The Domestic Council On Demand

January 31, 2010 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Domestic issues, Richard Nixon | Leave a Comment 

The first of the Richard Nixon Legacy Forums, Domestic Policy Initiatives of the Nixon Years: Bringing Innovation and Progress to the American People is now available for viewers — free –  on demand:

April 1969 — All That Jazz

January 31, 2010 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Music, Richard Nixon | Leave a Comment 

In April 1969, RN celebrated the 70th birthday of Duke Ellington and awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House

Len Garment, accomplished jazz musician and RN’s White House Counsel, writes in this weekend’s New York Times:

IN April 1969, three months after his inauguration, President Richard Nixon hosted a party at the White House to celebrate Duke Ellington’s 70th birthday and award the Duke the Medal of Honor. Great American jazz figures were there. Musicians played Ellington songs arranged by Gerry Mulligan. Joe Williams and Mary Mayo sang. Ellington danced with Rose Mary Woods. After dinner, the president had a nightcap with the pianist Earl Hines.

It was in many other ways a very good year for President Nixon. He called to congratulate the Apollo 11 astronauts on their moon landing. He initiated a huge expansion of the National Endowment for the Arts and began the processes that led to the desegregation of public schools in the South and a historic reform of the government’s policy toward American Indians. He announced the “Nixon doctrine,” providing aid — but not military forces — to our anticommunist Asian allies. He signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Obama Needs To Channel Nixon

January 30, 2010 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Barack Obama, International Affairs, Richard Nixon | 1 Comment 

Steve Clemons, publisher of the Washington Note and Executive Vice President of the New America Foundation, argues that President Obama needs to follow a more disciplined foreign policy in the fashion of RN:

I think for a while, this strategy worked — as Obama did tilt toward a realist course in foreign policy. He recognized that like Nixon he had under his stewardship a constrained and limited presidency given the damage during the Bush years.

Only problem was that Obama’s realists don’t do realism so well — and many on his team are not sold on the discipline and importance of national priority-setting that a realist, or progressive realist, approach requires.

A Race – And Candidate – To Watch

January 29, 2010 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under American Politics, Congress, History, Nixon family, Nixon in the News, Pat Nixon, Politics, Presidents, Republican Party, Richard Nixon, U.S. History, White House | 3 Comments 

Nearly 65 years after his famous grandfather was first asked to run as a Republican candidate for the U.S. House of Representative from that state’s 12th district, 30-year old Christopher Cox has put his hat in the ring for the seat in New York’s first district on Long Island. Cox, the son of Edward and Tricia Cox, and grandson of the 37th President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon, is a fiscal conservative who champions limited government and lower taxes.

He also has politics in his blood.

And like his grandfather, who was swept into office as part of a Republican landslide in the 1946 off-year elections in the aftermath of World War II and too many years of “New” and “Fair” Democratic deals, he hopes to ride the current wave of discontent and frustration all the way to Capitol Hill. In doing so, he could make a little bit of history, as well. Cox graduated from Princeton and New York University Law School, and served as a John McCain delegate and was the New York State Executive Director of McCain’s 2008 Presidential run.

New York’s first district encompasses Suffolk County, the eastern part of Long Island, with its signature north and south forks and places such as Brookhaven, Smithtown, and the Hamptons. The region is picturesque—still pastoral in part. Richard Nixon loved it out there, even writing his 1968 Republican nomination acceptance speech at Gurney’s Inn in Montauk.

Edward Cox, Christopher’s father, is the current chairman of the New York Republican State Committee. His ancestors were well known in state and local politics, business, and jurisprudence—and his own political resume includes experience as an attorney in the Reagan administration.

Of course, those of us old enough to remember recall the images of a beautiful White House wedding back on June 12, 1971, as Ed took Tricia Nixon as his wife.

Should Christopher Cox get the GOP nomination, he’ll face an uphill race against the Democrat incumbent—Tim Bishop, who has held the seat since 2003. Interestingly, in spite of the fact that Bishop trounced his opponent in 2008 by 16 points, Barack Obama only garnered 51% of the district’s vote in 2008—a rare case that year of a local Democrat out polling the “Yes, We Can” national juggernaut. So to many observers, certainly Chris Cox among them, the seat is very much in play.

It’s been said that history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme. The year was 1945, and a young Naval officer was transferred that January to a post in Philadelphia after his tour in the South Pacific. He and his wife contemplated their post-war future. Richard and Pat Nixon also awaited the arrival of their first child.

In September of 1945, while still on the east coast, Richard Nixon received a letter from Herman Perry, a Whittier, California banker, inquiring: “Would you like to be a candidate for Congress on the Republican ticket in 1946? Jerry Voorhis expects to run. Registration is about fifty-fifty. The Republicans are gaining. Please air mail me your response if you are interested.”

The rest, as they say, is history—but none of it was a foregone conclusion.

The seat had been held since 1936 by Jerry Voorhis, a sometimes-New Deal—sometimes further left— Democrat, who had had long been covered by Franklin Roosevelt’s electoral coattails. He had made a career attacking insurance companies, oil companies, and banks—even going so far as to advocate the funneling of all profits from the Federal Reserve System into the Federal Government’s general revenues.

Nixon quickly sized up the situation and the offer and replied: “I feel very strongly that Jerry Voorhis can be beaten, and I’d welcome the opportunity to take a crack at him,” promising “an aggressive, vigorous campaign.”

In fact, Nixon made good on his word and took the fight to Voorhis in 1946. Facing a tough and effective speaker and campaigner, Voorhis was put on the defensive right from the start and never really figured out what to do. During debates with Nixon, one observer said that Voorhis, “pauses, breathes heavily, adjusts his glasses nervously with both hands, etc.,”—this was contrasted with Richard Nixon’s bold style and manner.

Of course, down through the years, the story of the 1946 campaign, as told by many Nixon detractors, has been that it was dirty and underhanded. But, as one biographer has written:

Politics is a rough occupation, and Voorhis had led a sheltered life. He should have seen Nixon coming and responded more effectively and promptly to his attacks… It was not an edifying example of clarity of political debate at its best, but it wasn’t the infamous prostitution of the political process that Nixon-haters have sold to a drooling posterity either.

On election night, Nixon basked in the glow of victory after winning 57% of the vote. He would regularly say over the remaining years of his life that every election win was special—but that first one always remained the most vivid and rewarding. He, Pat, and their nine-month old little baby girl, Tricia, were on their way to Washington, where they’d all (joined by little sister, Julie, less than two years later) live for 20 of the next 28 years.

In early 1947, as Richard Nixon began serving in Congress, he made his way to a debate in McKeesport, Pennsylvania. The subject was American labor, particularly the merits of the Taft-Hartley Bill. His opponent was also a former Naval officer, who had as well been elected in November of 1946—one of the few bright spots for the Democrats that otherwise discouraging night. His name was John F. Kennedy.

JFK would later concede that Nixon bested him that night. They left the stage, had dinner, and then shared a compartment on a train back to Washington talking into the morning hours about life, politics, the past, and the future. In fact, those two young men on a train, Nixon at 34 years of age, Kennedy not yet 30, would figure significantly in the future of the nation. They were young men in a hurry—part of a new generation of leaders.

These days we watch another class of young politicians testing the waters. John F. Kennedy, Jr. died tragically, long before we could ever see him run for office. His big sister, Caroline, made an awkward attempt to get Hillary Clinton’s vacated Senate seat, but never seemed to catch on—or up. Now the torch has been past to an even newer generation as Tricia’s son, Christopher, runs this year.

It will be very interesting to watch—and remember.

The New Nixon

January 28, 2010 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Congress, Republican Party, Richard Nixon | 4 Comments 

Like his grandfather, Christopher Nixon Cox, is challenging a five term Democratic member of the House of Representatives. Report courtesy of Eric Shawn from Fox News:

Related Stories:

Richard Nixon’s grandson will run for Congress By Eugene Kiely, USA Today

Richard Nixon’s Grandson, Chris Cox, Running for Congress By Christopher Weber, Politics Daily

Chris Cox: Nixon Grandson Running for Congress By Eric Shawn, Fox News

RN’s 1972 State of the Union Address

January 28, 2010 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Congress, Richard Nixon | Leave a Comment 

Thirty-Seven Years Ago Today: Peace With Honor

January 27, 2010 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under History, Richard Nixon | 1 Comment 

“The greatest honor history can bestow is the title of peacemaker.”

1.27.73

January 27, 2010 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under History, Nixon Administration, Nixon Administration figures, Pat Nixon, Richard Nixon, U.S. History, Vietnam | 1 Comment 

Thirty-seven years ago today, the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam  —popularly known as the Paris Peace Accords— was signed.

After four hard years, RN had achieved the peace with honor he had promised and was determined to achieve.

The tortuous negotiations that had begun under LBJ in 1968 finally ended on a Thursday afternoon in Paris when RN’s Secretary of State William P. Rogers and Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., Ambassador to South Vietnam and head of the US delegation, signed  the Paris Peace Accords.

The Vietnamese signatories were South Vietnamese Foreign Minister Tran Van Lam, North VIetnamese Foreign Minister Nguyen Duy Trinh, and Vietcong Foreign Minister Nguyen Thi Binh.

Secretary of State William P. Rogers signs the Paris Peace Accords.  The text of the Peace Accords can be read here.

When the news arrived, RN informed PN:

And, as he said he would, at 10 PM that night, he spoke to the nation from the Oval Office.  He began by describing the terms of the settlement, and reminding all parties that they must be observed and honored:

This will mean that the terms of the agreement must be scrupulously adhered to. We shall do everything the agreement requires of us, and we shall expect the other parties to do everything it requires of them. We shall also expect other interested nations to help insure that the agreement is carried out and peace is maintained.

RN thanked the American people for their support:

And finally, to all of you who are listening, the American people: Your steadfastness in supporting our insistence on peace with honor has made peace with honor possible. I know that you would not have wanted that peace jeopardized…..

The important thing was not to talk about peace, but to get peace–and to get the right kind of peace. This we have done.

Now that we have achieved an honorable agreement, let us be proud that America did not settle for a peace that would have betrayed our allies, that would have abandoned our prisoners of war, or that would have ended the war for us but would have continued the war for the 50 million people of Indochina. Let us be proud of the 2 1/2 million young Americans who served in Vietnam, who served with honor and distinction in one of the most selfless enterprises in the history of nations. And let us be proud of those who sacrificed, who gave their lives so that the people of South Vietnam might live in freedom and so that the world might live in peace.

At what must have been an intense moment of personal satisfaction, RN’s final words and thoughts were for his predecessor —Lyndon Johnson— who had died only days before.  Although he did not mention it in his speech, RN had made sure that LBJ was fully briefed about the progress of the talks, and that he died knowing peace was, truly, at hand.

Just yesterday, a great American, who once occupied this office, died. In his life, President Johnson endured the vilification of those who sought to portray him as a man of war. But there was nothing he cared about more deeply than achieving a lasting peace in the world.

I remember the last time I talked with him. It was just the day after New Year’s. He spoke then of his concern with bringing peace, with making it the right kind of peace, and I was grateful that he once again expressed his support for my efforts to gain such a peace. No one would have welcomed this peace more than he.

Pursuant to the terms of the Paris Peace Accords, in February 1973, the POWs returned home.

Address to the Nation Announcing Conclusion of an Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam

You can listen to the President’s speech here.

Good evening:

I have asked for this radio and television time tonight for the purpose of announcing that we today have concluded an agreement to end the war and bring peace with honor in Vietnam and in Southeast Asia.

The following statement is being issued at this moment in Washington and Hanoi:

At 12:30 Paris time today, January 23, 1973, the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam was initialed by Dr. Henry Kissinger on behalf of the United States, and Special Adviser Le Duc Tho on behalf of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

The agreement will be formally signed by the parties participating in the Paris Conference on Vietnam on January 27, 1973, at the International Conference Center in Paris.

The cease-fire will take effect at 2400 Greenwich Mean Time, January 27, 1973. The United States and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam express the hope that this agreement will insure stable peace in Vietnam and contribute to the preservation of lasting peace in Indochina and Southeast Asia.

That concludes the formal statement. Throughout the years of negotiations, we have insisted on peace with honor. In my addresses to the Nation from this room of January 25 and May 8 [1972], I set forth the goals that we considered essential for peace with honor.

In the settlement that has now been agreed to, all the conditions that I laid down then have been met:

A cease-fire, internationally supervised, will begin at 7 p.m., this Saturday, January 27, Washington time.

Within 60 days from this Saturday, all Americans held prisoners of war throughout Indochina will be released. There will be the fullest possible accounting for all of those who are missing in action.

During the same 60-day period, all American forces will be withdrawn from South Vietnam.

The people of South Vietnam have been guaranteed the right to determine their own future, without outside interference.

By joint agreement, the full text of the agreement and the protocol to carry it out will be issued tomorrow.

Throughout these negotiations we have been in the closest consultation with President Thieu and other representatives of the Republic of Vietnam. This settlement meets the goals and has the full support of President Thieu and the Government of the Republic of Vietnam, as well as that of our other allies who are affected.

The United States will continue to recognize the Government of the Republic of Vietnam as the sole legitimate government of South Vietnam.

We shall continue to aid South Vietnam within the terms of the agreement, and we shall support efforts by the people of South Vietnam to settle their problems peacefully among themselves.

We must recognize that ending the war is only the first step toward building the peace. All parties must now see to it that this is a peace that lasts, and also a peace that heals–and a peace that not only ends the war in Southeast Asia but contributes to the prospects of peace in the whole world.

This will mean that the terms of the agreement must be scrupulously adhered to. We shall do everything the agreement requires of us, and we shall expect the other parties to do everything it requires of them. We shall also expect other interested nations to help insure that the agreement is carried out and peace is maintained.

As this long and very difficult war ends, I would like to address a few special words to each of those who have been parties in the conflict.

First, to the people and Government of South Vietnam: By your courage, by your sacrifice, you have won the precious right to determine your own future, and you have developed the strength to defend that right. We look forward to working with you in the future–friends in peace as we have been allies in war.

To the leaders of North Vietnam: As we have ended the war through negotiations, let us now build a peace of reconciliation. For our part, we are prepared to make a major effort to help achieve that goal. But just as reciprocity was needed to end the war, so too will it be needed to build and strengthen the peace.

To the other major powers that have been involved even indirectly: Now is the time for mutual restraint so that the peace we have achieved can last.

And finally, to all of you who are listening, the American people: Your steadfastness in supporting our insistence on peace with honor has made peace with honor possible. I know that you would not have wanted that peace jeopardized. With our secret negotiations at the sensitive stage they were in during this recent period, for me to have discussed publicly our efforts to secure peace would not only have violated our understanding with North Vietnam, it would have seriously harmed and possibly destroyed the chances for peace. Therefore, I know that you now can understand why, during these past several weeks, I have not made any public statements about those efforts.

The important thing was not to talk about peace, but to get peace–and to get the right kind of peace. This we have done.

Now that we have achieved an honorable agreement, let us be proud that America did not settle for a peace that would have betrayed our allies, that would have abandoned our prisoners of war, or that would have ended the war for us but would have continued the war for the 50 million people of Indochina. Let us be proud of the 2 1/2 million young Americans who served in Vietnam, who served with honor and distinction in one of the most selfless enterprises in the history of nations. And let us be proud of those who sacrificed, who gave their lives so that the people of South Vietnam might live in freedom and so that the world might live in peace.

In particular, I would like to say a word to some of the bravest people I have ever met–the wives, the children, the families of our prisoners of war and the missing in action. When others called on us to settle on any terms, you had the courage to stand for the right kind of peace so that those who died and those who suffered would not have died and suffered in vain, and so that where this generation knew war, the next generation would know peace. Nothing means more to me at this moment than the fact that your long vigil is coming to an end.

Just yesterday, a great American, who once occupied this office, died. In his life, President Johnson endured the vilification of those who sought to portray him as a man of war. But there was nothing he cared about more deeply than achieving a lasting peace in the world.

I remember the last time I talked with him. It was just the day after New Year’s. He spoke then of his concern with bringing peace, with making it the right kind of peace, and I was grateful that he once again expressed his support for my efforts to gain such a peace. No one would have welcomed this peace more than he.

And I know he would join me in asking —for those who died and for those who live— let us consecrate this moment by resolving together to make the peace we have achieved a peace that will last. Thank you and good evening.

Robert Mosbacher 1927 – 2010

January 27, 2010 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under In Memoriam, Nixon Administration figures, Republican Party | Leave a Comment 

Robert Mosbacher  spearheaded the North American Free Trade Agreement as President George H.W.  Bush’s first Commerce Secretary.

Former Secretary of Commerce Robert Mosbacher died on Sunday. He was 83.

After growing up and attending college in the Northeast, he joined his father in the energy business in Texas, later diversifying his family’s fortune in ranching, real estate and banking.

While in Texas, he met the elder President Bush and helped finance his successful Congressional bid in 1966.

In 1976, he rose to become Finance Chair for Gerald Ford’s campaign and was considered a Vice Presidential candidate for Ronald Reagan in 1980. He would eventually reach the post of Commerce Secretary for President Bush in 1989 spearheading the creation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

He most recently served as the General Chairman of Sen. John McCain’s run for the Oval Office in 2008.

Mosbacher was also an avid yatchsman, winning gold medals in world championship competitions throughout the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties. In 1959, he landed on the cover of Sports Illustrated with his brother Bus, who served as Chief of Protocol for the State Department during the Nixon Administration.

Our thoughts and prayers are with wife Michele and his family.

Robert Mosbacher (left) and his brother Bus (right), Chief of Protocol for the State Department during the Nixon Administration, landed on the cover of Sport Illustrated as the Kings of Class Boat Sailors.

RN As Obama’s Muse

January 26, 2010 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under National Archives, Richard Nixon | Leave a Comment 

At The Washington Post, Walter Pincus comments on the National Archives recent release of 280,000 pages worth of documents by highlighting a 30 page memo from RN to his staff after the 1970 midterm elections. The document reflects a President entrenched in policy matters and with an acute awareness of how his actions would be perceived by the general public. Shrewd and reflective thinking President Obama can learn from — Pincus believes — as his high political hopes hang in the balance after last week’s surprise GOP victory in Massachusetts:

“In the final analysis, elections are not won or lost by programs. They are won or lost on how these programs are presented to the country, and how all the political and public relations considerations are handled.”

That could have been President Obama after the Massachusetts special Senate election last Tuesday. But President Richard M. Nixon wrote those words to his White House chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, on Nov. 22, 1970, commenting on staff memos he received about “problems ahead” as they looked forward to his reelection effort, then two years away. The 30-page memo was among the 280,000 pages of documents from the Nixon Library released last week.

With all his flaws, Nixon was a cunning politician, and his newly available memos should be required reading in the Obama White House, which is nervously looking at its first midterm election in November. Obama appears to be considering what Nixon recognized almost 40 years ago — that the public wants a “hardworking president” and also one “who is a courageous, bold leader who will step up and hit the hard ones.”

Nixon in the Navy

January 24, 2010 by Jack Pitney | Filed Under History, Military, Richard Nixon | 5 Comments 

A post at the left-wing Common Dreams rails against President Obama for not being liberal enough.  It says of the Democratic Party:  “It’s the same party that could run a decorated combat hero against a war evader in 1972, only to be successfully labeled as national security wimps.” 

RN a war evader?  As a birthright Quaker, he could have stayed out of World War II.  But he enlisted in the Navy.  The official history of his service says:

Following his appointment, Nixon began aviation indoctrination training at the Naval Training School, Naval Air Station in Quonset Point, Rhode Island. After completing the course in October 1942, he went to the Naval Reserve Aviation Base in Ottumwa, Iowa, where he served as Aide to the Executive Officer until May 1943. Looking for more excitement, Nixon volunteered for sea duty and reported to Commander Air Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet where he was assigned as Officer in Charge of the South Pacific Combat Air Transport Command [SCAT] at Guadalcanal in the Solomons and later at Green Island. His unit prepared manifests and flight plans for C-47 operations and supervised the loading and unloading of the cargo aircraft. For this service he received a Letter of Commendation from the Commander South Pacific Area and South Pacific Force for “meritorious and efficient performance of duty as Officer in Charge of the South Pacific Combat Air Transport Command… ” On 1 October 1943, Nixon was promoted to lieutenant.

In the first volume of his Nixon biography, Stephen Ambrose wrote:

In January 1944, Nixon’s small SCAT detachment moved forward, to Bougainville, in the Solomon Islands.  The airfield on the island had fallen to American forces only two months earlier and was within striking distance of the great Japanese base at Rabaul.  Japanese bombers attacked regularly — and in his first month on the island, Nixon’s unit was bombed twenty-eight nights out of thirty.

Watch The Domestic Council Live On C-SPAN 3

January 24, 2010 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Domestic issues, Richard Nixon | 2 Comments 

Update 11/26/2010, 9:11 pm PST: A permanent video of the Domestic Policy forum is now available at C-SPAN.org.

The first of a year-long series of Richard Nixon Legacy forums, The Domestic Policy Initiatives of the Nixon Years  is now on C-SPAN 3 and streaming live online at C-SPAN.org. It will air again at 4:35 pm and 10:35 pm PST, and tomorrow at 4:35 am PST.

State of the Union

January 24, 2010 by Jack Pitney | Filed Under Barack Obama, Richard Nixon | 1 Comment 

Today’s Washington Post digs into oral histories to find speechwriters’ reflections on the State of the Union.  From RN speechwriter Lee Huebner:

I think it’s a schizophrenic speech. On the one hand, it’s an administrative tool, it’s a way of managing the government . . . of defining priorities, of getting input from every bureau and agency. . . . It all comes together and then gets mashed into an overlong, often very dull speech. . . .

On the other hand, it’s a state occasion — it’s become a great ceremony. I think this happened mainly when Lyndon Johnson decided to move it from noon until evening . . . in 1965. And suddenly, instead of the kind of speech for the well-informed people who follow government closely, it became a speech for the general public. Presidents have felt the demand to make it an uplifting, ceremonial, rhetorical success, and these two objectives, I think, clash.

Reportedly, President Obama’s theme will be a “new foundation,” a phrase that he has already used many times.  “The New Foundation” was the theme of Jimmy Carter’s 1979 State of the Union (not an auspicious sign).  Other presidents also used the phrase in various speeches and documents.  In 1973, for instance, RN said the the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks: “No decision of this magnitude could have been taken unless it was part of a broader commitment to place relations on a new foundation of restraint, cooperation, and steadily evolving confidence.”

There is no constitutional requirement that the president present the State of the Union as a speech.  In 1973, RN took up the pre-Wilson practice of delivering it in writing, as one of a series of messages.  In 1974, he delivered his last State of the Union in person.

Another View of RN At The 1959 NFL Championship Game

January 23, 2010 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under News media, Presidents, Richard Nixon, Sports | 3 Comments 

Last month I posted about a Baltimore Sun article reminiscing about the 1959 NFL championship game, in which the Baltimore Colts, playing on their home turf at Memorial Stadium, bested the New York Giants 31-16, one year after the Colts’s spectacular defeat of the Giants in New York in overtime. The article noted the presence of Vice President Nixon at the game and a spectator’s suggestion that a ticket comprising Colts quarterback Johnny Unitas and RN would be a great bet for 1960.

Here’s a column that appeared a week or so after the game in the San Francisco Chronicle by the late Charles McCabe, in which he remarks:

I knew the Veep when he was an inconspicuous Congressman from Whittier, and I was an inconspicuous Washington correspondent. In those days, before he hitched his wagon to the pumpkin in the Alger Hiss case, the Veep was an earnest, humorless freshman Congressman. He was known in the House Press Gallery as “The Boy Scout.”

He was a great talker, even then. I recall him talking on many subjects, but never sports. The last time I saw him was last summer, when he visited San Francisco. He was a changed man. His first question on getting off his plane, was: “Are the Senators still in the cellar?” And the funny thing is, he really knows sports. Funnier yet, he is one of those rare birds who is equally nuts and equally informed about baseball and football.

It is remarkable, is it not, the way public life enlarges a man’s horizons?

Lee Huebner On The State Of The Union Addresses

January 23, 2010 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Congress, Presidents, Richard Nixon, U.S. History | Leave a Comment 

The Washington Post has an article in which White House speechwriters, going back four decades, talk about the way in which Presidents have approached the annual State Of The Union address before Congress. In it, Lee Huebner of George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs, who was deputy director of the White House speechwriting staff during President Nixon’s administration, points out that the speech was not always a high-visibility event, in terms of a nationwide audience:

it’s a state occasion — it’s become a great ceremony. I think this happened mainly when Lyndon Johnson decided to move it from noon until evening . . . in 1965. And suddenly, instead of the kind of speech for the well-informed people who follow government closely, it became a speech for the general public. Presidents have felt the demand to make it an uplifting, ceremonial, rhetorical success, and these two objectives, I think, clash.

“Nixon In China” On Bowie’s iPod

January 23, 2010 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under China, Music, Presidents, Richard Nixon | Leave a Comment 

Over in the UK, the Guardian has a short article by David Bowie in which the onetime Ziggy Stardust and Thin White Duke describes some of the contents of his iPod. His selections, as is usually the case with him, are eclectic, ranging from current rock bands to African pop to the avant-garde disco of the late Arthur Russell. He includes one operatic selection, from John Adams’s 1987 opera Nixon In China, which in March will receive its Canadian premiere courtesy of the Vancouver Opera.

A Time For Tempered Temper?

January 23, 2010 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under American Politics, Culture, Political Philosophy, Politics, Republican Party, Richard Nixon | 3 Comments 

In case you haven’t heard, this just in—Americans are angry. In fact, many are mad as hell, and they apparently aren’t going to take “it” anymore. Whatever “it” is, it is certainly not good news for current elected officials, no matter what the party affiliation (though, admittedly, it is slightly worse news for Democrats).

There is restlessness across the land, the kind that fuels turbulence in the body politic. Presidential Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs, used the term “anger” several times this past week in his remarks about the recent loss of the once-thought-mega-safe Senate seat of the late Edward M. Kennedy.

But is being angry enough to create constructive solutions to the problems that so easily beset the nation?

Taking a cue from something Winston Churchill once said in another context: Anger may be “a good starter, but it is a bad sticker.” In other words, there is a down side to un-tempered temper.

Now, before you dismiss this essay as short on conviction and insufficiently caustic for any authentic political conservative, hear me out. I share the current capacity and taste for outrage—politically and culturally. Beginning with the final years of the Bush administration, and accelerating at breakneck speed last year with the dawn of the age of Obama, we have borne witness to a steady erosion of conservative values, fiscal as well as social.

And I very much believe that recent elections in Virginia, New Jersey, and now Massachusetts, are a clear and notable reaction to the resurgence of big government-ism. The election of 2008, though a watershed moment in the sense of breaking an important barrier, is turning out not to be a mandate to govern from the far left, after all.

I mean, seriously—could there be any stronger hint that Americans don’t actually want the whole cap-and-trade, sweeping healthcare reform en route to socialized medicine, and a kinder-gentler you-have-the-right-to-remain-silent approach to those who are inclined to blow all of us up in the name of Islamism, than to have the forever-blue Ted Kennedy seat in the Senate turn several shades of Republican red?

Think of the imagery. It was, in a real sense, Ted Kennedy’s endorsement of Barack Obama just about two years ago that became the catalyst for the momentum leading to the Illinois Senator’s ultimately victory over front-runner Hillary Clinton for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. And Mr. Kennedy’s funeral last year became a obvious and awkwardly inappropriate rally for healthcare reform, turning the last lion into a Gipper of sorts.

So losing Teddy’s seat is a big deal on steroids.

This is where the Churchill-ism I referred to earlier—about anger being a good “starter” but not a good “sticker” comes in. The kind of anger we are hearing about and actually seeing has been sufficient to create electoral seismicity, but there is a case to be made that ire itself is not enough to effectuate lasting change.

In other words, anger may be a good place to start, but it is a horrible place to stay.

We should all should bear in mind that anger has throughout history been categorized as a serious, even deadly evil. Anger is impulsive and impatient. It can provide the spark to get a transformative engine started, but what it unleashes can sometimes turn ugly—especially if performance doesn’t match promise. Mr. Obama and his supporters are learning this lesson right now.

And if conservatives who have leveraged current political dissatisfaction into electoral triumph don’t deliver constructive and effective policies, they’ll feel the backlash sooner as opposed to later. There is no time for end-zone antics—the game is far from over.

While I find myself very glad that some who share my vision and values have recently been successful, I also am concerned that the angry mood in America—if not relieved somehow (ideally by reasonable policies involving a much more limited approach to government)—may lead to a period of political instability.

Anger can be a good thing—in small doses. Even the scripture says, “Be angry and sin not.” But we are also reminded not to let the sun go down on our wrath. Why? Because of all the great “sins,” anger is the easiest to rationalize. It is subtle and comforting. We feel right in being mad, or as we might prefer to call it, “righteously indignant.” But at some point anger must be put aside, jettisoned into the sea like an exhausted booster rocket, and wisdom and reasonableness must provide thrust thereafter. Prolonged and sustained anger is always toxic and destructive. Indignation, to be ultimately vindicated, can and must be transformed into positive and constructive action.

Of course, my views on this are rooted in scripture. But I learned long ago that unresolved and unrestrained anger becomes a breeding ground for bigger problems. Parents are admonished not to “provoke” children to wrath. Why? Because angry kids are more prone to get into other kinds of trouble. In fact, anger is a co-factor in most anti-social behavior.

And in a sense, it’s the same with politics. People voted out of anger in 2008. People voted out of anger in 2009. Now it has happened in 2010, and likely will again later this year. But it is not sufficient to be mad enough to throw the old people out. The new people must have a plan. Conservatives have an opportunity right now, a moment in time, not just to take seats and jobs away from those more liberal, but also to offer a compelling vision for the future.

Ronald Reagan was successful because he was a conservative who, while having the capacity for anger, knew that you caught more flies with honey than with vinegar. He wasn’t mean or ugly, brooding or negative—with him it was “morning in America,” not two minutes before midnight.

Richard Nixon’s highly effective campaign in 1966, during those off-year elections, is one that should be examined by Republican strategists and tacticians right now. He instinctively understood the anger in the nation at the time, but recognized that merely tapping into anger was not nearly enough to get anything worthwhile done. He emerged as someone seasoned and sage, a youngish elder statesman. And it paid off politically.

No one understood the practicalities of politics like Mr. Nixon.

I am not advocating a revival of phrases like “kinder-gentler” or even “compassionate conservatism,” but any resurgence of tough-minded authentic—even enlightened—conservatism in this country needs to have a congenial tone to match its populist bent.

Remembering Rose Woods

January 22, 2010 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under American Politics, In Memoriam, Nixon Administration figures, Nixon family, Pat Nixon, Richard Nixon, U.S. History | Leave a Comment 

Rose Mary Woods died five years ago today, on 22 January 2005.

“Those who didn’t know her might think her life was all about a gap on a tape.  How wrong they would be.”  Rose Mary Woods at her desk in her office in the West Wing in 1974.  She was born in Sebring, Ohio, on the day before Christmas in 1917 and died five years ago today in 2005.

Back in the days before everyone was an assistant, when being a secretary was a serious and important vocation, Rose Woods was the epitome —the ne plus ultra— of the executive secretary.  Her resume may have highlighted  her phenomenal typing and dictation speeds, but that was only the technical basis for the pivotal role she came to play in RN’s life and career.  The keenness of her intelligence was matched by the acuity of her insight — into people and events and issues.  And the fierceness of her loyalty was matched by an innate integrity that was anchored by the depth of her Catholic faith.

Rose was an intensely private person — and the life of every party.  She had a lively sense of personal style and a sly sense of humor.  And there is no question that she would have knocked out all the competition if she had appeared on So You Think You Can Dance.

Rose Mary Woods with Senator Nixon in 1952 and in the late 1960s.

Rose first met RN in 1947 when she was working for the Herter Committee of congressmen that went to Europe to examine post-war conditions; their recommendations played a large part in shaping the Marshall Plan.  Tasked with preparing all the members’ expenses, she was impressed by the young newcomer from California’s 12th District because he was the only one who submitted meticulously kept records with all the relevant receipts and documents already attached.  The impression she made on him was equally strong, and when he was elected to the Senate in 1950, he asked her to join his staff as his private secretary.  Thus began an association and a friendship that lasted for the next five decades.

RN’s early staffs — in the House and Senate and then in the Vice President’s office — were blessed with talented and dedicated secretaries.  Dottie Cox Donnelley started with him in the House in ‘47.  On the Senate staff, Rose was joined, in May ‘51, by Marje Acker, who became her secretary, and, in July, by Loie Gaunt.  Others followed, including P J Everts, Gladys Hook, Betty McVey McCarthy, Rita and Jane Dannenhauer, and Doris Jones Forward.  Today Loie Gaunt is the Assistant Secretary Treasurer of the Nixon Foundation’s Board.  She and Marje Acker are long-time members of the Foundation’s President’s Council.  Loie and Marje, along with the Dannenhauer sisters and Doris Forward have plans to attend the Library’s 20th Anniversary celebrations in July.

At Rose’s Memorial Service, held at the Nixon Library, one of the eulogists was her friend and secretary, Marje Acker.  (Imagine how good you have to be to be the secretary to one of the world’s great secretaries.)

REMEMBERING ROSE

by Marje Acker

Marje Acker and Rose Mary Woods in Rose’s West Wing office.

The most important day of my life turned out to be May 1, 1951.

Two and a half months earlier, I had left my home in Portland, Oregon to take a GS-3 clerk-typist job at the State Department.  When I heard about a secretarial opening on the staff of the junior Senator from California, I summoned all my courage, applied for the job, and was hired.

My first morning on the job, I was shown to my desk right across the aisle from Richard Nixon’s secretary, Rose Mary Woods.

I will never forget her welcoming smile and her high-heeled, ankle-strap shoes.  Almost immediately we developed a strong, enduring friendship.  Soon I was lucky enough to become her secretary, a post I held during all my years on Richard Nixon’s staff.

Rose was a bright, politically savvy, red-headed Irish Catholic from Ohio, with a wonderful sense of humor, great empathy for people, and impeccable integrity.  In reading articles about her recent death, those who didn’t know her might think her life was all about a gap on a tape.  How wrong they would be.

To colleagues, friends and family, she was the very best friend you could ever have.  She always had time to listen and offer advice if you had a problem.  She made you feel you were the most important person in the world to her.

She was a role model and mentor for all of us.

We had such a close working relationship — we both were fast typists, could work under pressure, thrive on little sleep, read each other’s shorthand, confide in and trust each other, laugh and cry together.

The hours were long as we raced against the clock to get speeches finished on time, respond to tons of correspondence, make innumerable lists for events, gifts, and thank-you letters, field and place phone calls, and manage schedules.  And yet as I look back on my association with Rose, I’m amazed we were able to fit in just as many good times and laughs.

In 1957, shortly before Phil Acker and I married, he had to go to Washington on San Diego city business.  I asked him to be sure to meet Rose and take her to dinner, which he did.  Phil knew that I valued Rose’s opinion so much that he later speculated —not entirely without foundation— that if Rose had not approved of him, I might not have married him.

So Rose was much more than a secretary to Richard Nixon.  She also was a dear friend of the family and was cited in articles as “the fifth Nixon.”  After the 1968 election, she was the first person the President named to his White House staff.

Rose was also close to her own family.  I don’t think a week passed that she didn’t find time to call her parents…..

The epitome of thoughtfulness, Rose also made sure the Boss had his bases covered.

When the Nixons and the staff were in Key Biscayne one year, the President and the First Lady invited us for dinner just prior to returning to Washington.  Afterward, Rose took the President aside and told him it was my birthday.

Soon after Air Force One was aloft, I was told the President wanted to see me in his cabin.  Waiting with him was Pat and the whole staff, complete with a birthday cake.  I never did figure out how they had found a cake late on a Sunday evening at a moment’s notice!

Inspired by Rose, we had such fun planning a 25^th wedding anniversary party for Bette and Don Hughes, as well as surprise parties for the promotions of General Hughes, one of RN’s military aides, and the President’s doctor, General Walter Tkach.

I can remember just one time we were able to surprise her — a party to mark her 20^th anniversary as the President’s secretary.  During the weeks of planning we had to talk in code lest she find out.  That day we all wore big campaign buttons saying “Rose Woods for President” — a job she might well have been able to handle.

Of course there were sad times as well.

On election night in 1962, when RN ran for California governor, all of us, including Rose, were up all night.  I will never forget the Boss coming into the staff room the next morning and individually thanking each of us for our help and saying how sorry he was he had let us down.

During the dark, ugly days of Watergate, Rose and I tried to find little things to relieve the pressure.  We had signs on our desk reading Illegetimi non carborundum — “don’t let the bastards get you down!”

So many memories..…in California on a beautiful summer day, driving in her convertible with the top down to Malibu for a couple of hours walking on the beach…..our walks to the Tidal Basin on a spring day in Washington to see the pansy garden…..walking around Camp David between speech drafts…..being together for campaigns, elections, and inaugurations, was well as the dedication of the Nixon Library and the funerals of Mrs. Nixon and the President.

Rose Mary Woods will always be cherished and loved and remembered by her family and the innumerable friends and colleagues who had the privilege of knowing her.

Rose Mary Woods with Vice President Nixon in the Senate Lobby in 1953, and with PN aboard the campaign plane during the 1968 presidential campaign.   (1953 photo by Arthur Schatz, 1968 photo by Hank Walker, both for LIFE magazine.)

1.22.70

January 22, 2010 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under American Politics, Congress, Environmental issues, Nixon Administration, Political Philosophy, Presidents, Richard Nixon, U.S. History | Leave a Comment 

Forty years ago today —on 22 January 1970— RN delivered his first State of the Union Message to a Joint Session of Congress.  The year before, the outgoing, diminished LBJ had delivered an elegiac, wistful SOTU describing what might have been and how he hoped he would be remembered.

RN had used 1969 to organize and consolidate, and his 1970 SOTU —which is my favorite among the several notable speeches he gave as POTUS— concisely conveys the sense of confidence, energy, enthusiasm, innovation, and equanimity that characterized his first term, and particularly its approach to domestic issues.  The speech was beautifully written, and the delivery combined equal parts of buoyancy and gravitas as RN simply but eloquently sketched his vision of a new America for a new decade — and challenged Americans to join him in making that vision real.

Although the Congress had failed to act on any of his legislative proposals to date, the speech to “my colleagues in the Congress” was marked by the tone of respect, conciliation, and cooperation that characterized the beginning of his administration.

To address a joint session of the Congress in this great chamber in which I was once privileged to serve is an honor for which I am deeply grateful.

After the bitter divisiveness of the 1960s, the new President held out the possibility of turning a corner together:

The State of the Union address is traditionally an occasion for a lengthy and detailed account by the President of what he has accomplished in the past, what he wants the Congress to do in the future, and, in an election year, to lay the basis for the political issues which might be decisive in the fall.

Occasionally there comes a time when profound and far-reaching events command a break with tradition. This is such a time.

I say this not only because 1970 marks the beginning of a new decade in which America will celebrate its 200th birthday. I say it because new knowledge and hard experience argue persuasively that both our programs and our institutions in America need to be reformed.

The moment has arrived to harness the vast energies and abundance of this land to the creation of a new American experience, an experience richer and deeper and more truly a reflection of the goodness and grace of the human spirit.

The ’70s will be a time of new beginnings, a time of exploring both on the earth and in the heavens, a time of discovery. But the time has also come for emphasis on developing better ways of managing what we have and of completing what man’s genius has begun but left unfinished.

Our land, this land that is ours together, is a great and a good land. It is also an unfinished land, and the challenge of perfecting it is the summons of the ’70s.

RN said that the first and most important national priority was peace and an end to the war in Vietnam.  At this point, the new President was still confident that his determination to negotiate an equitable settlement would end the war this year.  His undiminished optimism is reflected in his words; he had not yet accepted that the enemy wasn’t interested in negotiating anything; that their non-negotiable terms involved a unilateral US withdrawal combined with an overthrow of the Thieu government.

He outlined the basic points of the Nixon Doctrine he had announced at Guam in July ’69 — that America would continue to provide military aid and supplies to our allies, but that they would be expected to provide the manpower for their own defense that it expected its allies to assume responsibility for providing the manpower for their own defense— and said that foreign policy would be the subject of a separate paper.

Moving on to the domestic front —the State of the Union— RN discussed the economic imbalances that had been created by several years of unrestrained spending.  The solution for such problems was clear: restrain spending and balance budgets.

But in this speech, RN was thinking far more broadly and boldly.

I now turn to a subject which, next to our desire for peace, may well become the major concern of the American people in the decade of the seventies.

In the next 10 years we shall increase our wealth by 50 percent. The profound question is: Does this mean we will be 50 percent richer in a real sense, 50 percent better off, 50 percent happier?

Or does it mean that in the year 1980 the President standing in this place will look back on a decade in which 70 percent of our people lived in metropolitan areas choked by traffic, suffocated by smog, poisoned by water, deafened by noise, and terrorized by crime?

These are not the great questions that concern world leaders at summit conferences. But people do not live at the summit. They live in the foothills of everyday experience, and it is time for all of us to concern ourselves with the way real people live in real life.

The great question of the seventies is, shall we surrender to our surroundings, or shall we make our peace with nature and begin to make reparations for the damage we have done to our air, to our land, and to our water?

Restoring nature to its natural state is a cause beyond party and beyond factions. It has become a common cause of all the people of this country. It is a cause of particular concern to young Americans, because they more than we will reap the grim consequences of our failure to act on programs which are needed now if we are to prevent disaster later.

Clean air, clean water, open spaces—these should once again be the birthright of every American. If we act now, they can be.

We still think of air as free. But clean air is not free, and neither is clean water. The price tag on pollution control is high. Through our years of past carelessness we incurred a debt to nature, and now that debt is being called.

The program I shall propose to Congress will be the most comprehensive and costly program in this field in America’s history.

It is not a program for just one year. A year’s plan in this field is no plan at all. This is a time to look ahead not a year, but five years or 10 years—whatever time is required to do the job.

Thus RN put his mark on the emerging issue of the environment — and challenged the Congress (the same Congress he had already gently chastised for inaction at different points during the speech) to join him on a decade-long commitment to reclaiming America’s natural heritage.

The program I shall propose to Congress will be the most comprehensive and costly program in this field in America’s history.

It is not a program for just one year. A year’s plan in this field is no plan at all. This is a time to look ahead not a year, but 5 years or 10 years–whatever time is required to do the job.

I shall propose to this Congress a $10 billion nationwide clean waters program to put modern municipal waste treatment plants in every place in America where they are needed to make our waters clean again, and do it now. We have the industrial capacity, if we begin now, to build them all within 5 years. This program will get them built within 5 years.

As our cities and suburbs relentlessly expand, those priceless open spaces needed for recreation areas accessible to their people are swallowed up–often forever. Unless we preserve these spaces while they are still available, we will have none to preserve. Therefore, I shall propose new financing methods for purchasing open space and parklands now, before they are lost to us.

The automobile is our worst polluter of the air. Adequate control requires further advances in engine design and fuel composition. We shall intensify our research, set increasingly strict standards, and strengthen enforcement procedures-and we shall do it now.

We can no longer afford to consider air and water common property, free to be abused by anyone without regard to the consequences. Instead, we should begin now to treat them as scarce resources, which we are no more free to contaminate than we are free to throw garbage into our neighbor’s yard.

This requires comprehensive new regulations. It also requires that, to the extent possible, the price of goods should be made to include the costs of producing and disposing of them without damage to the environment.

Now, I realize that the argument is often made that there is a fundamental contradiction between economic growth and the quality of life, so that to have one we must forsake the other.

The answer is not to abandon growth, but to redirect it. For example, we should turn toward ending congestion and eliminating smog the same reservoir of inventive genius that created them in the first place.

Continued vigorous economic growth provides us with the means to enrich life itself and to enhance our planet as a place hospitable to man.

The speech’s peroration and conclusion deserve quotation in full:

Two hundred years ago this was a new nation of 3 million people, weak militarily, poor economically. But America meant something to the world then which could not be measured in dollars, something far more important than military might.

Listen to President Thomas Jefferson in 1802: We act not “for ourselves alone, but for the whole human race.”

We had a spiritual quality then which caught the imagination of millions of people in the world.

Today, when we are the richest and strongest nation in the world, let it not be recorded that we lack the moral and spiritual idealism which made us the hope of the world at the time of our birth.

The demands of us in 1976 are even greater than in 1776.

It is no longer enough to live and let live. Now we must live and help live.

We need a fresh climate in America, one in which a person can breathe freely and breathe in freedom.

Our recognition of the truth that wealth and happiness are not the same thing requires us to measure success or failure by new criteria.

Even more than the programs I have described today, what this Nation needs is an example from its elected leaders in providing the spiritual and moral leadership which no programs for material progress can satisfy.

Above all, let us inspire young Americans with a sense of excitement, a sense of destiny, a sense of involvement, in meeting the challenges we face in this great period of our history. Only then are they going to have any sense of satisfaction in their lives.

The greatest privilege an individual can have is to serve in a cause bigger than himself. We have such a cause.

How we seize the opportunities I have described today will determine not only our future, but the future of peace and freedom in this world in the last third of the century.

May God give us the wisdom, the strength and, above all, the idealism to be worthy of that challenge, so that America can fulfill its destiny of being the world’s best hope for liberty, for opportunity, for progress and peace for all peoples.

It has become conventional wisdom that RN actually had little interest in the environment, and that his proposals were principally intended to outflank his political opponents on their left.  Whether this is true or not —or whatever elements of truth it may contain— it is an easy copout to hold harmless the  many,  in Congress and the media and the academy, who were more interested in having the environment as a stick with which to beat the President than as a legislative program that could begin to address the problem.  If RN is to be criticized for bluffing, there should be no less criticism for those who failed to call his bluff.

In fact, the Nixon administration’s environmental record —which started from scratch— has lately been acknowledged as impressive and important.  RN established the Environmental Protection Agency and signed the landmark Clean Air Act.  He signed the Coastal Zone Management Act; the Ocean Dumping Act; the Marine Mammal Protection Act; the Federal Insecticide, Fungide, Rodenticide Act; and the Toxic Substances Control Act.   In his 1971 SOTU speech he proposed his Legacy of Parks program.  At the end of 1973 he signed the Endangered Species act; and he supported the Safe Drinking Water Act that was signed by President Ford at the end of 1974.

RN’s first term was one of the most efficient, innovative, and effective periods of presidential leadership — four years when everything seemed possible and many things were accomplished.   The 1970 SOTU is a memory and a microcosm of the spirit that animated the the Nixon administration 1969-1972.  It commands respect.  It deserves attention.

You can see and hear RN deliver this seminal 1970 SOTU message here.

President Nixon, Doctor Letton And The War On Cancer

January 21, 2010 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Domestic issues, Healthcare, Richard Nixon | 1 Comment 

The former President of the American Cancer Society, Dr. Alva Hamblin Letton died last week at the age of 93. He was present and gave remarks at President Nixon’s signing of the National Cancer Act on December 23, 1971.

Dr. James Cavanaugh spoke about RN’s early efforts at health care reform at the Nixon Library earlier this month. His presentation was part of a panel of key White House officials who helped spearhead the President’s domestic policy initiatives, the first topic in a year long series of Richard Nixon Legacy Forums.

“I think for people who follow health issues, who follow health policy, who follow the history of healthcare programs in this country,” RN’s legacy “will be fairly good.” Cavanaugh said. “People who realistically look at what his program had look at it favorably.”

One of those people was Dr. Alva Hamblin Letton, who passed away last week at 93.

As President of the American Cancer Society, he was present at the White House on December 23, 1971 when RN signed the National Cancer Act.

Dr. Letton called the legislation “the greatest thing ever done by the United States,” and expressed his deepest appreciation that the President made the fight against cancer a national priority.

“That was an important piece of legislation because it established regional cancer centers,” current ACS CEO Dr. John Seffrin says, “In 1971, there were none; now there are more than 40, and Emory will have the first one in the state of Georgia.”

Here is the video of the signing followed by Dr. Letton’s remarks:

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