For my post today about Conrad Black's Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full,
I'll use as my starting-point something that Black says on page 246.
The context is the controversy about Richard Nixon's fund during the
1952 Presidential election. Nixon was the Republican candidate for
Vice-President at the time, and a fund that he had from the donations of
businessmen was controversial, to the point that there were many who
were urging Republican Presidential candidate Dwight Eisenhower to drop
Nixon from the ticket. For some time in 1952, neither Dwight Eisenhower
nor Thomas Dewey----an eastern Republican who helped advance Nixon's
political career----would vigorously step forward to defend Richard
Nixon, whereas more conservative Republicans such as Robert Taft and
Joseph McCarthy did. What follows is something that Black says about
how Nixon would narrate an interaction that he had with Dewey about the
fund controversy:
"In his mid-career memoir, Six Crises,
Nixon wrote that he discerned that Dewey 'did not have his heart in what
he told me.' In his memoirs fifteen years later, written after Dewey
had died, he omitted any reduction of implicit criticism of Dewey's
role."
According to Black, in Six Crises, which Nixon
wrote while Dewey was still alive, Nixon was toning down any criticism
that he had of Dewey's advice about what Nixon should do in light of the
fund controversy (namely, for Nixon to offer his resignation to
Eisenhower in the Fund speech that he was about to give). Nixon said
that he could tell that Dewey's heart was not in what he was saying.
But Nixon in his memoirs, which he wrote after Dewey had died, and even
after the Nixon Presidency itself had ended, omitted that little part
about Dewey's heart not being in what Dewey had told him. As I look at
the passages----on page 110 of Six Crises and pages 125-129 of volume 1 of Richard Nixon's memoirs----I can see Black's point. In Six Crises,
Nixon talks about his anger at what Dewey was telling him, but Nixon
mitigates any implied criticism of Dewey by saying that he could tell
that Dewey's heart wasn't in what Dewey was telling him. In Nixon's
memoirs, however, Nixon simply narrates that he was angry at what Dewey
was telling him.
I'd like to make two points:
1. In my post here,
I talked about Stephen Ambrose's discussion of what type of President
Nixon might have been had he won in 1960, and how that would have
compared with the type of President that he was in 1969-1974. Ambrose
is not particularly dogmatic in this discussion, for he considers
different scenarios. But one scenario that he considers is that, had
Nixon won in 1960, Nixon would have surrounded himself with
Establishment types such as Dwight Eisenhower and Thomas Dewey, rather
than "us vs. them" types like Haldeman, Colson, Agnew, etc. Black says
that the Fund controversy in 1952 alienated Nixon from the Eastern
Establishment Republican types, since Thomas Dewey did not go to bat for
him, whereas right-wing Republicans did. Would a President Nixon who
had won in 1960 have drawn from the wisdom of Eisenhower and Dewey, if
Nixon was arguably bitter about their failure to vigorously support him
during the fund crisis?
I can see it going both ways, but what I
think would have likely happened is that Nixon would have continued to
draw from the insights of Dewey and Eisenhower. Whatever his
disappointments with them may have been, Nixon owed them for his
political advancement, and he probably would have still needed them on
account of their influence within the Republican Party. After all,
Nixon still felt compelled in Six Crises to mitigate any
criticism of Dewey. Moreover, Nixon himself speculated that, had he won
in 1960, the "establishment types" would have remained in power and
Nixon wouldn't have been able to do what was necessary for the country.
Nixon knew himself better than anybody, and he could envision himself
keeping the establishment types in power. At the same time, I can
envision a President Nixon who had won in 1960 feeling free to stray
from advice that Eisenhower would give him. Nixon was for beefing up
the U.S. military and cutting taxes, whereas Eisenhower was not for
these things at the same level. But my impression is that Nixon in 1960
ran on his own ideas rather than those of Eisenhower, and he probably
would have been committed to his own ideas as President.
2. Nixon probably felt that he could be more honest in his memoirs than in Six Crises.
When he wrote his memoirs, he was no longer pursuing political office,
for he had just been President, and thus he didn't need to be as worried
about appeasing the right people. Plus, Nixon could be more honest
about his thoughts regarding Dewey and Eisenhower, for both men had
died. That reminds me of how hard it is for one to be completely honest
in writing, for people out there can take offense at
what one wrote. I am not completely honest in my own writing, to be
candid with you. Honest writing is better writing, but it's not always
feasible----unless one wants to take risks and alienate people.