#38: Gerald Ford Part 2

Really Cool Stuff about Gerald Ford
1. The name on Gerald Ford’s birth certificate was actually Leslie Lynch King Jr but he legally changed his name to Gerald Ford Jr (in honor of his stepfather) in 1935. “When Gerald Ford came into the world on July 14, 1913, in an ornate Victorian hours on Woolworth Avenue in Omaha, Nebraska, he was named Leslie Lynch King Jr” (p. 1).
2. As a football fan, here’s a little tidbit that I particularly enjoyed. “Ford’s senior-year MVP award [for football] earned him a starting slot in the annual East-West Shrine Game in San Francisco on New Year’s Day 1935, and eight months later an even more coveted spot in the College All-Star Game against the Chicago Bears at Soldier Field” (p. 6). I’m intrigued—did an NFL team (or was it AFL at the time) really play a real game against an elite selection of college players every year? Hmmm…I’m going to have to look into this one!
3. Our 38th President even did a bit of modeling while at law school. “A fairly serious relationship with an aspiring model named Phyllis Brown turned into a thousand-dollar investment in a fledgling New York agency, which led to the football star’s posing in ski togs next to his girlfriend—in seventeen photos splashed across five pages of the March 1940 issue of Look magazine” (p. 7).
4. Ford had some good ideas on how to remain elected. “With a similar openness to innovation, soon after self-developing film came on the market in 1948, Ford bought a Polaroid Land camera to keep in his Washington office so that visitors could get their pictures taken with the congressman, or seated at his desk if he was out. To Ford, a single Polaroid souvenir meant a loyal supporter for life” (p. 30-31.)
5. I’ve mentioned this before but it’s worthy of extra note that Ford was the only president to never be elected to that office. “He loosened his party ties deliberately, out of respect for his extraordinary position as the only US president to never be elected to national office. Unlike all his predecessors (save George Washington), he had never slogged through the mud of a presidential campaign” (p. 75).
6. Ford was the first US president to visit Japan. “So with the US economy still in trouble in late November 1974, and the midterm election a GOP disaster, Ford left on a tour of Asian nations, including Japan (the first time ever for a US president) and South Korea” (p. 82).
7. President Ford used his veto-card quite a bit. “Ford, for his part, vetoed fifteen bills in his first three months in office, more than Nixon had in the eighteen months preceding his resignation. However, Ford had a higher percentage of those vetoes overridden than any other twentieth-century president” (p. 114). Although Ford had literally spent decades in Congress, his stock slowly declined there once he became president. “The journalist Richard Reeves observed that as of mid-1975, Ford had had less success leading Congress than any new president in recent history. It seemed as if every major bill Ford supported was treated like a flaming cowpie” (p. 114). Ha!
8. Ford lived through 2 very similar assassination attempts: both were in California, both assassins were women and both occurred in September 1975. The first one many of you might recall, because it was done by a young woman (and Charles Mason devotee) named Lynette ‘Squeaky’ Fromme and it technically wasn’t an assassination attempt at all due to the fact that she never got the shot off. The second lady, named Sara Jane Moore, did fire some shots but Ford was never hit. “Outwardly unfazed by the two attempts on his life, President Ford made it clear that the bizarre acts of two deranged women in California would have no effect on his public appearances” (p. 121).
9. Saturday Night Live is a staple when it comes to political parodies in today’s society. So I thought it was extremely funny to find out that Chevy Chase was the one portraying Ford in the 1976 presidential campaign satires. “At least as hard to take as the charge of dumbness was the media’s depiction of Ford as a clumsy oaf. For some reason, the sort of embarrassing everyday missteps the press had ignored in covering previous presidents became news when committed by Gerald Ford, be it stumbling on a Colorado ski slope, tripping on a church stairway, or bumping his head on the door to Air Force One. The media characterized him as a klutz. The comedian Chevy Chase’s running slapstick routine as a bumbling Ford on Saturday Night Live became so well known that the president tried to defuse its impact by taping self-deprecating bits for an episode of the popular NBC comedy series… ‘Chevy definitely cost some votes,’ Ford later joked. ‘But I had to admit he was damn funny’ (p. 136). Anyone who saw what happened to Sarah Palin in the last election knows that the media is a powerful, powerful force.
10. In the election of 1976, Jimmy Carter ended up winning by only a teensy, weensy amount. “In the popular vote, Carter notched 40.8 million votes to Ford’s 39.1 million. The electoral college tally of 297 to 240 (with one vote going to Ronald Reagan) marked the closest presidential contest since 1916” (p. 144).
11. Due to Ford’s stand on human rights in his post-presidential period, he was eventually awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. “This animosity only grew when, on August 11, 1999, President Clinton praised Ford and awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom” (p. 157). He also won the ‘Profiles in Courage Award’ for the year 2001. “All of these events were a buildup to what Ford considered the most redemptive honor of his life. Every year, the John F Kennedy Foundation announces winners of the ‘Profiles in Courage Award,’ given to elected officials who ‘withstood strong opposition from constituents, powerful interest groups or adversaries to follow what she or he believes is the right course of action.’ In April 2001 the award went to Gerald Ford for his controversial decision to pardon Richard Nixon” (p. 157-58).
12. I just think this is cool—Ford has a leadership award in his honor, given by the NCAA. “Honors came raining down on Ford from all corners; for example, the National Collegiate Athletic Association created an annual leadership award in his name while the National Archives hosted a symposium to honor his public service achievements” (p. 159).
13. Gerald Ford would live to become the oldest president in American history. “He was now, at age ninety-three, the oldest president in American history, having surpassed Ronald Reagan” (p. 159).

So it appears that I was in error when I said at the beginning of this blog that I knew nothing about Gerald Ford. Recently, my friend was quick to point out to me that she knew Gerald Ford and since I knew about that, then my original premise was false. Here is my official apology: Shannon, I forgot that you went to preschool with Ford’s granddaughter (daughter?) and I am so sorry. Forgive me? Hahaha.

Gerald Ford was a rather remarkable guy to read about due to the fact that he had many interests and worked for long years in the House of Reps. The author, Douglas Brinkley, gave us both good and bad and, this is what I liked, he tracked the metamorphosis that Ford’s reputation took over a lifetime in politics. And I have to say that, for the most part, Ford did just what he thought was right and that was that. For instance, he supported the Vietnam War in Congress, although most Republicans were pulling away from the Democratically-sustained fracas as quickly as they could. He pardoned Nixon because he decided it was right (although he got hell for it) and he attended the Helsinki Accords in the face of really violent domestic opposition.

I guess that the most controversial act of Ford’s career—and he had puh-lenty of those, let me tell ya—was the pardon of Richard Nixon. Brinkley describes what the Nixon White House was like with stunning accuracy. “Nixon’s desperate desire for reelection in 1972 didn’t surprise veteran pols like Gerald Ford. The ruthlessness of his tactics, however, reflected a mind-set so genuinely twisted that, when later revealed, it would shock the nation. For the time being, the very outrageousness of what was going on in the White House was simply too incredible to be suspected” (p. 42). Most people, especially from the mid-1970s, would have looked at that statement and agreed that Nixon should have stood trial for his copious crimes. When Ford took that away from them, they howled in horror and as one, the American people turned their unsatisfied fury on him. “The historian Barry Werth, in his fine book 31 Days, correctly deemed September 8 [when Ford pardoned Nixon] the ‘Day of the Avalanche.’ Hundreds of protest letters began piling up in the White House while the switchboard lighted up with calls running 8 to 1 against the pardon” (p. 68).

But was the pardon a truly bad idea? After several decades, it is easy to look back and pronounce judgment but I really believe that Ford did the right thing at the time and took the political fallout for sticking to his guns. Can you imagine what a bad precedent he would have set if he, as the president, had allowed the President of the United States to be sent to jail? I am in no way condoning Nixon’s atrocious behavior but Nixon in prison, only to satisfy our collective bloodlust, would have been a cruel blow to our constitutional framework. In fact, I can’t even imagine the repercussions of such an event. Nowadays, many historians, journalists and regular people, who remember the Watergate fiasco, are also convinced that Ford did the right thing by pardoning Nixon. After all, Ford was convinced at the time that if Nixon accepted the pardon, he was as good as flat-out saying that he was guilty. “Hearing that legal phrase caused him [Ford] to interject that according to the 1915 decision [Burdick vs United States], Nixon, by accepting the pardon, had admitted guilt in the Watergate cover-up” (p. 155).

Ford made his decision carefully. He could either allow the former president to be hauled before a court, tried and sentenced, or he could use judicial precedent to pardon Nixon and by doing so, give Americans a cathartic conclusion to Watergate and also allow us all to move on. Granted, I don’t think that even Ford was quite prepared for the viciousness that followed but he defended himself and his decision every chance he got.

Probably his greatest legacy as a president was the healing that America received not only from the pardon, but also from the official end of the Vietnam War. “For it was Gerald R. Ford who dissipated the pall of Richard Nixon, however controversially, and who shepherded the nation safely through to the end of the most divisive war while living up to the United State’s ensuing responsibilities to South Vietnam’s refugees. It was Ford whose help in forging the Helsinki Accords opened the way for the collapse of Soviet communism. It was Ford who acknowledged the seriousness of the global energy crisis and who conveyed the urgent need for cooperation to do something about it to the rest of the industrialized world, and whose careful fiscal policies cut inflation in half and boosted the US economy out of its direst fix since the Great Depression. And it was Ford who, purely by dint of coming across as a really nice, normal guy, restored Americans’ faith in the validity of their government” (p. 146).

That’s not a bad legacy, right?

PS. In my continuing quest for closure concerning JFK’s assassination, it’s only right and fair that I include Ford’s opinion on the matter. If you recall, he was a member of the Warren Commission and therefore was privy to all the important shit (sorry! The Big Lebowski reference) going around at the time. “Ford concurred with the Warren Commission’s overall conclusion that Oswald had acted alone in the assassination of President Kennedy. As the final report on the investigation was being prepared, however, he contended that Oswald’s sole culpability could not be proved by the available evidence. Thanks to Ford, the Warren Report backed away from categorically stating that there had been no conspiracy to kill JFK” (p. 25). Of course, the wording of the report left the door wide open for conspiracy theorists. Here is what Ford had to say about Oliver Stone’s controversial movie, JFK. “’I’d like to tell you I never saw Stone’s ridiculous film,’ Ford said. ‘But I was flying from New York to Los Angeles on American Airlines, and what did they show? I had no choice. The film is filled with inaccuracies and omissions. It bothered me so much because it was so wrong. But what can I do about it? At some point, I was so upset with Oliver Stone I was tempted to challenge him to a debate. I had people on my staff who said, ‘All you’ll do is highlight the movie and he’ll get the benefit, etc.’ So I backed off’” (p. 25).

#38: Gerald Ford (1913-2006)

Gerald Ford? Nope, I got nuthin’. Obviously I know that he’s the guy that took over when Nixon quit but what did he do exactly? Now I realize that Ford did not have oodles of time to bring his presidential dreams to fruition, nor did he have the mandate of the people due to the fact that he was never popularly elected to the office he held. But surely in the two years that he was in office, he had to do something! I wonder if I’m the only clueless one. No matter—I simply went off to the library and got Gerald Ford: American Presidents Series by Douglas Brinkley (New York: Times Books, 2007). I was impressed by the fact that Mr. Brinkley was not only a professor of History at Tulane but he’s authored dozens of political books, many of them biographies. Let’s see how he handles this tribute to our 38th president.

Jerry Ford’s beginnings were rather…um…shocking, especially in that day and age. “When he [Leslie King Sr] flew into another violent rage two weeks after she bore their son, brandishing a knife and threatening to kill both her and the baby, Dorothy packed up her belongings and her son and fled Omaha in the cold glare of an afternoon” (p. 2). Dorothy Gardner, Gerald’s mum, then moved back to her parents house in Grand Rapids, MI and would later marry Gerald R. Ford Sr. on February 1, 1917. In 1935, our 38th president would legally change his name to Gerald Ford Jr and he would eventually have 3 half-brothers.

During the Great Depression, the Fords were hit hard and Gerald Sr’s business failed. But young Jerry continued to do relatively well in school and was very popular. “In high school Jerry Ford was a good, but not too good, student; well-liked by his peers, Ford couldn’t turn his charm on—or off” (p. 4). His main interest was playing football, where he was both the center and a linebacker. Sports was a major factor in who Gerald Ford turned out to be by giving him guidelines for living life. “Discipline, preparation, teamwork, and adherence to a game plan may be the platitudes of the locker room but Ford carried them onto the political field” (p. 5). He was so good that he won a full scholarship to play at the University of Michigan, where he was also invited to play in the All-Star Game. He graduated in 1935 with majors in Economics and Political Science.

He was not immediately accepted to Yale Law School but Ford went anyway and became the boxing assistant football coach there. Three years later, he was finally admitted to the college as a law student and graduated in 1941. He then moved back to Michigan to set up a law practice with one of his fraternity brothers.

When World War II began in earnest, Jerry joined the US Naval Reserves as an ensign on April 20, 1942 and was assigned to the USS Montgomery. “Lieutenant Ford’s primary duties were to oversee the antiaircraft gun crew on the fantail deck and to serve as the ship’s director of physical training. The enlisted men loved him for constructing a basketball court on the hangar deck. But he also took intense interest in his later secondary role as assistant navigation officer” (p. 9). Ford was transferred to the USS Monterey and was sent to the Pacific Theater. He was soon promoted to lieutenant-commander due to his presence of mind, not only when faced the weather but also with the actual enemy. “The Monterey, in fact, sank a Japanese cruiser and destroyer, with Ford directing the ship’s forty-millimeter guns” (p. 10). He was discharged in 1946 and returned to Michigan to resume his law practice.

On June 17, 1948, Gerald Ford entered his first election to become a US Congressman for Michigan’s Fifth District. Not only did this rookie win the primaries but also the entire election! “He combined his athlete’s backslapping bonhomie with simple, nice-guy good manners. He spoke pretty well but, more important, he listened brilliantly, offering his full attention to any voter who took the time to address him” (p. 12). Gerald Ford was headed to Washington.

Elizabeth Ann Bloomer Warren, better known as Betty, was a pretty divorcee working at a department store when she met Jerry Ford. They hit it off and were married on October 15, 1948. They moved together to Washington in 1949 and soon made many friends with other young Congressmen like John F Kennedy and Richard Nixon. Incredibly Ford seemed to fit right into the House of Representatives environment and even made it onto the powerful House Appropriations Committee in his first year.

In the 1960 election, Ford wanted to help his good friend win the election so he put together a Truth Squad. The Truth Squad followed Nixon as he campaigned around the country and they truthfully answered questions about Nixon’s virtues and promises. Unfortunately, the Republicans did not win but Ford returned to the House with not only the everlasting gratitude of Nixon but also he now had enough clout to run for the prestigious position of chairman of the House Republican Conference.

Due to Jerry Ford’s unblemished reputation and strict moral code, he was placed on the Warren Commission, alongside an impressive list of political bigwigs, to determine the causes, motives, and possible conspiracies associated with John Kennedy’s assassination. He agreed with the rest of the committee on their conclusions, for the most part, and co-wrote a book, called Portrait of the Assassin, defending the Committee’s reasoning. He was very angry over Oliver Stone’s movie about JFK and even wanted to challenge him to debate the matter. His aides talked him out of it.

In 1965, Ford won the position of House Minority Leader but it was no secret that his biggest ambition was to become Speaker of the House. Unfortunately, it had been several decades since the Republican’s controlled the House so Ford set out to try to not only remain elected (although this was never much of an issue) but also to increase the number of Republicans in Congress. He invented a mobile office which he took around Michigan and other parts of the country to be closer to his constituents. “In truth, he was successful because he was so unspectacular. There was nothing threatening about Gerald Ford, which encouraged others to let her guard down around him” (p. 32).

When Nixon won the 1968 election, the Congressional Republicans were ecstatic. They thought that now some real progress would be made but they were unprepared for Nixon’s loner-mentality and it caused some real tension between the president and the legislative branch. As the House minority leader and in the same party as the president, it was up to Ford to ease executive legislation through the House or in some cases to block it. “In truth, Ford was smart enough to figure out a way to keep the White House from bullying its programs through. He may not have had much imagination but he did know how to block and hold the line” (p. 36). In order to withhold some of the crazier White House ideas from Congress, Ford did have to go along with their bidding at times. One of those instances included Ford going on a rampage to try to impeach one of the Supreme Court justices. It backfired on him and he lost some credibility in that particular witch hunt, sanctioned by the White House.

When Watergate in all its glory hit the proverbial fan, Ford believed that the White House was not involved and so did all that he could to get Nixon re-elected. He blocked the Patman Committee Hearings, which were delving into the finances of Watergate and were coming very close to the truth of the matter. Of course, Nixon won but only a year later his vice president, Spiro Agnew, was having legal and financial issues of his own. Agnew was, in essence, forced to resign in October 1973 so Nixon turned to his old friend and on December 6, 1973, Gerald Ford was sworn in as the vice president of the United States. Ford’s primary duty during the next couple months was mainly to defend the president against the Watergate accusations and also to serve as a conduit between the president and Congress. Wherever Ford went in his official capacity, he declared that he believed Nixon was innocent. “As vice president, Ford had been led to expect that he would serve President Nixon on Capitol Hill, as a sort of uber-lobbyist for the administration’s positions on pending legislation…Most of his time instead went to doing what he liked best: stumping across the country for the Republican cause, which at that point was the survival of Nixon’s presidency” (p. 54).

Things just got worse for Nixon, however, until even he was forced to resign. Thus, on August 9, 1974, Gerald Ford was sworn in as the 38th president of the United States. Ford’s very first order of business was to find a vice president for himself. In an effort to unify both sides of the party, he chose the progressive governor of New York, Nelson Rockefeller. He also pronounced amnesty for all Vietnam draft-dodgers and then, in a spectacularly low-key moment, announced a full and complete pardon of Richard Nixon. Ford pardoned Nixon in an effort to move on and to leave Nixon and Watergate in the past but most Americans freaked out against this evidence of Ford’s apparent betrayal. “The widespread suspicion that the pardon came out of a secret deal between Nixon and his handpicked successor irredeemably tarnished Gerald Ford’s political career. Intended to put Watergate behind the nation once and for all, Ford’s pardon of his predecessor did just the opposite in the minds of many Americans, who saw it as an extension of Nixon’s unlamented ‘imperial presidency,’ stained with the same reliance on ‘executive privilege’” (p. 69). Ford’s honeymoon was officially over. “Americans of every political stripe denounced the moved with a vehemence that proved just how agonizing the Watergate crisis had been for the country—a new Gallup poll showed Ford’s approval rating having instantly sunk from 71 to 50 percent” (p. 73). Desperate, Ford even decided to appear before a public hearing in the House (something no president had ever done) to go on record that there had been no deal between him and Nixon. It didn’t seem to matter.

To top it all off, his wife, Betty, was diagnosed with breast cancer at this time, while a severe economic crisis, called a stagflation due to high rates of unemployment and inflation, was hitting the country hard. To try and fix the
economic issues, Ford appealed directly to Americans in his Whip Inflation Now campaign. “Echoing Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s calls the citizenry to conserve for the war effort, WIN made a commonsense pitch to Americans to stop wasting money and resources, especially fuel” (p. 77). WIN was never really successful and most people simply laughed at it. Ford also had to face problems with the CIA due to the Rockefeller Commission’s findings on illegal activities.
“Among the tactics President Ford picked up from his predecessor was Nixon’s way of dealing with rancor at home: to go abroad” (p. 82.) Thus, Ford made his way, in a prolonged trip, through Europe and Asia.

On his return, Ford faced new problems—this time from his own party. Because he was a nice guy and tried to placate just about everybody, Ford had decided to be as non-partisan as possible during his presidency. Unfortunately, this meant that he lost his backing from the Republican Party when he needed it most—a.k.a. Vietnam, as an issue, was not over yet. Nixon had merely promulgated a ceasefire so on January 6, 1975, North Vietnam broke it by invading South Vietnam. Instead of sending in the Marines, Ford announced the official end of the Vietnam War (at least on the American side) at a speech at Tulane University. “After the slow agonies that Watergate and Vietnam had put the nation through, seizing the first opportunity to move on from them just seemed the sensible thing to do” (p. 92). What happened next was truly a scene right out of a movie. “Suddenly, all that remained of America’s longest and most divisive military conflict was the urgent need to evacuate the approximately six thousand US citizens still in South Vietnam—a number that swelled by sixfold when the American’s Vietnamese wives, children and in-laws wanted out, too” (p. 93). None of the South Vietnamese were able to hold back the invaders in the slightest. In fact, the North Vietnamese moved through South Vietnam so quickly, that the US had to evacuate people off the roof of the embassy with helicopters because they were running out of time. “America’s only unelected president did what his four predecessors could not: he extricated the United States from Vietnam’s long-running civil war” (p. 99).

Please don’t think that Ford’s problems were over just yet. There was the Mayaguez incident when some Cambodian pirates took over an American ship in the Gulf of Siam. There were conflicting accounts of the situation and although Ford got the whole crew back (minus one), he did not receive undisputed approbation over the affair. “The general acclaim for the commander in chief’s swift and decisive handling of the Mayaguez incident was, naturally, offset by some harsh criticism that Ford had overreacted, ordering a disproportionate military response just to prove his toughness” (p. 104). Some of what the critics claimed was fair—after losing the war in Vietnam, Ford had to show the world that the United States was not some weak, fallen giant.

In July 1975, while Ford publicly announced his candidacy for the next presidential election, he was also involved in a pretty controversial action—attending the Helsinki Accords, also known as the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). Although Ford’s reputation sank at home, the Helsinki Accords were a noble piece of work. “Yet, with their calls for openness and respect for human rights, the Helsinki Accords would mark the beginning of the end of the Soviet domination of Eastern Europe…The agreement reflected everything that was best about Jerry Ford: long-term thinking, his deep-seated internationalism, and his belief in engagement rather than aggression, in matters large and small” (p. 106).

During the primaries campaign which pitted Ford against Ronald Reagan, Ford also faced the New York City debt crisis. After years of financial mismanagement, the city of New York begged the government to float it another loan to stave off insolvency. Ford refused, stating it was now time for New York City to fix its abysmal budget situation. His hard-line approach angered many Americans due to the fact that there was already an economic crisis going on and this just proved that the government did not want to help. “That fall, between his cold dismissal of Nelson Rockefeller and his harsh treatment of the Big Apple, good ol’ Jerry Ford had begun to look awfully mean, not to mention disloyal, cynical, and somehow waffling and stubborn at the same time” (p. 128). There were also widespread bombs, murders, and shootouts across the United States. So Ford went on another trip to Asia. Ironically though he left the US to get away from domestic issues, he ended up precipitating one himself when he visited General Suharto in Indonesia. Suharto told Ford that the island of East Timor was in revolt and so “Ford and Kissinger approved Suharto’s plans to invade East Timor” (p. 131). The problems began when Suharto went in and started massacring people. “Documentary evidence proved that Ford-Kissinger acquiescence helped contribute to the genocide of approximately two hundred thousand East Timorians due to violence and famine” (p. 131). Americans did not like this.

Although Ford won the Republican nomination, he was hurt by the infighting between himself and Reagan. He went into the 1976 presidential election almost dead even with Carter and, through some famous blunders during the campaign, Ford lost by only the tiniest margin. He and the family then retired to Rancho Mirage, CA and managed to stay friends with Carter and Nixon. Jerry and Betty both wrote their memoirs and Jerry stayed determinedly by Betty’s side as she recovered from alcoholism. They raised money not only for the Ford Presidential Library and Museum (which opened in 1981) but also for the Betty Ford Clinic. Ford sat on a number of corporate boards, including “Amax, Inc; American Express Company; Texas Commerce Bank; Tiger International, Inc.; Beneficial Corporation of New Jersey; and 20th Century Fox Film Corporation” (p. 153). He also wrote a book called Humor in the Presidency.

At times, Ford continued to be included in national matters by existing presidents. He defended Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky situation by stating that Clinton did nothing impeachable. He was involved in the National Day of Prayer in DC after 9/11 and continued to uphold the man in the White House, whoever he was. He died on December 26, 2006 of heart problems.

#37 Richard M Nixon Part 2

Really Cool Stuff about Richard Nixon
1. Nixon, as most of you are already aware, was the first president to resign that office. “The mixing of his psyche with the presidency made for a poisonous brew, with tragic consequences, as he became the first president to be driven from office” (p. 1). “The extraordinary set of events that came to be called Watergate—named for the building complex where on June 17, 1972, a team of burglars with ties to the White House broke into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee and culminating in Nixon’s being the first president to be forced to leave office—has often been described as the unraveling of a criminal conspiracy” (p. 98). Watergate, it turned out, was essentially a very serious constitutional crisis.
2. After high school, Richard had actually been accepted to Harvard on a full scholarship but couldn’t attend due to monetary considerations. “He [Nixon] had been offered a scholarship to Harvard but his parents couldn’t afford the other expenses of sending him there” (p. 6).
3. After reading about McCarthy since the Truman bio, I have found him rather interesting. What I discovered about him in the Nixon bio was even crazier. The author claims that Nixon, in a way, created McCarthy by passing him information…sort of like Frankenstein and his Monster. “Nixon, who had led the way, fed McCarthy material for his famous speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, in 1950, in which McCarthy claimed that ‘I have in my hand a list of 205…members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department’” (p. 11).
4. It was during his campaign for the Senate in 1950 that Nixon earned his “Tricky Dick” nickname. “In this campaign, he went even further than he had against Voorhis, and acquired the sobriquet ‘Tricky Dick,’ which would linger throughout his career” (p. 11).
5. Pat, who hated politics, was badly singed by the secret fund scandal of the 1952 presidential race. She hated politics so much that she made Richard sign a pledge that he would never run again. “Apparently, Pat Nixon never got over this event, which deepened her disdain for politics; in fact, she persuaded her husband to write her a pledge that after this campaign he would abandon politics. That pledge would soon be forgotten” (p. 15-16).
6. As unlikely as such a meeting would seem, Elvis Presley appeared in Washington DC desirous of seeing Nixon and of becoming a “Federal Agent-at-Large” in the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. “He [Nixon] did, however, appreciate the popularity of Elvis Presley (no Woodstocker, no Janis Joplin), who unexpectedly turned up at the White House seeking a meeting with Nixon to discuss the drug culture and similar topics. The two men met—a famously photographed event—in December 1970” (p. 28).
7. The Senate voted down a couple of Nixon’s nominees to the Supreme Court which hadn’t been done since the days of Hoover. (Remember him?) “Enough members of both parties were opposed to the Haynsworth nomination that the Senate—despite Nixon’s strenuous efforts—voted it down on November 21, 1969, making Haynsworth the first Supreme Court nominee since 1930 to be rejected by the Senate” (p. 44).
8. The first Earth Day was promulgated under Nixon. “In April 1970 the nation celebrated Earth Day, Gaylord Nelson’s idea, in which millions of Americans participated” (p. 52).
9. While visiting Brezhnev in Moscow and in an unprecedented act, Nixon was even allowed to address the Soviet people. “In another first, Nixon addressed the Soviet people on television” (p. 86).
10. Nixon was the first president to visit Syria. “Yet two weeks after Kissinger’s triumph, Nixon visited all three countries involved—Syria, Egypt, and Israel—claiming another ‘first’ when he arrived in Syria” (p. 94).
11. The White House hired thugs to beat up antiwar protesters. “Thus the Nixon White House had its own ‘bully boys,’ its own ruffians, to physically assault opponents of his conduct of the war. This, too, was without precedent” (p. 104).
12. This was also the first time in history that there was an investigation of the federal government from outside the government. “There was no precedent in American history for a federal criminal investigation conducted independent of the executive branch” (p. 112).
13. Due to the Watergate affair, twenty-five White House officials would serve jail time. “In the end, the baleful record of the Nixon presidency was the twenty-five of his aides and associates were sent to jail. Another precedent was set” (p. 122).

Well Tricky Dick certainly lived up to expectations, at least, my expectations. In fact, the author goes to great lengths to divulge Nixon’s blacker side, including his penchants for temper tantrums, insane executive orders and rampant paranoia. Nixon is one of those presidents that I would like to do more research on, i.e. read more than one account of his life, because he’s rather a tough individual to track down. Here’s the problem I’m having: was Nixon as bat-shit crazy as he’s portrayed (by the author and Oliver Stone) or was he a powerful man, beset by the haunting demons of his past? While Ms. Drew skips over absurdly large portions of Nixon’s early life (which I had a feeling would happen), I’ve gathered that watching the deaths of his two brothers could not have been easy and would perhaps lead to some of his later “issues.” Also Drew herself believes that Nixon’s lifelong ‘disappointment’ was the overarching theme of his life and her book. She mentions that he was disappointed often, through girlfriend break-ups, through job situations (Wall Street), through other men’s conceptions of him, and through the general public reactions to his highest achievements and his lowest behaviors. I thought it was interesting that most people described Nixon as being respected but not popular. This assessment fits with Nixon’s loner personality and I find it extremely indicative that his own dog didn’t even fancy him. “Even his dog didn’t like him. The staff once laid a trail of biscuits to lure his Irish setter King Timahoe to Nixon’s desk in order to entice him to get closer to his owner. But the dog wouldn’t move” (p. 45). Sad, just…sad.

Although Nixon is undeniably one of those people we love to hate, he really did some good stuff as president also. Not only were there amazing breakthroughs in foreign policy, such as opening China and détente with the Soviet Union, but, domestically, Nixon shone as well. I mention a few interesting things about this in the list above and regardless of his motivations, Nixon pushed through some very positive legislation. “Nevertheless, by the end of his presidency, the number of Americans living below the poverty level had dropped, and aid to the poor had increased considerably” (p. 56). “And so, rail as he did against ‘big government,’ in particular the Great Society, in the end Nixon accepted its premise: that the federal government can do good things for the people” (p. 59).

Have you ever heard of the recency effect? Basically the idea here is that we tend to remember things last we heard or saw rather than anything in the middle. I think that justifications for the recency effect are pretty obvious but the reason I bring it up is to describe not only Nixon’s reputation today but also the sheer impact of Watergate on it. There is no doubt that Watergate was a bad thing for any president to have hand in—after all, Watergate was just the tip of a very rotten iceberg—but unfortunately, Nixon’s persona cannot be divorced from it. Coming at the end of his presidency (because it was the end of this presidency duh), Watergate has cast a looming shadow over absolutely everything Nixon did in the past and would do afterwards. Although he lived nearly twenty years (20 years!!!) after that infamous burglary, I couldn’t have told you one good thing he accomplished in that time. (Actually I couldn’t have told you anything he did during that time…In fact, I didn’t realize he lived that long!) I think that most students of American history can tell you that Nixon was the perpetrator of Watergate and nothing else and I can’t be sure if that’s a bad thing or if it’s fair. Hmmm…

Nixon and Kissinger (I don’t care that he won the Nobel Peace Prize) also did some boneheaded things that severely tarnished America’s reputation abroad. After reading this bio, I completely understand why, to some extent, Americans are viewed as such pariahs the world over. It’s not only due to the ham-fisted handling of the oil embargo in the Middle East but during the Nixon administration, we helped enflame a number of global issues. For instance, we got involved between the Kurds and Iraq…and not in a good way. “Also at the urging of the Shah, who wanted to harass the Iraqis, the Nixon administration encouraged the Kurds in northern Iraq to rebel against Saddam Hussein’s regime and, despite the misgivings of the State Department and the CIA, sent them funds to do so—and then abandoned them when the Shah reached an accommodation with Iraq, leaving the Kurds subject to brutal retaliation by Saddam” (p. 95). How about our involvement down in Chile? “The administration, through the CIA and large corporations with business interests there, worked to undermine the Chilean economy and encouraged a military coup…The successful coup on September 11, 1973, in which Allende was killed, led to the brutal, murderous regime of General Augusto Pinochet” (p.95). Great, guys, great. And then we had to meddle in Indian affairs. In the India/Pakistan conflict, the United States chose Pakistan’s side because 1.) Nixon already didn’t like Indira Gandhi and 2.) we were using Pakistan as a conduit to China. “Without telling the secretaries of state or defense—or the public—Nixon ordered a naval task force to the Bay of Bengal to threaten the Indians; the task force arrived there one day after India and Pakistan had reached a tentative peace agreement” (p. 96). What a farce!

Well I guess that’s Nixon in a nutshell. Now I don’t mean to leave this analysis on a bad note about Nixon (because that’s what you’ll remember) but really that was the way the author left her book on him. Here’s what Ms. Drew says on the matter. “The events that caused Nixon’s downfall commenced as soon as he became president and came from within his soul. The traits that led to it—the paranoia, the anger, the determination to wreak revenge, the view that the opposition should be destroyed, even the excessive drinking—cannot be excised from the Nixon presidency. Their effects on Nixon’s behavior caused a great deal of national turmoil and not a little, or unwarranted, fear that a democratically elected government was out of control, defying the limits of the democratic system. His actions were far outside the bounds of governing; they were often illegal but, beyond that, they violated constitutional restraints” (p. 150-51).

What would be really interesting would be a biography of Nixon written by someone not alive during the Watergate crisis. Judging by that last paragraph alone (see above), I really feel that Ms. Drew’s thoughts on the subject may be tainted with the recency effect of that event.

#37 Richard M Nixon (1913-1994)

“Richard Milhous Nixon was an improbable president. He didn’t particularly like people. He lacked charm or humor or joy. Socially awkward and an introvert, he had few friends and was virtually incapable of small talk…He was also one of our most complex presidents: insecure, self-pitying, vindictive, suspicious—even literally paranoid—and filled with long-nursed anger and resentments, which burst forth from time to time” (Drew, p. 1).

So, unlike some of the other presidents that I’ve had to deal with, I can safely say that I already know a good deal about old Richard Nixon. Or at least I thought I did. When I really got down to thinking about the information I had on Nixon, it pretty much boiled down to snippets from my Vietnam class in college and sensationalized news sentiments, courtesy of Woodward and Bernstein. You see, I’ve read All the President’s Men and The Final Days and also seen the movie several times. I have to admit that I’ve never read or seen anything from Nixon’s point of view and I doubt that this biography about him counts either. Maybe I don’t know as much about him as I originally thought.

I’m excited that there are just tons of movies on Nixon, Watergate and those tumultuous times during the late ‘60s, early ‘70s. Narrowing down what I watch will be difficult but I’ve decided on Nixon (by Oliver Stone), Frost/Nixon (mainly because it’s new), and, for old time’s sake, All the President’s Men (in my opinion, this movie just doesn’t get old.) There were also tons of books on Nixon and per usual, I was in rather a bind trying to determine which book to read. Again, I was unwilling to read a book of more than 500-pages (which were most of them) so I settled on Richard M Nixon: American Presidents Series by Elizabeth Drew (New York: Times Books, 2007). I knew that I could count on this book being the requisite 200-pages or less but I also knew that because of the size of the Watergate scandal, the author would then need to sacrifice other “less important” aspects of Nixon’s life. What I mean is that the books in the American Presidents Series are all a definite number of pages and to fit into that page number, these authors must cleverly discern what to focus on from each president’s life. With Nixon, I was aware that inevitably there would be a major emphasis placed on Watergate and thus, also inevitably, there were be a dearth of, perhaps, Nixon biographic info. Ah well. This was a sacrifice I was willing to make.

Richard Milhous Nixon was born on January 9, 1913 in Yorba Linda, California to Quaker parents. They were quite poor and Richard’s dad could not keep any one job. Over time, the Nixons lost 2 of their 4 boys to tuberculosis and their deaths would leave a heavy mark on young Richard for the rest of his life. School-wise, he was extremely bright and moved quickly through the public school system. “He taught himself to read before he entered the first grade. He won oratorical contests, had a phenomenal memory, and was valedictorian of his eighth-grade class…Despite his social awkwardness, he was elected several times to leadership positions by his classmates, indicating an early knack for politics—and high ambitions” (p. 6).

He graduated from Whittier High School and ended up attending Whittier College because his father could not afford to send him elsewhere. After graduation in 1934, Nixon attended Duke Law School, though again he was not able to attend more prestigious institutions due to money restraints. “Nixon wasn’t happy in his law school years; he was hardworking, serious, and remote (he never had a date in those three years), and acquired the nickname ‘Gloomy Gus,’ though he did get elected to the presidency of the law school bar association his senior year” (p. 7).

After law school, Nixon returned to Whittier and immersed himself in law. He joined a local practice, working mostly on real estate and probate, and eventually was made partner. In 1938, he met Thelma (Pat) Ryan, a teacher of commercial classes at Whittier High School. They were married on June, 21, 1940 and soon had two daughters, Julie and Trisha.

Nixon soon realized that he preferred politics and the government to law so, in 1942, the whole family moved to Washington DC so that he could work at the Office of Price Administration. He worked there until the war when he volunteered in the Navy but never saw any actual combat. As soon as the war ended, Nixon got his first chance at real politics and he won! He returned to Washington as a junior congressman from California and was placed on the highly controversial HUAC or House Un-American Activities Committee. He gained national attention when he seized the issue that Alger Hiss was a communist spy as his own and he hauled Hiss in for questioning before the committee. Hiss was eventually convicted of perjury and Nixon’s congressional stock rose higher than ever. “The Hiss case made Nixon a national anticommunist star, and he campaigned on the issue across the country in 1948” (p. 10). It is not surprising; therefore, that Nixon became quite good friends with McCarthy.

“Nixon’s political career was one of triumph and failure, sweet victories and bitter loses, a long search for vindication” (p. 9). By 1950, he was ready for a change and entered the race for Senator from California and won that too. This multifaceted man seemed perfectly primed to accept the Republican vice presidential nomination in 1952 under Gen. Dwight Eisenhower. “They [the Repbulicans] were impressed with Nixon as
an up-and-coming politician, and with the electoral importance of California, and they dangled the slot of running m ate to Nixon two months before the nominating convention” (p. 13). Nixon did most of the campaigning and as was stated in the Eisenhower bio, got into trouble by having a secret fund. Nixon followed these accusations with the famous Checkers speech (where he admitted to being given a dog named Checkers that he refused to give back) and ultimately won an uneasy stalemate with Eisenhower.

Eisenhower and the Republicans went on to win the election but Eisenhower did not trust or even like Nixon. Therefore, he mainly kept his vice president out of the everyday business of the presidency and sent him on numerous foreign trips in his name. Despite the fact that most of Eisenhower’s aides wanted Nixon dropped from the ticket in 1956, things remained as is and they won again. As the 1960 election drew near, Nixon’s name was at the top of the list and he won the Republican nomination with nary a problem. The problem came later when he found out that he would be running against his friend, John F Kennedy of Massachusetts, who was young, charismatic but also Catholic. Nixon did not show well during the first televised debates and he would lose the election by the merest squeak.

“A great many of Nixon’s opponents assumed that his loss in 1960 was the end of his political career, but this was another underestimation of the man’s remarkable resilience and grit” (p. 18). The Nixons promptly moved back to California where Richard picked up his law practice again and spent time writing his political memoirs, entitled Six Crises. But Nixon was not done with politics…not by a long shot. In ’62, he ran for governor of California and lost and then went on a verbal rampage against the media in his concession speech. “The most famous moment of the race came after it was over, in what Nixon called his ‘last press conference.’ Tired and angry, he told the press, ‘You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore.’” (p. 18). I wondered how any politician could succeed by throwing the fourth estate under the bus, so to speak, but Nixon was determined. He packed up the family again and moved to New York, joining another law firm, so he could be in the thick of things.

Nixon finally saw his chance with the incipient 1968 election. He was nominated as the Republican candidate again and this time paired with Spiro Agnew (a seriously shady character). He ran against a Democratic ticket of Hubert Humphreys, Johnson’s VP, and Muskie, along with a third party candidate named George Wallace. “The election was fought against the backdrop of the most turbulent years of the 1960s—marked by violent urban riots, apparent setbacks for US forces in Vietnam, the rise of the largest antiwar movement in the nation’s history, increasingly angry protests by civil rights groups, campus uproar, and social upheavals” (p. 18). And against all odds, Nixon won it.

As the new 37th President of the United States, Nixon began by haphazardly choosing a cabinet (not to worry—he would purge some members in 1970). For someone who had spent years coveting the highest office in the land, he was a bit at sea once the time came to be prepared. As a true loner, Nixon decided that he didn’t like dealing with so many people so he promoted John Erlichmann, H.R. Haldemann, and Henry Kissinger as extremely powerful aides. All things had to go through these men and then Nixon would issue his orders through them. Nixon also had a terrible temper and would issue wild orders which were not obeyed (correction: they were not all obeyed.) He drank a lot, slurring his speech and he took Dilatin, an anti-anxiety drug. Nixon defined his presidency as the New Federalism, meaning that he wanted to decentralize government, but he also had a Democratic congress to consider.

Almost immediately upon moving into the White House, Nixon had to deal with severe antiwar protests, especially on the east coast. “The thuggish side of the Nixon White House was on display in the first few months of the administration, as the Nixon command cynically strove to ensure the support of blue-collar workers by attacking antiwar protesters and showering praise on construction workers after they beat up antiwar demonstrators on Wall Street on May 8, 1969” (p. 38).

In 1969, Nixon took a trip to Europe and these trips would characterize his presidency as being very foreign-leaning. It was no secret to those surrounding Nixon though that he preferred foreign affairs over domestic. He also tended to vacation quite a bit both in Key West, where he stayed with his friend, Bebe Rebozo, at Camp David, and at his new house in San Clemente, CA. Although Nixon did prefer foreign policy, he knew that he would be reelected or not over his record domestically so he immediately put the Environmental Act, plus other conservation legislation (including the Clean Air/Clean Water Act) through Congress. He also dealt with welfare law reform and Family Assistance planning. “It offered cash payments to the poor, national criteria for determining eligibility, and replacing intrusive welfare workers with the impartial and more automatic Social Security Administration” (p. 54). Nixon also created OSHA and established the Office of Consumer Affairs. “Several other expansions of federal activities and numerous innovation occurred under Nixon, whatever their origins or Nixon’s motivations: establishing the first Office of Consumer Affairs in the White House and a new law, the Consumer Protection Act; the funding of Amtrak; the constitutional amendment granting eighteen-year-olds the right to vote; the end of the draft; and the large increases in federal funds to support the arts” (p. 58).

Let’s talk about Vietnam. In his presidential campaign, Nixon promised to end the war but only ended by dragging his feet instead. He continued the bombing of Cambodia, and when this policy provoked America’s continued protests and damaging journalistic sentiment, he began wiretapping certain journalists. In 1970, the peace talks began but were offset by more Cambodian raids and increased rioting on college campuses (for example, Kent State). Also Nixon was himself attacked when he was stumping for the 1970 mid-term elections and antiwar protesters threw rocks and other handy items at him. On June 13, 1971 the infamous Pentagon Papers, which was a detailed history of US military involvement in Vietnam, were leaked to the press by Daniel Ellsberg. Nixon was furious and vowed to stop all leaks out of the White House. The wiretappings were increased (including Kissinger’s staff) and a group of dubious individuals were hired as “plumbers.” In 1972, Nixon, obsessed with the idea of “peace with honor” decided to bomb the North Vietnamese over Christmas to make sure that they brought their best efforts to the peace talks and by 1973, there was a general ceasefire and Nixon had stopped the draft and had brought home the last troops. He, personally, would not be around to see the actual end of the war himself however.

In his second term and although under the onus of Watergate, Nixon was still all up in the nation’s business. Per usual, he paid special attention to foreign policy and shocked the world by visiting China (persona non grata since the 40s). “Nixon had reason to celebrate; the opening of China was perhaps the most imaginative, constructive act of his presidency” (p. 89). While there, he became extremely chummy with Mao Zedong and I can’t help but notice certain similarities between them. In May, 1972, he visited Moscow for a SALT II (arms limitation talks) summit and a year later, Brezhnez returned the visit by staying with Nixon at San Clemente. “But despite the parlous political condition Nixon was in, no matter the doubts on the right and left about his conduct of foreign policy, and even though his successor as president was less enthusiastic about it, Nixon’s policy of détente with the Soviet Union, flawed as it might have been, had a long-lasting beneficial impact on world history” (p. 87).

Finally Henry Kissinger became Nixon’s Secretary of State only to have a hand in several shady foreign policy ideas. First of all, the Six Day War (when Israel took over some land that used to belong to Egypt) severely pissed off Anwar Sadat, Egypt’s new president. Sadat asked for the US’s help in mediation but Nixon decided that he was too weak to speak to the Jewish community. “They [Nixon and Kissinger] failed to take seriously Sadat’s warnings in 1972-73 that if the Israelis didn’t withdraw from all the Arab land it had occupied since 1967, he would take unilateral military action, and that there would be an embargo on selling oil to the United States” (p. 92). Do you remember hearing about the horrendous oil shortage of the 70’s? Here’s why it happened. Also Nixon allowed the Shah of Iran to buy weapons from us but the Shah was a brutal ruler and used these weapons against his own people. In 1979, the Iranians would overthrow the Shah and force him into exile but do you know what else they did? They took the entire American embassy as hostages because of our complicity in the whole affair.

Also in 1973, Spiro Agnew, the vice president, was forced to resign because the State of Maryland was about to bring him to court for tax evasion and other crimes that occurred when he was governor. Nixon had to fill his place with Gerald Ford, the House minority leader.

Let’s talk about Watergate. With 1972 fast approaching, Nixon realized that it was time to think about reelection and so organized the Committee to Re-elect the President or CRP (known later as CREEP). Although the war was unpopular and Nixon hadn’t done much to end it, he was still the only candidate worth voting for. Also it helped that the Democrats couldn’t seem to get their act together and they finally just settled for George McGovern. On June 17, 1972, five men broke into the Watergate building and were caught with cameras and wiretapping equipment in the Democratic National Headquarters. These men were found to be linked to the White House not only through certain personnel (E Howard Hunt and Gordon Liddy) but also through funds from CRP. It was only after the elections results came out in November that more damaging information, via Woodward and Bernstein, further implicated the highest echelons of the executive branch. After the court ordered that Nixon produce his tapes, it was obvious (even with the 18 minute erasure) that he was complicit in the Watergate break-in and much, much more. In 1973, Haldemann and Erlichmann resigned (they would also face prison sentences) but through the tapes and John Dean’s testimony (he was Nixon’s counsel and switched sides for leniency), it was clear to the majority of Americans that Nixon was guilty. The House of Representatives voted on the articles of impeachment on July 27, 1974 and by August 8th, Nixon resigned.


But did Nixon merely glide out of sight never to be heard of again? Not he! In 1977, he had several interviews with a British talk show host, David Frost. He then published his memoirs and engaged in plenty of speaking tours. “Above all, Nixon wanted to be seen as an elder statesman, the high priest of foreign policy, and he set out to speak, travel, and write to establish his expertise” (p. 139). He returned on several trips to China, to England, to France. In 1980, he moved back to NYC to be closer to power and events. “And then this far from gregarious man began a salon in his new brownstone in New York City, systematically entertaining celebrities, businessmen, politicians, policy makers, and occasionally journalists, in mostly stag dinners (among other reasons because of the blue language used at these events), off-the-record, and often in the manner of seminars on a particular topic—finance, the economy, or even Shakespeare, many times with a visiting scholar as a featured guest” (p. 141).

There was an uproar when he sold his San Clemente home instead of handing it over the government (as promised). He wrote articles for the New York Times and Foreign Affairs and he published 8 books between 1980-1992. “The books were mostly turgid and not very revealing, and though there were interesting passages, he shaped the past as it suited him” (p. 143). He attended the funerals of the Shah of Iran and Anwar Sadat, went again to China, and then moved the family out to Saddle River, New Jersey. “He was a frenzy of activity: traveling to Europe, taking another trip to China, giving interviews, sending papers on his foreign policy views (particularly on US-Soviet policy) to opinion leaders, publishing books, attending a strange reunion of his former aides in Washington on the tenth anniversary of his reelection, where he was lionized” (p. 146). By 1990, Nixon opened his presidential library in Yorba Linda, CA. In 1993, Pat died and Richard did not long outlive her. Only one year later he died of a severe stroke.