I have two items for my write-up today on volume 2 of Richard Nixon's memoirs.
1. On pages 631-632, we read the following:
"Finally,
there were the media. I felt that, consciously or subconsciously, they
had a vested interest in my impeachment. After all the months of leaks
and accusations and innuendo, the media stood to lose if I were
vindicated. The defenses never caught up with the charges. For
example, after all the damaging press and television coverage of alleged
abuses of the IRS, when IRS Commissioner Donald Alexander announced the
conclusions of a report that found no one had in fact been harassed as a
result of White House intervention----a conclusion later supported by
the findings of a joint congressional committee investigation----it was
run on page thirty-nine of the New York Times and received
scant coverage elsewhere. Most of the reporters and commentators were
still filtering everything through their Watergate obsessions. For
example, Douglas Kiker of NBC reported that the White House was seeking
to create the 'impression' of a 'busy President, back from an important
and exhausting peacekeeping mission, trying to do his job' despite
harassment from the House Judiciary Committee. Months later, House
Judiciary Committee impeachment firebrand Jerome Waldie said that he
doubted that I would have been forced from office 'if the press had not
desired it.'"
The theme of Nixon being a victim of the media is
not new, in terms of Nixon's writings. He portrayed himself as such in
his 1962 book, Six Crises, and throughout volumes 1-2 of his
memoirs. I admire Nixon for being tough in the midst of the attacks on
him, and yet there is a part of me that does not feel sorry for him that
much, especially after reading Greg Mitchell's Tricky Dick and the Pink Lady. In
Mitchell's depiction of the 1950 U.S. Senate race in California between
Richard Nixon and Democrat Helen Gahagan Douglas, Mitchell essentially
presents Douglas as a victim of Nixon's slick and well-funded campaign,
of Nixon's attacks, and of wealthy special interests and a press who
were largely in favor of Nixon. (Mitchell
acknowledges, however, that Douglas herself made mistakes in her
campaign, and that there were attacks against her even before she ran
against Nixon, for she was seen as too far to the left and as soft on
Communism.) The 1950 Senate race effectively ended Douglas' political
career. Governor Earl Warren himself lamented that Nixon tried to
destroy his opponents, not just beat them. In light of that, I had a
slightly hard time feeling sorry for Nixon when he complained about
being the victim of John F. Kennedy's slick campaign and media bias.
I saw what he was going through as justice. But I'm sure that Nixon
would see things differently: he'd probably say that his attacks on
Douglas were fair in that they simply highlighted her record, whereas
many charges against him were not fair.
2. On page 650, Nixon
quotes his daughter Tricia's diary, which said: "Daddy, of course, is
always protective of everyone but himself." That's essentially how
Nixon portrays himself in his memoirs: he cares for his family and for
those who work for him, and it pains him when he has to take hard yet
necessary measures, such as asking H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman to
resign. The reason that Tricia's statement stood out to me in my latest
reading is that I have been looking at Amazon book reviews of books by
those who were within Nixon's inner circle during Watergate----Haldeman,
Ehrlichman, etc.----and some of the reviews say that Nixon basically
threw others under the bus in order to save his own skin. I may read
those books, or I may not. I don't know what the truth of the matter
is, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's somewhere in between the two
extremes: Nixon was caring, yet he was also self-protective, on some
level.