I have three items for my blog post today about Joan Hoff's Nixon Reconsidered.
1. On page 109, Hoff says the following about Nixon's stance on equal rights for women:
"Nixon
told me in 1983 that his family (his wife and two daughters) favored
the ERA, but he had come to believe after 1963 that the Equal Pay Act
would achieve equality for women----apparently not realizing that this
legislation could never end the pay differential between women and men
or the sex-segregated nature of the U.S. labor force. This view may
have had validity in 1969 when Nixon came into office, but he argued the
point with me as though twenty years had not passed and proved him (and
many others, including Democratic women who had supported the Equal Pay
Act) wrong. Nonetheless, he correctly asserted that effective
application of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act could serve the
same purpose for women as passage of the ERA. Nixon admitted to me,
however, that as president he had not done as much for women as he would
have liked."
This paragraph exemplifies that Hoff's intention in Nixon Reconsidered
is not to whitewash Nixon's record on domestic policies, although she
does believe that Nixon as President had a number of significant
progressive domestic policy accomplishments. Hoff is open about what
she considers to be strengths and weaknesses in Nixon's record. For
example, Hoff acknowledges that there were weaknesses in Nixon's
policies regarding women. Hoff also discusses the sexist attitudes of
Nixon and some of his staff, as well as Nixon's tepid support for the
Equal Rights Amendment as President. At the same time, Hoff notes
accomplishments that Nixon made in terms of fighting gender
discrimination, and she also appears to give Nixon the benefit of a
doubt, in some cases. On page 104, Hoff says that Nixon questioned the
value of recruiting women for government positions, as Nixon expressed
doubt that this would get him more female votes. Hoff states: "Rather
than being a totally negative comment simply rationalizing the
president's reluctance to appoint women, it could have been, suggested
the columnist Tom Wicker, a 'hard political calculation; or it
conceivably was a view somewhat ahead of its time that women generally
wanted effective measures against sex discrimination rather than the
highly visible 'token' jobs in government for a select few.'"
What
I liked about the paragraph on page 109 is that it highlighted two
aspects of Nixon. On the one hand, Nixon was making the same arguments
in 1983 about the Equal Pay Act that he had made back when he was
President, even though (according to Hoff) subsequent events had proven
him wrong. On the other hand, Nixon acknowledged to Hoff that his
record as President on equality for women was inadequate, that he
himself was not completely satisfied with his record on this issue.
Many of us would like to think that we accomplished something good, and
we try to justify our decisions; yet, since none of us is perfect, we
can also look back and reflect that we could have done more.
Self-justification and regret seem to co-exist in a lot of people!
Personally, I find it refreshing when an ex-President looks back at his
time in office and shares his regrets: what he wished he accomplished
but didn't, what he did wrong, what he could have done better, etc. It
makes the ex-President look more human, which contrasts with how
politicians continually try to spin to make themselves look flawless.
2.
On pages 149-150, Hoff talks about how Henry Kissinger did not expect
for his working relationship with Richard Nixon to last, and yet the two
managed to bond over shared characteristics:
"On the surface
Nixon and Kissinger----an American Quaker and a German-American
Jew----appear to have been the odd couple of U.S. foreign policy. Given
his long personal and professional association with the Rockefeller
family and his blunt criticisms of Nixon, Kissinger apparently did not
think he would last even six months in the new Nixon administration.
Yet when these two men came together in 1968, they actually shared many
viewpoints and had developed similar operational styles. Both relished
covert activity and liked making unilateral decisions; both distrusted
bureaucracies; both resented any attempt by Congress to interfere with
initiatives; and both agreed that the United States could impose order
and stability on the world only if the White House controlled policy by
appearing conciliatory but acting tough. While neither had headed any
complex organization, both thought 'personalized executive control' and
formal application of procedures would lead to success. Even more
coincidental, perhaps, each had a history of failure and rejection,
which made them susceptible to devising ways of protecting themselves
and their positions of power. Often their concern for protection
appeared as obsession with eavesdropping, whether wiretaps or
reconnaissance flights. They even eavesdropped on themselves: Nixon by
installing an automatic taping system in the White House, Kissinger by
having some of his meetings and all of his phone conversations taped or
transcribed from notes. In a word, instead of compensating for each
other's weaknesses and enhancing strengths, Nixon and Kissinger shared
their worst characteristics."
Hoff goes into more detail about the
relationship between Nixon and Kissinger. It was quite stormy, in
areas! Nixon thought at one time that Kissinger needed psychiatric
help, and Nixon often tried to hinder Kissinger from taking credit for
foreign policy moves. And Kissinger actually was trying to
upstage Nixon (according to Hoff), and also badmouthed Nixon to others
after the Nixon Presidency. Meanwhile, as Hoff notes, Nixon in his
memoirs was quite mellow in talking about Kissinger. Overall, from what
I have read in books about (and even by) Nixon, there were intense
personality conflicts among Nixon's staff. I doubt it's an
Administration in which I would have wanted to work, at least in the
inner-circle!
Moreover, Hoff notes that prominent Nixon aide H.R.
Haldeman thought that Nixon and Kissinger actually did compensate for
each other's weaknesses: that Nixon did well in crisis but poorly when
things were going well, whereas Kissinger tended to stress out in
crises, while handling the good times rather adeptly rather than
botching things up.
Whatever their conflicts, Nixon and Kissinger
did have a long-standing relationship in the area of foreign policy,
particularly during Nixon's Presidency. I recall Stephen Ambrose
telling the story in his biography of Nixon of when Indian Prime
Minister Indira Gandhi visited Nixon and Kissinger during a conflict
between India and Pakistan, and she noted that Nixon was continually
saying, "Isn't that right, Henry?"
I like stories in which people
whom one would not expect to get along actually do end up forming a
fairly successful relationship----whether that be a working or a
personal relationship.
3. On pages 163-164, Hoff talks about
Nixon's Secretary of Defense, Mel Laird, who had a reputation as a hawk
during his time in the 1960's as a Congressman, but who as Secretary of
Defense was much more moderate. As Secretary of Defense, Hoff says,
Laird pushed for the end of the draft, the replacement of American
troops in Vietnam with South Vietnamese troops (Vietnamization), and the
withdrawal of American troops "faster than the Pentagon thought the
South Vietnamese forced could be trained to replace them..." Laird also
questioned extending the war into Laos and Cambodia. Hoff says that,
"unlike Nixon and Kissinger, Laird was more interested in ending the war in Vietnam than in winning it." All this, "Despite cartoons depicting Laird's bald head in the shape of a missile, bomb, or bullet..."
In
addition to liking opposites-attract stories, I also enjoy stories in
which a person acts differently than people perceive him. I think of
the movie, Separate But Equal, which was about a companion case to the Brown vs. the Board of Education
Supreme Court decision banning racial segregation in public schools.
In that movie, the side that is challenging segregation is afraid when
Earl Warren becomes the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, for it
learns that Warren as California Attorney General was a major force
behind putting Japanese-Americans into internment camps during World War
II. But Warren surprised the anti-segregation side. Not only did
Warren come to support desegregation, but he also attempted to persuade
the other justices to support it so that the court could make a firm
statement.
The way that the movie depicts the situation, Warren's
eyes were opened to the realities of racial discrimination after he had
become Chief Justice, and he saw that his African-American driver was
sleeping in his car one night because no hotel or motel would accept
him. Maybe this is true, and maybe it is not. Still, Warren probably
did surprise people when he fought for desegregation.
Why Laird
changed his mind, I have no idea. Perhaps he learned more. Maybe he
just got to the point where he wanted the war to end, and he didn't
believe that hawkish measures were working. I've read Republicans who
make fun of how the liberal establishment says that Republican
politicians who end up supporting liberal measures have demonstrated
"growth" since their time in office. Personally, I think it's great
when people change with new information and exposure to real
life----whether that change be from left to right, or from right to
left, or from one of these extremes towards the middle. All sorts of
people can move from shallow positions to positions of depth.
Coming
back to the issue of regrets, I'd like to quote what Earl Warren said
in his 1977 memoirs about his support for Japanese internment camps
during World War II (see here):
I "since deeply regretted the removal order and my own testimony
advocating it, because it was not in keeping with our American concept
of freedom and the rights of citizens...Whenever I thought of the
innocent little children who were torn from home, school friends, and
congenial surroundings, I was conscience-stricken...[i]t was wrong to
react so impulsively, without positive evidence of disloyalty..."