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Politics

Nixon, Now More Than Ever

Jan. 10, 2013 1:50pm
Monica Crowley, Ph.D., is a Fox News Contributor, host of the nationally syndicated “Monica Crowley Show,” and the author of What the (Bleep) Just  […]
Monica Crowley, Ph.D., is a Fox News Contributor, host of the nationally syndicated “Monica Crowley Show,” and the author of What the (Bleep) Just Happened? The Happy Warrior’s Guide to the Great American Comeback.
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mail@monicamemo.com
Author's Website

“I was born in a house my father built.”

That’s how Richard Nixon chose to begin his memoir, “RN.” A simple, declarative sentence distinguished by its humility. Nixon, the young Quaker boy who grew up poor in the citrus groves of Southern California, and through hard work, extraordinary intellect and talent, and sheer force of will, went on to become President of the United States.

Yesterday, we celebrated the Nixon Centennial. He was born January 9, 1913, and over the next 81 years, he became a dynamic symbol of American resilience.

On July 3, 1990, I became the former President’s foreign policy assistant. I served in this capacity until his death on April 22, 1994 (after which I wrote two bestsellers about my experiences with him, “Nixon Off the Record,” and “Nixon in Winter.”) During those four years, I became a professional confidante of a man who had transformed American politics, changed global balances of power, and became an icon for those seeking both good and evil, brilliance and deceit, selflessness and selfishness, greatness and baseness. Visible and controversial even after his death, Nixon remains a source of endless fascination. “In politics,” he would say, “the only worse thing than being wrong is being dull.” He was sometimes wrong but he was never dull.

Nixon saw leadership as high drama, to be played out on a grand scale and without fear or hesitation. His political career, which he directed with almost epic intensity, dealt triumphs and tragedies in rapid succession: election to Congress in 1946; exposure of top-ranking State Department official Alger Hiss as a spy for the Soviet Union, launching him into the national spotlight; selection as Dwight Eisenhower’s vice presidential running mate in 1952; a well-orchestrated self-defense against false charges with the Fund speech, saving his place on that ticket; the heartbreakingly close loss to John Kennedy in 1960; the defeat in the California gubernatorial race in 1962; the survival of the next six years in the political wilderness; victory in 1968 and a thundering re-election win in 1972; the opening of American relations with China, détente with the Soviet Union, and the end of the war in Vietnam; Watergate and the resignation; and the slow, deliberate climb back to respectability.

At the center of American politics for almost fifty years, Nixon commanded a significance that went beyond political influence. It was cultural. It was definitive. Whether championing anti-communism or the need to help a post-cold war Russia, civil rights or ending the draft, a “peace with honor” in Vietnam or rapprochement with China, responsible arms control, environmental protection, or educational opportunity, Nixon was there, leading. And whether making the decisions in office himself or whispering advice to his successors, Nixon was there. More than any other single figure, Nixon shaped the second half of the American century.

How we could use his wise counsel today on Iran, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Iraq, and al Qaeda. He was, after all, the first president to order a top-secret analysis of Islamic terror (in 1973). We could also use his realism on Russia and China. The world has always been a complicated and dangerous place, but Nixon was one of the rare presidents who could see it functioning as a whole as well as seeing its individual parts. He could also see what the world was going to look like 20 years down the road and dare to make American policy to prepare for that world.

He was once asked how history will remember him, and he replied, “The judgment of history depends on who writes it.” I believe history will be far kinder to Nixon than his contemporaries were, and he will ultimately be considered one of the great modern presidents. Flawed, yes. But he was a tremendously influential leader possessing that rarest of intellectual gifts—vision—and the extraordinary courage to carry it out. This cannot be said for all presidents: Nixon mattered.

Happy 100th birthday, Mr. President! We were lucky to have your leadership, wisdom, and vision—-and I was lucky to have your friendship. Godspeed, sir.

 

Comments (6)

  • JeffMT
    Posted on January 16, 2013 at 8:00am

    For those who think Nixon did nothing worse or different than any and all other presidents before and after him, please cite specific examples for each president. Come on, we all know better than that.

    The so-called ‘Saturday Night Massacre’, the 18 1/2 minute ‘accidental’ erasure of the tape (that was later found forensically to have been done in multiple segments, not all at once), the attempt to throw the FBI off the case by claiming CIA jurisdiction due to ‘national security’ reasons, etc. That is hard core cover-up behavior and far more than just trying to help out some friends. He was trying to save his own rear end, plain and simple.

    And yes, the sad part is that he did have a large lead and ended up winning re-election convincingly even with the Watergate issue looming – the Watergate break in did him no good and only served to give him the platform from which to make a series of incredibly poor decisions that cost him his presidency and put the country through a very difficult time.

    There’s a reason that the phrase ‘gate’ is, and has been since that time, attached to the end of the word describing investigations tied to the White House and other political entities – e.g. Lewinsky-gate, Travel-gate, etc. It all goes back to Watergate. We also learned the phrase ‘follow the money’.

    As we have heard many times since then, it’s not the crime, it’s the coverup, that gets politicians in trouble more often than not.

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    JeffMT  
  • Andrew W. Barbin
    Posted on January 15, 2013 at 4:08pm

    The quote site link was cut off: http://andrewbarbin.blogspot.com/2013/01/richard-nixon-in-progess.html

    BTW: I have all of his books and only two by others, Crowley, Nixon Off the Record and Sulzberger The World & Richard Nixon. Hume’s Ten Commandments is a compilation hybrid and is listed as a Nixon book in Goodreads, but would be the third worthy addition. Most of the rest are dancing on the grave hatchet jobs which tell us far more about the author than the subject. Others are so vile I would not deign to take them out of a library. I read two of the Watergate conspiracy books out of curiosity because the white tape across the lock did seem awfully suspicious, but it is an oddity and in no way relevant to the canon.

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    Andrew W. Barbin  
  • Andrew W. Barbin
    Posted on January 15, 2013 at 3:29pm

    I could not agree more. I still have my large plastic “Nixon Now More Than Ever” banner. The 1969 Inaugural Address remains for me the most inspirational speech in American history; it inspires me still today. It was a promise of stewardship and a call to greatness without hubris. His observation on the fever of words, the greatness of simple things, and the Cathedral of Spirit are more relevant to day than when originally uttered.

    He was a moderate and bi-partisan domestically and a visionary in foreign relations. My grandfather worked with him politically in the 50′s and 60′s his anecdotes illustrated a loyalty and compassion, which were a blessing and a burden.

    As for Watergate,as he said – it was worse than a crime, it was a blunder. He did not plan Watergate. As he noted, he had a commanding lead, and the Democratic HQ would not have housed any useful info as the individual campaign would have that. He erred thinking he could protect errant friends. Each president, before and after, did the same or worse, playing the game by the rules as they found them. He paid his price when others did not.Despite vilification, he spent his latter years advising any with eyes to see or ears to hear, Republican and Democrat alike.

    I spent a few hours the other day entering a fraction of highlighted passages from his books which I think speak sagely to the present day; It remains in progress:

    .http://andrewbarbin.blogspot.com/2013/01/richard-nixon-in-progess.h

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    Andrew W. Barbin  
  • DarthMims
    Posted on January 11, 2013 at 12:10pm

    “Why is this man still laughing?”

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    DarthMims  
  • JeffMT
    Posted on January 10, 2013 at 5:50pm

    Monica: While I enjoy your work on Fox and on the radio, I cannot agree with your take on Nixon.

    Ok, you worked for him and have written about him so I see what you are doing here. Fine. Do what you have to do, I guess.

    The whole Watergate situation was fascinating to me years ago and I read everything I could get my hands on about the subject. I am from Montana and long-time former Senator Mike Mansfield was the Senate Majority Leader during the Watergate era and a key behind-the-scenes player in the Watergate matter so it had some special interest to me as a result.

    The bottom line is that Nixon drug the entire country through Watergate for over two years before finally resigning in disgrace. Most of the damage done to him through that whole process was damage he did to himself because of his denial about his role in the process, then his attempts to cover it all up via strong arm tactics.

    I will admit that he did some things diplomatically with China and Russia that were noteworthy but at the same time he also gave us the EPA and OSHA, for instance, which have proven to be federal government at its worst.

    Sorry, but I do not see any prism through which Nixon is identified as one of America’s great modern presidents. There is too much Watergate baggage there and always will be. If anything, he will be seen as the greatest waste of talent and ability to ever occupy the Oval Office. It’s too bad he threw it all away as he did

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    JeffMT  

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