Nixon's Secret (81 page)

In 2013, Hillary would show her disdain for Nixon in a discussion with an all-woman group over a glass of wine at a restaurant and tavern, La Jardin Du Roi, near her palatial home in Chappaqua. “The IRS targeting the Tea Party, the Justice Department’s seizure of AP phone records and [Fox reporter] James Rosen’s e-mails—all these scandals. Obama’s allowed his hatred for his enemies to screw him the way Nixon did,” Hillary said.

During one trip to Moscow, Nixon had a meeting and long discussions with Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev. When he came back to the United States, Nixon reported to President Ronald Reagan in a long and detailed memorandum to explain his findings and to offer his suggestions for future diplomatic relations between America and the Soviet Union. Reagan depended on Nixon’s experience and knowledge of world matters.
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Nixon wrote in his memoirs, “I felt that the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union would probably be the single most important factor in determining whether the world would live at peace during and after my administration. I felt that we had allowed ourselves to get in a disadvantageous position vis-à-vis the Soviets.”

* * *

The story of Richard Millhous Nixon ended where it began—in Yorba Linda, California—the city where he was born and where he was laid to rest. The thought of being buried in his birth town, near his childhood home, kept him grounded.

He often reminisced about how great it was to grow up in the small Orange County, California, town. He felt fortunate to have lived his younger years there. When he had to make the decision of where his presidential library and museum would be located, there was nothing to ponder. In his mind, it was always going to be Yorba Linda, although some aides tried to convince him to build it closer to his La Casa Pacifica residence in San Clemente, but Nixon knew that he would not own the coastal estate forever. For him, Yorba Linda was the obvious choice for his presidential museum and library.

Between 1984 and 1990, the Nixon Foundation raised $26 million in private funds to develop the library and museum site. He wanted to build it next door to the small wooden farmhouse that his father built and where the future president had discovered his passion for politics. The Nixon Foundation is a nonprofit institution that was formed by the former president to fund the construction of his library and to educate the public about the life, legacy, and times of the thirty-seventh president of the United States. The library was dedicated on July 19, 1990, with the help of three US presidents who served after Nixon who were there to honor the ex-president.

“What you will see here, among other things, is a personal life,” Nixon said at the dedication ceremony. “The influence of a strong family, of inspirational ministers, of great teachers. You will see a political life, running for Congress, running for the Senate, running for governor, running for president three times. And you will see the life of a great nation, 77 years of it—a period in which we had unprecedented progress for the United States. And you will see great leaders, leaders who changed the world, who helped make the world what we have today.”

Inside the museum, the tour began with a timeline of Nixon’s family history and accomplishments then proceeded to show the ex-president, as he was—a complicated, introverted, determined politician and statesman. Critics claimed the depiction of Nixon’s life and legacy were one-sided and minimized the mistakes of Watergate while emphasizing Nixon’s accomplishment’s in the foreign and domestic realm. Each year, the library and museum features domestic and foreign policy conferences, educational classes for schools, town meetings, editorial forums, and a full schedule of highly acclaimed authors and speakers who discuss government, media, politics, and public affairs.

The museum and library were originally designed, developed, and operated by the private Nixon Foundation, but it is now administered by the National Archives. The exhibits became much more “balanced” once the National Archives took control in 2007.

The takeover of the presidential library by the National Archives added a lot of content to the museum and library, but it also changed the tone of the exhibits. There is now much more attention to the negative side of Nixon’s career than what the presidential library initially displayed when Nixon’s family and friends were running it. I think the dispute over content will be a constant and ongoing battle between the Nixon family and the National Archives.

The nine-acre library and museum grounds contain the birthplace and restored childhood home of Richard Nixon, a 3-D walk-through display of twenty-two separate informational galleries, each showcasing a separate part of the president’s life. There are interactive theaters, a “First Lady’s” garden, a full-sized replica of the East Room of the White House and a high-tech performing arts center for stage performances and educational seminars. There is also a replica of the Lincoln sitting room and the presidential office—all of which are overlooking a large reflecting pool that is surrounded by an outdoor ceremonial pavilion.

Nixon’s helicopter is also on display. Marine One (also known as Army One if Army pilots are in command of the rotorcraft) has been painstakingly restored to its original condition, as it was when it was in service as the presidential helicopter. It’s the same helicopter that Nixon used on more than 180 trips while serving as president, and then used one last time when he was no longer commander in chief so he could fly home to sunny California, by way of Andrew’s Air Force base, in Maryland. On departure, he boarded the helicopter on the White House south lawn then raised his arms in the victory position, waved to the crowd a fond farewell, and disappeared into the belly of the aircraft.

The sixteen-passenger “Sea King” helicopter was used in past administrations by President Kennedy, President Johnson, and President Ford, who all used this same presidential helicopter as their primary mode of airborne transport while in Washington. It’s a significant piece of aviation history, appropriately placed on permanent display on the grounds of the Nixon museum.

Surprisingly not among the exhibits is the presidential limousine 100-X, which President Kennedy was shot in. Johnson had ordered the limo cleaned inside and out within hours of Kennedy’s death and then had it shipped on November 25 to Detroit for “refurbishment.”

Nixon himself would order the car repainted and used it extensively during his presidency.

Nixon’s association with Camelot, even with the man defeated by it in 1960 would endure.

The library holds over 6 million pages of records, 19,000 still photographs, 150 reels of film, 900 audio recordings of Nixon speeches, plus 3,000 books in addition to the National Archives collection that has recently been added, to include another 42 million pages of records, 300,000 pictures, over 30,000 gifts that were given to Nixon, 4,700 hours of video recordings, and almost 4,000 hours of White House tape recordings.
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The presidency of Richard Nixon is probably the most documented of any other president. The movies, pictures, documents, and testimonials that have been retained of Nixon and that are on display at the presidential library and museum provide a rare perspective into the life and personality of a complicated man, who despite his many challenges, rose to the position of leader of the free world.

* * *

Resilience is the quality that best characterized Richard Nixon. Just as be began plotting his comeback bid for the American presidency the day after his razor-thin defeat by John Kennedy, I am convinced that Nixon began plotting his final campaign for elder statesman the day after he resigned the presidency in 1974.

In 1960, I scotch-taped a
Saturday Evening Post
cover portrait of Richard Nixon by Norman Rockwell to my bedroom door. I cried after staying up all night and learning that Nixon had narrowly lost the presidency the next morning. I defiantly wore Nixon-Lodge buttons to school for two weeks after the election. Although I was a gopher in his 1968 campaign and a very junior aide in his 1972 campaign, it was not until his post-presidential years that I got to know Richard Nixon and was drafted as an operative in his final campaign.

Nixon would have us believe that there was no final campaign for redemption, but in retrospect Nixon’s last campaign was more measured, more painstaking, and more difficult than his comeback bid for the presidency.

I recall riding to midtown Manhattan with Nixon to attend a New York State Republican Party fundraiser at which Nixon was to be the guest of honor. It was to be his first foray in public for a political event after his resignation, and Nixon was uncertain how he would be received. Before he opened the car door, he looked me in the eye and said, “I hope this isn’t too soon.” The event was a triumphant success.

Nixon understood that the success of his resurrection would be contingent on his never reaching for an official role and by meting out his opinions on a judicious and measured basis. “Don’t accept every speaking request and every request for an interview,” he told Jeanne Kirkpatrick when she left federal service. “Speak out only when you have something to say.”

When Nixon charmed Katherine Graham at the newspaper editor’s association luncheon in his post-presidential years, the publisher directed
Newsweek
to secure an interview for a cover story. It was left to me to negotiate the details. Nixon agreed, and the interview was scheduled. When Chernobyl blew up, the
Newsweek
people said they would run the interview, but would put the Soviet disaster on the cover. Nixon’s directions to me to be forwarded to the editors were firm and precise. No cover—no interview.

The cover ran, with the headline, “He’s Back.”

Nixon knew that he was relegated to a backstage role in American politics, but he played that role with enthusiasm and tenacity. When Ronald Reagan muffled his first debate with challenger Walter Mondale, Nixon calmly assured Reagan aides that the poll numbers would stabilize, the expectation for Mondale in the second debate would soar, that expectations for Reagan would drop, and that Gipper could put Mondale away with a deft one-liner. That’s exactly what happened.

After months of badgering George Bush to attend a Soviet-American relations conference that Nixon put together in Washington, DC, Nixon secured Bush’s acceptance and then directed me to leak a memo to the
New York Times
that outlined Nixon’s belief that the Bush-Baker response to the Soviets need for aid was anemic. The
Times
ran with the story, and Bush was forced to haplessly agree with Nixon when he stood up to speak at the conference, where Nixon and deftly scheduled Bush to speak immediately after himself.

Taught by his Quaker mother not to display his emotions in pubic, Nixon was a man who kept his affection deeply in check. When I married in 1991, Nixon sent my wife and me a leather -bound edition of his book.
In the Arena
with the inscription, “To Roger and Nydia Stone—With best wishes for the year ahead,” after which he wrote “Love,” scratched it out, rethought it, wrote it again, and signed “Richard Nixon.”

I spoke to President Nixon three times in the week before his stroke. He was intensely interested in the political repercussions of the Whitewater affair. When poll numbers seemed to indicate that the scandal was having little effect on Clinton’s popularity, Nixon pointed out to me that Watergate had little impact on the voters until the televised hearings. “The American people don’t believe anything until they see it on television. Eighty percent of the people receive their news from TV and when the Whitewater hearing is televised it will be Clinton’s turn in the bucket.”

When he died, Richard Nixon was a man content with his place in the world. Savoring his final victory and his elevation to elder statesman, his books were bestellers, he received thousands of invitations to speak, the media jockeyed to get his thoughts on the record, President Clinton consulted him on foreign policy matters, and he bathed in the love of his children and grandchildren.

Richard Nixon unexpectedly died of a stroke on April 22, 1994 at the age of eighty-one, just fourteen months after his wife, Pat, died of lung cancer.

When I first got word that Richard Nixon had passed away, I was shell-shocked. The man had so much strength left in him, I thought he would live another decade. Nonetheless, he was gone, and I needed to attend to my duties as his friend.

My phone began ringing relentlessly almost immediately after I heard of Nixon’s passing. Reporters wanted quotes, TV shows wanted interviews, but all I wanted to do was be in a quiet place by myself, and grieve. It would be another month or so before I actually had an opportunity to sit down and really reflect on my career with Richard Nixon, but I felt responsible as his closest political confidant before his death, to answer all of the questions that were asked of me, although I didn’t accept every interview request, purely out of deference to Nixon’s old rule.

In his final “fuck you” to the Washington establishment, Nixon ordered that his body not lie in State in the Capitol Rotunda, as had the remains of Johnson, Kennedy, Eisenhower, and Truman.

Richard Nixon was buried in Yorba Linda, California, on April 27, 1994—the place of his birth, and the location where the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum is located. He was laid to rest on a plot next to his wife, Pat. He told me once that it felt fitting for him to be buried where he was born and where he grew up.

Henry Kissinger, Senator Bob Dole, former Presidents Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford and President Bill Clinton attended the funeral to pay their respects.

The funeral service prompted some displays of emotion from men who rarely expose their softer side. Bob Dole was moved to tears during his eulogy. He said, “I believe the second half of the twenty-first century, will be known as the age of Nixon. He provided the most effective leadership. He always embodied the deepest feeling for the people he led.” To tens of millions of his countrymen, Richard Nixon was an American hero—one who shared and honored their belief in working hard, worshiping God, loving their families, and saluting the flag. He called them the Silent Majority. Like them, they valued accomplishment more than ideology. They wanted their government to do the decent thing, but not to bankrupt them in the process. They wanted his protection in a dangerous world. These were the people from whom he had come, and they have come to Yorba Linda these last few days, in the tens of thousands, no longer silent in their grief. The American people like a fighter. In Richard Nixon they found a gallant one.