I have two items to share for my post today about Julie Nixon Eisenhower's Pat Nixon: The Untold Story.
1.
One thought that occurred to me while reading Julie's book was "What
exactly will it take to please some people?" Julie talks about her
mother Pat's promotion of volunteerism as First Lady----community
service, in essence. But, according to Julie, there were people who
criticized that, arguing that volunteerism did not really solve social
ills, and that it was mostly done by rich women with time on their
hands. (Julie retorts that there are many volunteers who also work full
time.) Volunteerism should be considered a good thing, I think: taking
one's time to reach out and to help the poor, the elderly, and the
disabled. I wouldn't say that volunteerism should be used as an excuse
for the government to do nothing, for large-scale national ills may
require attempted solutions by the national government. But I agree
with Pat Nixon that volunteerism adds a personal touch, plus I believe
that many people appreciate others showing them that they care. Why are
there people who have to be so cynical and eager to express their
pontifications and bloviations that they criticize volunteerism, of all
things? Julie does note an Associated Press writer who praised her
mother for visiting Peru and helping out there after Peru had been hit
with an earthquake. At least some people will praise a praiseworthy
act, an attempt to do good.
2. One topic that comes up throughout
Julie's book is the schools that she and her sister, Tricia, attended.
Both of them attended a public school in Washington, D.C., and Julie
says this was because the school was racially-integrated: Richard Nixon
did not want to give the impression that he was shunning
racially-integrated schools. Apparently, there were other politicians
who had the same idea, for Julie states that Adlai Stevenson's running
mate in 1956, Democrat Estes Kefauver, sent his kids to the same public
school that Julie and Tricia attended, and Julie narrates that she and
the Kefauver kids were friendly with each other. Julie does not think
that the public school was that good, however, for it was not
sufficiently funded, and, when Richard and Pat moved their daughters to a
racially-integrated Quaker school, Julie and Tricia struggled a bit to
catch up to their classmates.
When Richard Nixon was running for
Governor of California in 1962, Julie and Tricia attended a school where
a lot of the children were wealthy. The Nixon daughters felt out of
place there, and the reason was that many of the kids' parents were
supporting the right-wing John Bircher against whom Nixon was running
for the Republican nomination. Later, Julie would attend Smith College,
and she felt rather out of place there because many of the students and
professors were supporters of the anti-war Democratic candidate for
President, Eugene McCarthy.
Julie found out about Smith College
when her family was taking a drive through Massachusetts. Richard noted
that Smith College was nearby, and they decided to check the campus
out. I was hoping that Richard and Pat would really like Smith College
in the story, since that would remind me of my Mom encouraging me to go
to DePauw University, a small, liberal arts university, back when I was
in high school. But it turned out that Julie liked Smith, whereas
Richard and Pat wanted her to go to Stanford or Northwestern, which were
larger and coeducational. (On a side note, check here to see all the famous people who went to Smith College!)
Tricia
attended Finch College, which was an all-women's college. Her major
was Modern European History. Julie narrated earlier in the book that
Tricia was becoming interested in history, especially William Shirer's
landmark tome, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. I was not aware that Tricia had intellectual pursuits (not that I know her), but it turns out that she did!