized and personal liberties marginalized.

Oh, by the way, Thomas Fuller also famously said, “It is always darkest just before the day dawneth,” which gives me some comfort. That is, until I recall one college professor of mine many years ago – a particularly and regularly befuddled man – who once botched this quote while giving us a pep talk before a major exam: “Now, uh, class, uh, always remember what Thomas Fuller said, ‘It is always darkest before the storm.”

Nashua ‘68: What A Short Strange Trip It Was

December 11, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under American Politics, Richard Nixon, Sports | 1 Comment 

The #1 Fan in the 1950s: Vice President Nixon tosses a ball around in his Capitol Office.

Several recent TNN posts (here, here, and here) have presented RN as a serious football fan.  In fact, that puts the case mildly; he was the kind of enthusiast who puts the “fan” in “fanatic.”

But, unlike many who mostly talk the talk, RN could really walk the walk — a fact discovered and recorded by no less an authority (and no less rabid a Nixon critic) than the uber-Gonzo journalist and Rolling Stone National Correspondent Dr. Hunter S. Thompson.

In Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72 —his bizarre and superb account of the 1972 presidential campaign— there are few moments more superbly bizarre than the limo ride with RN that he recalled and recounted from the eve of the New Hampshire primary during the 1968 presidential campaign.

For Thompson, of course, this was, literally, a case of giving the devil his due.  But that makes his admiration all the more interesting and impressive.  And when Dr. Hunter S. Thompson describes something as “one of the weirdest things I’ve ever done,” attention really must be paid.

Hunter S. Thompson

“Weird Memories of ‘68: A Private Conversation with Richard Nixon” from Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72 (pp. 58-61)

It was a big yellow sedan with a civvy-clothes cop at the wheel.  Sitting next to the cop, up front, were two of Nixon’s top speechwriters: Ray Price and Pat Buchannan [sic].

There were only two of us in back: just me and Richard Nixon, and we were talking football in a very serious way.  It was late —almost midnight then, too— and the cop was holding the beg Merc at exactly sixty-five as we hissed along the highway for more than an hour between some American Legion hall in a small town somewhere near Nashua where Nixon had just made a speech, to the airport up in Manchester where a Lear Jet was waiting to whisk the candidate and his brain-trust off to Key Biscayne for a Think Session.

It was a very weird trip; probably one of the weirdest things I’ve ever done, and especially weird because both Nixon and I enjoyed it.  We had a good talk, and when we got to the airport, I stood around the Lear Jet with Dick and the others, chatting in a very relaxed way about how successful his swing through New Hampshire had been…and as he climbed into the plane it seemed only natural to thank him for the ride and shake hands….

But suddenly I was seized from behind and jerked away from the plane.  Good God, I thought as I reeled backwards, Here We Go … “Watch out!” somebody was shouting.  “Get the cigarette!”  A hand lashed out of the darkness to snatch the cigarette out of my mouth, then other hands kept me from falling and I recognized the voice of Nick Ruwe, Nixon’s chief advance man for New Hampshire, saying, “God damnit, Hunter, you almost blew up the plane!”

I shrugged.  He was right.  I’d been leaning over the fuel tank with a burning butt in my mouth.  Nixon smiled and reached out to shake hands again, while Ruwe muttered darkly and the others stared down at the asphalt.

The plane took off and I rode back to the Holiday Inn with Nick Ruwe.  We laughed about the cigarette scare, but he was still brooding.  “What worries me,” he said, “is that nobody else noticed it.  Christ, those guys get paid to protect the boss….”

“Very bad show,” I said, “especially when you remember that I did about three king-size Marlboros while we were standing there.  Hell, I was flicking the butts away, lighting new ones …. You people are lucky I’m a sane, responsible journalist; otherwise I might have hurled my flaming Zippo into the fuel tank.”

“Not you,” he said.  “egomaniacs don’t do that kind of thing.”  He smiled.  “You wouldn’t do anything you couldn’t live to write about, would you?”

“You’re probably right, I said.  “Kamikaze is not my style.  I much prefer subtleties, the low-key approach — because I am, after all, a professional.”

“We know.  That’s why you’re along.”

The #1 Fan in the 1960s: presidential candidate Nixon, just a few months after his late night New Hampshire encounter with Hunter Thompson, was at the LA Coliseum (with campaign manager John Mitchell) attending a preseason game between the Rams and the Chiefs.

Actually the reason was very different: I was the only one in the press corps that evening who claimed to be as seriously addicted to pro football as Nixon himself.  I was also the only out-front openly hostile Peace Freak; the only one wearing old Levis and a ski jacket, the only one (no, there was one other) who’d smoked grass on Nixon’s big Greyhound press bus, and certainly the only one who habitually referred to the candidate as “the Dingbat.”

So I still had to credit the bastard for having the balls to choose me — out of the fifteen or twenty straight/heavy press types who’d been pleading for two or three weeks for even a five-minute interview— as the one who should share the back seat with him on this Final Ride through New Hampshire.

But there was, of course, a catch.  I had to agree to talk about nothing except football.  ”We want the Boss to relax,” Ray Price told me, “but he can’t relax if you start yelling about Vietnam, race riots or drugs.  He wants to ride with somebody who can talk football.”  He cast a baleful eye at the dozen or so reporters waiting to board the press bus, then shook his head sadly.  “I checked around,” he said. “But the others are hopeless — so I guess you’re it.”

“Wonderful,” I said.  “Let’s do it.”

We had a fine time.  I enjoyed it — which put me a bit off balance, because I’d figured Nixon didn’t know any more about football than he did about ending the war in Vietnam.  He had made a lot of allusions to things like “end runs” and “power sweeps” on the stump but it never occurred to me that he actually knew anything more about football than he knew about the Grateful Dead.

But I was wrong.  Whatever else might be said about Nixon —and there is still serious doubt in my mind that he could pass for Human— he is a goddamn stone fanatic on every fact of pro football.  At one point in our conversation, when I was feeling a bit pressed for leverage, I mentioned a down & out pass —in the waning moments of the 1967 Super Bowl mismatch between Green Bay and Oakland — to an obscure, second-string Oakland receiver named Bill Miller that had stuck in my mind because of its pinpoint style & precision.

He hesitated for a moment, lost in thought, then he whacked me on the thigh & laughed: “That’s right, by God!  The Miami boy!”

I was stunned.  He not only remembered the play, but he knew where Miller had played in college.

Those who knew RN will know that that Miller call that so amazed Dr. Thompson actually bordered on being a no-brainer for RN, whose memory for games and players and statistics was as vivid as it was phenomenal.

The #1 Fan in the 1970s: President Nixon greets coach George Allen and his family in the Rose Garden after the Redskins won the NFC championship.

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