Jonathan Aitken's Nixon: A Life 8

For my blog post today about Jonathan Aitken's Nixon: A Life, my focus will be on the Nixon Administration's enemies list.  This will not be a comprehensive post, going into what many authors have said about the topic.  Rather, I just want to highlight some passages that I found interesting.

Richard Nixon, in his book In the Arena, talks a bit about the enemies list.  On page 249, he states: "During Watergate, much attention was paid to the 'enemies list' that a member of the White House staff had prepared.  I never saw it.  Regrettably, some on the list were my personal friends."

(On another topic, as I look at that same page of In the Arena, I see a noteworthy passage that I must have missed when I read the book the first time around.  Nixon says that Harry Truman in the 1948 Presidential election implied that Nazis were supporting his opponent, Republican Thomas Dewey.  Nixon also states that "Ideally, candidates should hammer each other without destroying each other."  That brought to my mind a couple of things.  First of all, I wrote a post in which I critiqued Pat Buchanan's claim that those who supported Harry Truman's "give 'em hell" campaign against Dewey were hypocritical to then criticize Nixon's hard-hitting Senate campaign against Helen Gahagan Douglas.  If Truman was somehow linking Dewey with Nazism, however, then I'd say that Truman's campaign was more below-the-belt than I thought!  Second, while Nixon criticizes campaigns that destroy the other candidate, there are people who contend that Nixon actually destroyed his opponents, Jerry Voorhis and Helen Gahagan Douglas.  Roger Morris on the American Experience documentary about Nixon said that Nixon's campaigns destroyed them politically, and nearly personally, and that this engendered a lot of bitterness.  But back to the White House enemies list!)

Julie Nixon Eisenhower, Richard Nixon's youngest daughter, talks some about the enemies list in her biography of Pat Nixon, entitled Pat Nixon: The Untold Story.  On page 376, Julie argues that White House Counsel John Dean, who would reveal the existence of the enemies list in his testimony before Congress against the President, was himself the one who came up with it:

"Among the most titillating revelations from Dean were the 'enemies lists.'  Dean produced a memo, composed by himself, on 'dealing with our political enemies.'  In addition to a list of twenty prime political opponents, whom Dean recommended that the Administration target, were several lists of names running into the hundreds, which were to be referred to in determining who received White House jobs and invitations.  In his book, With Nixon, Ray Price points out that when he learned from Dean's testimony of the existence of the lists, he called them 'Dean's enemy lists,' because 'after all, it was Dean who proposed the unused plan to 'screw our enemies,' and Dean who collected the lists in his filing cabinet.'"

Julie goes on to argue that the Joint Congressional Committee on Internal Revenue Taxation found that the tax audits of those on the lists were no more severe than they were for others.  She also states that there were some on the list who were there "for no apparent reason."  She tells the story of how heart surgeon Michael DeBakey, who was on the list, still extended to her parents an offer of friendship, for he realized that they "had nothing to do with the lists" (page 377).

Going on to Richard Nixon's memoirs, Nixon states the following on page 441 of volume 2:

"[John Dean] talked about my attempt to have the IRS do checks on our political opponents with no attempt to show how widespread the practice had been among the Democrats in previous years.  The fact that we had hired a political investigator was treated as a sinister innovation, when in fact checking up on the political opposition has been part of politics since time out of mind.  We paid our investigator with political funds; other administrations had even used the FBI.  Dean produced an 'enemies list,' which even he has since admitted was vastly overplayed by the media."

Here, Nixon does not necessarily contradict what he said in In the Arena, but his focus is different: he justifies doing research on his political opponents, and even having the IRS do checks on some of them, on the grounds that this was customary in politics.

Jonathan Aitken refers to John Ehrlichman's statement that Nixon was assigning people odd jobs for investigation, some of them having to do with investigating political opponents, or the motives of a writer who criticized Julie.  Ehrlichman became concerned that this type of work "could not legitimately be funded by the taxpayer" (Ehrlichman, quoted on page 417).  Eventually, John Dean would do some of that work.  Aitken refers to Dean's August 16, 1971 memorandum, "Dealing with Our Political Enemies," which (according to Aitken) recommended that a list be compiled of the Administration's political enemies and that "various government agencies such as the IRS should be encouraged 'to screw them'" (Aitken cites for this page 104 of Silent Coup).  But Aitken says that Nixon, Haldeman, and Ehrlichman denied seeing the memorandum and that "no action was taken to implement its recommendations" (page 418).  On page 419, however, Aitken quotes Charles Colson's statement that the atmosphere at the White House tended to reward people who brought "negative intelligence" (Colson's words) on the Administration's political opponents.

UPDATE: Was Dean responsible for the enemies list?  On page 297 of President Nixon: Alone in the White House, Richard Reeves states: "Beginning on January 25, [1971?,] one of those new assistants, George Bell, began to work on implementing a new Nixon idea: organizing the staff to prepare lists of friends and enemies."  Reeves narrates that Haldeman saw a few of the lists, put together by Bell and Charles Colson, and was asking for clarification about them.  If Reeves is correct, then Dean probably was not solely responsible for the enemies list. 

Jonathan Aitken's Nixon: A Life 4

In my latest reading of Jonathan Aitken's Nixon: A Life, Aitken's narration of Richard Nixon's controversial 1950 Senate campaign was, well, interesting.  I have read things that try to defend Nixon's activity during that time, or at least to portray Nixon as not-so-horrible.  Irwin Gellman's The Contender is one example.  So is Richard Nixon's narration of the event in his memoirs.  And Julie Nixon Eisenhower states that both Nixon and his Democratic opponent, Helen Douglas, were harsh to one another, probably against the narrative that focuses largely on her father's attacks on Douglas.

But Aitken took this sort of pro-Nixon or Nixon sympathizing narrative to a whole new level.  He says that Douglas was worse than Nixon in terms of attacks.  Aitken also seems to imply that the infamous Pink Sheet----in which Nixon compared Douglas' voting record with that of far left Congressman Vito Marcantonio----came after Douglas' Yellow Sheet attacking Nixon and comparing his voting record with that of Marcantonio.  Aitken also departs from the typical narrative that Nixon's controversial take-no-prisoners campaign aide, Murray Chotiner, was encouraging Nixon to run a brutal Red-baiting campaign against Douglas.  According to Aitken, Chotiner was encouraging Nixon to focus on domestic issues, rather than his role in the Alger Hiss case.  But Nixon did not take Chotiner's advice, Aitken narrates.  And, against the charge that Nixon exploited anti-Semitism in his campaign (since Douglas' husband was Jewish), Aitken points out that Nixon repudiated anti-Semitism in a manner that drew praise from the Anti-Defamation League, and also that Murray Chotiner himself was Jewish.  Aitken is not completely defensive of Nixon, however, for he argues (like many biographers) that the Pink Sheet was rather misleading.

I think that Aitken raised some valid points in his discussion of the 1950 campaign, or at least points that are worthy of discussion.  Most narrations that I have read about the event appear to presume that Nixon brought up Marcantonio first, and that Douglas only compared Nixon with Marcantonio after Nixon's Pink Sheet.  But many of the narrations that I have read----even those that depict Nixon as the bad guy and Douglas as a victim----point out examples of Douglas' name-calling and attacks on her political opponents.  I doubt that she was above reproach.  Aitken does well to highlight that, and he does so in more detail than anything else I have read up to this point.  I do believe that Aitken's narrative was incomplete, however, or failed to take into account certain considerations.  Aitken, for example, notes examples of Nixon criticizing and repudiating Joseph McCarthy, but some of the other books I have read suggest that Nixon praised McCarthy in pro-McCarthy areas of California, while criticizing him in the more moderate areas of the state.

Other interesting items in my latest reading include stories about Nixon's kindnesses to others (such as his secretaries and constituents who visited him in Washington, D.C.); the account of Nixon's long-time secretary, Rose Mary Woods, that Nixon in interviewing her did not probe into her religious or political affiliations, and Woods' narration of her Catholic family's victimization at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan when she was growing up (the Klan burned crosses on her lawn); and Nixon's reliance on his religious faith in getting through the 1952 Fund controversy.  These are things that I have not found in other books by and about Nixon.  Nixon himself probably recognized the need to appear modest, so he does not harp on his kind deeds in his writings.  Nixon also expressed aversion towards wearing religion on one's sleeve, and that may explain why he does not talk much about his faith in Six Crises and his memoirs.   Regarding Rose Mary Woods' accounts, Aitken's discussion of that shows how his book is a reservoir of interviews with key people whom many did not get to interview.

Also noteworthy is Aitken's narration of Nixon's work for Dwight Eisenhower at the 1952 Republican Convention.  Like many biographers, except for Gellman, Aitken depicts Nixon as supporting Eisenhower at the convention and seeking to undermine Earl Warren's hold on the California delegates, and Aitken does so with more clarity than other narrations I have read.  In his clarity, however, Aitken does leave some things out, such as Roger Morris' claim that Nixon at the convention was pretending to support arch-conservative candidate Robert Taft to the Taftites.

Julie Nixon Eisenhower's Pat Nixon: The Untold Story 9

I finished Julie Nixon Eisenhower's Pat Nixon: The Untold Story.

1.  Julie recounts that her mother as First Lady was devoted to reading and responding to her mail, and to helping people whenever she could.  On page 323, Julie tells about a time that her mother helped a first-time offender who was having difficulty finding work:

"An impoverished young girl wrote Mrs. Nixon and confided she had been caught shoplifting and had been unable since then to get a job.  An impersonal letter expressing 'concern' was attached to the girl's letter and then placed in one of the bulging brown folders of mail destined for the small wooden table for messages outside Mrs. Nixon's bedroom.  When my mother got to the letter, she wrote across the top, 'Gwen, this is fine but it doesn't really help her, does it?'  Rewritten, the letter referred the girl to a Civil Service rehabilitation program for first-time offenders, and eventually she was employed.  One more person had been helped."

I love this story for three reasons.  First, Mrs. Nixon helped someone whom not everyone would want to help.  Her attitude was not "She made her bed, now let her sleep in it."  Some may criticize Julie's book by saying that it portrays her mother as a saint.  Frankly, after reading a couple of books that portray Pat as a chain-smoking drunk or as an empty shell of a woman, seeing Pat's altruism highlighted is quite refreshing.  Second, it interests me that Mrs. Nixon referred the young lady to a government program.  That reinforces in my mind that we don't have to choose between the government helping people and people helping people, for both can work together as a team.  Mrs. Nixon apparently had that mindset in this case, even though it seems to me (from what Julie says) that Pat Nixon held a number of politically conservative positions.  Third, Pat used her power for good.  Why have power if it won't be used for good?  Pat's power, in this case, was that she had access to information that many people probably did not have: that there was a government program that could help first-time offenders get a job.

2.  On page 149, Julie summarizes Pat Nixon's views about the controversial Red-hunting Senator, Joseph McCarthy:

"My mother wanted to believe that Joe McCarthy had his facts straight and that those he charged as being Communists would soon be out of government.  The experience of the Hiss case had convinced her that the issue of Communist infiltration was a real one.  Moreover, during her 1953 world trip, she had been disturbed by the number of State Department officials, most of them long-term careerists, who seemed to be lukewarm advocates of our own government and apologists for local insurgencies and, occasionally, Communism.  Some had gone so far as to tell her outright that the people of the country where they served would be better off under Communism.  Even as growing numbers of Americans questioned McCarthy's sincerity, my mother resolved not to do so, but she soon recognized that with his reckless charges, sloppy research, and insatiable desire for headlines, he was his own worse enemy."

I like this passage because it gives insight into Pat's political views, and the basis for one of her positions.  Personally, I'm doubtful that the State Department people who expressed some sympathy towards Communism were themselves card-carrying Communists, but my guess is that they were well-meaning people who thought that Communism was better for the poor than the poverty that they were experiencing.  Was it still dangerous for the U.S. to have such people in the State Department, when the Cold War was going on?  Well, I don't condone Communism, for I recognize that it was (and, to some extent, still is) a tyrannical and brutal system.  Still, I do believe that there should have been people in the government who were compassionate towards the poor, who recognized the existence of systemic problems, and who tried to see Third World countries as something more than pawns in the Cold War.  I don't entirely know what the U.S. could have done in situations where peasants were mobilizing into Communist movements as a way to ameliorate their conditions: How could the U.S. have addressed humanitarian concerns, while still fighting Communism?  My impression is that this was easier said than done!  Not long ago, I watched a movie called Path to War, which was about America's growing involvement in the Vietnam War during the Lyndon Johnson Administration.  Johnson desired to help Vietnam in a humanitarian sense, but Ho Chi Minh did not want that help, according to Johnson in the movie.

3.  On pages 446-447, Julie criticizes the book The Final Days, by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, which portrayed Pat Nixon as one who drank heavily and the marriage between Richard and Pat as cold.  Julie is skeptical about the authors' claim that they only included stories that were confirmed by at least two sources.  She quotes Ray Price, who said that this means that "if two people have heard the same rumor, [the writers] weave a story around it, wrap it in manufactured detail and sprinkle it with quotation marks, and present the story as fact" (Price's words).  Julie also quotes a public statement made by her husband David Eisenhower, who was interviewed by one of The Final Days' authors.  When David was asked about the interview by the Washington Post, the Post distorted David's response, Julie quotes David as saying.  David denied to the Post that the Nixons had an unhappy marriage, saying that such a notion was "a general characterization of that relationship which would require forty-five minutes to rebut, forty-five minutes the reporter and I did not have" (David's words).  The Post, however, just quoted David's statement that the notion was "a general characterization".  David went on in his public statement to say that "The Nixon family is a close family", and that "The love and respect of each for all is a beautiful thing."

I've read a couple of anti-Nixon books that use material from interviews.  A question that enters my mind after reading Julie's account on pages 446-447 is: Did they quote their sources accurately?  I don't know.  I don't dismiss everything that they said, for some quotes are hard to put into a positive or a neutral context: if a quote looks negative about Nixon, it looks negative about Nixon, and I can't envision a context for that quote that would make it positive!  At the same time, I am open to the possibility that there may be more to people's thoughts than what they expressed on one or more occasions to an interviewer.

Julie Nixon Eisenhower's Pat Nixon: The Untold Story 8

On page 442 of Pat Nixon: The Untold Story, Julie Nixon Eisenhower talks about the books that her mother, Pat Nixon, liked to read after Richard Nixon's departure from the Presidency:

"Her favorite books were the historical novels by the prolific writer Taylor Caldwell, who crammed her stories with rich details on the eras she wrote about, be they Biblical times, ancient Greece, or nineteenth-century America.  What my mother found intriguing was that Taylor Caldwell believed in international plots, and to this day my mother's perception of Watergate is that it was partly an international scheme, or, at the very least, that double agents were involved.  Like many others, she had questioned from the beginning the suspicious circumstances surrounding the apprehension of the burglars.  Was it a setup?  Was the CIA involved?  How deeply was Howard Hunt or his organization involved?"

I like this passage because it offers insights into Pat Nixon's views on Watergate.  Julie goes on to say that Pat and Richard "avoided reading any of the books on the Nixon years, favorable, or unfavorable", which is not an absolute statement, since Julie later tells the story of how Pat had a stroke after reading parts of The Final Days, by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.  But I wonder what Pat thought of the controversial book Silent Coup, which (from what I have heard) has a somewhat conspiratorial tone when talking about Watergate, and which a number of Nixon defenders, and even Nixon himself, liked.  (I don't know if Nixon actually read it, but he told Monica Crowley that he wished its thesis got more attention than it did.)

It's also interesting what Julie says about author Taylor Caldwell.  Caldwell was linked with the John Bircher wing of conservatism (see here), the wing that gave Richard Nixon and even Tricia and Julie problems when Nixon was running for Governor of California in 1962.  It's ironic, in my opinion, that Pat Nixon enjoyed Taylor Caldwell's books.  That Caldwell talked about "international plots" in her book does not surprise me, since the John Birch Society believed in conspiracies----among international bankers, communists, socialists, leftists, etc.----to create a one world government.  I don't know for sure how Caldwell portrayed the "international plots", since I have not read any of her books.  (My Mom has one of them, however, and I have Caldwell's A Pillar of Iron, which is about Cicero.)  But the wikipedia article about her states that "Many of Caldwell's books centered on the idea that a small cabal of rich, powerful men secretly control the world."

Julie Nixon Eisenhower's Pat Nixon: The Untold Story 7

I have three items for my blog post today about Julie Nixon Eisenhower's Pat Nixon: The Untold Story.

1.  I wrote in my post yesterday that "Julie throughout the book (at least in what I have read thus far) very rarely questions her father's presidential decisions..."  Well, as my reading of the book goes on, Julie questions more and more her father's judgment.  In my latest reading, for example, she appeared to be criticizing her father's heavy dependence on his aide, H.R. Haldeman.  Julie relates a few stories about how Haldeman would tell Nixon that someone wanted to resign, when actually that person was unaware that his resignation was even on the table!  Julie expresses understanding, however, for her father's desire to consolidate his staff.

Julie also seems to imply that her father was wrong to demand the resignations of every "noncareer government employee" in his Administration when he began his second term, which was Nixon's symbolic way of declaring a new beginning.  Although Nixon did not plan to accept most of the resignations, his move hurt morale, according to Julie.  Julie narrates that her mother, Pat Nixon, was "surprised and unhappy about the request for resignations" (page 361).  Nixon later would regret his move.

Later in the book, Julie implies that her father and John Mitchell, Nixon's Attorney General, were wrong to laugh off the eccentricities of Mitchell's wife, Martha, for those eccentricities turned out to be serious problems.

I'm not sure if Julie ever explicitly says that her father was "right" or "wrong", per se, but her usual manner seems to be to tell the story in such a way that the reader would arrive at a specific conclusion.

Overall, at least in my reading so far, Julie does not question her father's policies.  On once occasion, however, she mentions a slight difference of opinion between her father and mother: Pat Nixon supported the Equal Rights Amendment, whereas Richard Nixon had some reservations about it.

2.  I read in Anthony Summers' The Arrogance of Power that there were rumors in 1960 that Pat Nixon had been married prior to her marriage to Richard.  Summers says that the question of whether this is true "may now be unanswerable" because it's hard to hunt "down old marriage records in New York State" (page 29). Summers does not think it impossible that she had been married before, for Pat's "alleged first husband" denied the marriage to a Washington Post reporter in a manner that she considered ambiguous, and some of the documentation that "should have included Pat Ryan's marital status...seemed to have gone missing" (page 29).  Summers also points out that Betty Ford's previous marriage was unknown before "a Time magazine reporter dug into her background in 1974", and he wonders if Pat could have had "a similar secret".

In a note in the back, on page 488, Summers offers more nuances.  He notes that Pat referred to herself as unmarried in letters home "as late as February 1934."  He does not think that Pat was married to Dr. Francis Vincent Duke, for that was not mentioned in Duke's obituary, plus Pat's alleged first husband whom the Washington Post reporter interviewed lived in New Orleans, whereas Duke did not.

As far as Julie's book goes, Julie narrates that Dr. Duke asked Pat to marry him more than once, but Pat rejected his offers, since she wanted her independence, and she did not feel that she had truly lived yet, having been busy for much of her life up to that point.

3.  On page 117, Julie tells a story about someone she encountered during the 1952 election, back when Julie was a child:

"When Jacqueline Bouvier (later Kennedy), the 'Inquiring Photographer' for the Times-Herald, encountered me playing outside our house, she asked, 'Do you play with Democrats?'  My response was 'What's a Democrat?'"

When I was reading that, I was picturing Jackie as a paparazzi journalist!  Julie may not have been painting that picture, but that's what I was thinking!

Julie Nixon Eisenhower's Pat Nixon: The Untold Story 6

For my blog post today about Julie Nixon Eisenhower's Pat Nixon: The Untold Story, I'll use as my starting-point something that Julie says on page 312:

"For months, Tricia had been denying----with my mother, father, David, and I faithfully following the family line----rumors of an engagement to Ed Cox, but the rumors were put to rest that night with an official announcement of her engagement.  She and Ed had been in and out of, but mostly in, love for a long time.  They had first met at Tricia's senior-year school dance in 1964.  Both were romantic and idealistic, and both were intelligent, opinionated, and strong-willed.  At times they disagreed over politics.  After graduating from Princeton University, Ed spent the summer of 1968 working for consumer activist Ralph Nader, while Tricia campaigned for my father."

I have three items.

1.  Something that stood out to me in this passage is that Julie seems to be acknowledging that her family was lying to the public about Tricia Nixon's engagement.  I may be completely off base here, since maybe the Nixons were denying her engagement in a time when she was not engaged----after all, Julie said that Tricia and Ed Cox fell in and out of love for quite some time.

But there are other places where Julie seems to admit that her family was not completely transparent to the public.  On page 325, she refers to a column that Jack Anderson wrote revealing the contents of a meeting that Henry Kissinger had with the Washington Special Actions Group, which consisted of people from the State and Defense Departments, the CIA, and the National Security Council.  Julie states that "The minutes revealed that Kissinger clearly had indicated a presidential 'tilt' toward Pakistan, which was at variance with the neutral position of the Administration on the [India-Pakistan] war."  On pages 323, Julie tells a funny anecdote about a letter that Pat received from an eighth grader, lamenting the life of a First Lady, while attempting to look at things from the First Lady's perspective (thus speaking in the first-person).  The fifth grader's letter said that being a First Lady means getting a sore throat after giving a speech, hurting one's feet after standing for hours, getting back-aches from sleeping in lots of hotels, and hearing bodyguards outside when one is trying to sleep.  The fifth-grader then went on to say, "I wish I could be an ordinary housewife and wear sneakers and blue jeans."  Pat wrote back to the fifth-grader that being the First Lady is a "special joy and privilege", but Pat saved the fifth-grader's letter, saying "She hits the spot!"

And, while Julie throughout the book (at least in what I have read thus far) very rarely questions her father's presidential decisions, she does admit that it was a mistake for her father to install the taping system in the White House, since (in her mind) his method of discussion and decision-making gave people the wrong impression when it was made public.

I suppose that many people are not completely transparent to people, and they may tell "white lies."  Some of those lies may be excusable.  Others, however, are not necessarily.

2.  Julie says that her sister Tricia was "strong-willed".  On that note, I'd like to share something that Anthony Summers says about Tricia in The Arrogance of Power, on page 326.  Essentially, Summers depicts Tricia as somewhat of a diva:

"Tricia did not endear herself to Nixon's staff.  Ehrlichman thought her a 'tough and troubled cookie.'  She once reported an Air Force steward for allegedly staring at her legs.  An usher who had been told to bring pillows to Tricia and a friend was then expected to lift the friend's outstretched legs to create a hassock.  Secret Service agents, who dubbed Tricia Goody Two-shoes, objected to being instructed to water her plants while she was away on a trip.  They carried out the mission, one agent claimed, by urinating on them."
In the endnotes, Summers cites Ehrlichman's book, some secondary sources, and a couple of former agents.
Julie probably wouldn't agree with Summers' characterization of Tricia, while also highlighting the positive things that Tricia did.

3.  In my post here, I talked about Tricia's staunch conservative political views, and how my impression was that Julie was more open to different perspectives.  Overall, I'd say that Julie echoes her father's political views in this book, as she largely defends her father's policies as President.  But, on page 327 of Julie's book, we read:

"The subject that night was the role of women.  David and I had just read Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, a thoughtful analysis of women's place in society prior to and at the onset of the feminist movement.  My father was intrigued and asked for a copy as a belated Christmas gift.  Tricia had commented that unless it was absolutely necessary, she felt children five years and younger should not be sent to day-care centers."

Here, Julie seems to be somewhat open to Friedan's argument, at least enough to call Friedan's book a "thoughtful analysis".  But Tricia in the discussion expresses a rather conservative position.

Julie Nixon Eisenhower's Pat Nixon: The Untold Story 5

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!

Julie Nixon Eisenhower's Pat Nixon: The Untold Story 4

On page 227 of Pat Nixon: The Untold Story, Julie Nixon Eisenhower (the youngest daughter of Richard and Pat Nixon) talks about Pat Buchanan working for her father starting in 1966, which was a time in between Richard Nixon's service as Vice-President and President.  Pat Buchanan worked in the same room as Rose Mary Woods (Nixon's long-time secretary), Shelley Scarney (who would become Pat Buchanan's wife), and Pat Nixon.  Julie tells some amusing anecdotes about Pat Buchanan.  She states that he "cursed and mumbled" (Pat Buchanan's words) while he was typing, and that, while the people in that work-space didn't have much time for small talk, Pat Buchanan "bummed cigarettes from my mother" in the afternoons, even though he "was trying to quit smoking."

This passage stood out to me for two reasons.  First of all, it was interesting to me to read about Pat Buchanan's human side.  Pat Buchanan was the first person I voted for in a presidential election.  I voted for him in the 1996 Republican primary, and also in the 2000 Presidential election.  (I lived in Massachusetts, which was going for Gore anyway, so I figured I could vote for the candidate I liked best.)  Although I am more to the left nowadays than I was then, and even though I can understand and sympathize with my friends' criticisms of and reservations about Pat Buchanan, I still like the guy!  I don't know him personally, but I like watching him on TV and reading his writings.

Second, the passage brought to my mind Pat Nixon's smoking.  Earlier in the book, on page 89, Julie acknowledged that Pat Nixon smoked,  but she states that Pat didn't smoke publicly when Richard was running for Congress in 1946.  Julie quotes Pat as saying: "It just wasn't acceptable in Whittier for women to smoke then.  I was a very light smoker and felt why let something that's not that important to me become an issue."

Anthony Summers, in The Arrogance of Power: The Secret World of Richard Nixon, portrays Pat Nixon as a chain-smoker.  He states on page 38:

"Pat Nixon claimed she used neither cigarettes nor alcohol.  In fact, she smoked almost all her adult life and was to die of lung cancer.  By the time her husband was president, she was chain-smoking the moment she stepped out of the public eye.  'She smoked incessantly aboard Air Force One,' said chief pilot Ralph Albertazzie.  'That was one of the little secrets she shared with the crew.  Sometimes, after a flight, the stewards counted the butts....'"

When I was growing up, I was taught that smoking was wrong.  If I'm not mistaken, my church said a couple of times that smoking was a sin because our bodies are the temple of God.  The thing is, when I was a child, I saw adults smoking!  I was confused.  Adults were telling me that smoking was wrong, yet I saw adults smoking.

I would occasionally tell strangers who were smoking that what they were doing was wrong, to the embarrassment of my parents!  The smokers would usually acknowledge that smoking wasn't good for them, but they would say that they couldn't quit.

One time, when I was in elementary school, my class was on a field trip in the woods.  From a distance, I saw my very own teacher smoking in the main cabin!  I brought my friend over so that he could see the event, and he shook his head in shame.  This teacher had taught us a whole curriculum about why smoking was wrong, and she admitted in class that she used to smoke, but no longer did so.  But there she was...smoking!

When I told my Mom after coming home that I saw my teacher smoking, my Mom was sympathetic to the teacher.  "Well, I'd smoke, too, if I had to be around a bunch of kids for four days!", my Mom said.  My Mom herself did not smoke, but she knew why my teacher was smoking: it was a way for the teacher to relax.

I think it's sad when people die from lung cancer due to smoking.  But I'd probably put smoking in the same category as eating fatty foods or lots of cholesterol----something with which I've struggled: I wouldn't consider a person immoral for doing that, but it's not particularly healthy for the person.

Still, I have to be honest: there is a stigma that I attach in my mind to smokers.  Part of it is that I don't like the smell of cigarettes, but it's also because people are doing something that I was taught was wrong back in my childhood days.  This is one of the many ways in which I need to get past my prejudices so that I can respect and appreciate people.

Julie Nixon Eisenhower's Pat Nixon: The Untold Story 3

In today's post about Julie Nixon Eisenhower's Pat Nixon: The Untold Story, I will use two passages from Julie's book as a starting-point.  The main theme of this post will be resentment and forgiveness.

Throughout my reading thus far of Julie's book, Julie refers to wisdom, insights, or advice that her mother, Pat, gave about interpersonal relations.  Pat would give this advice to some of her students back when she was a teacher, and Pat as the Vice-President's wife sometimes talked about how she was able to connect with people in other countries, even though she did not know them and they were from a different culture.  She said that the smile is the universal language!  On page 189, Julie quotes a letter from Pat, which contained advice that Julie said "reflected [Pat's] philosophy of life".  Julie and Tricia were at a camp, and Julie had complained that some of the girls in her cabin were not particularly nice.  Pat wrote:

"In regard to the girls in your cabin: Just remember that some people are not as friendly and sweet as others.  The main thing is to treat them in a friendly fashion and stay your own sweet self rather than becoming like them.  When you think kind thoughts about them they will change for the better.  That is true all through life.  I love you very, very much!"

On pages 193-194, Julie talks about some of the shenanigans of the Kennedy campaign during the 1960 Presidential election:

"Once during the course of the campaign, Loretta Stuart came to our house to do Mother's hair before a trip.  She asked my mother why the Nixon campaign was not exposing some of the shady tactics of the powerfully financed Kennedy camp.  An example was the anti-Catholic mailers sent out during the Wisconsin primary to heavily Catholic precincts----all postmarked Minnesota, to look as if they were from Hubert H. Humphrey, Kennedy's main opponent in Wisconsin----but in truth they were the work of a friend of Robert Kennedy's.  The demolition of Humphrey in West Virginia also had included the innuendo that he was a draft dodger.  Humphrey was so angered by the Kennedy tactics that he publicly accused the candidate and his brother of 'cheap, low-down, gutter politics.'  In a 1976 autobiography, Humphrey would express his unhappiness with the Kennedy organization in this way: 'Underneath the beautiful exterior there was an element of ruthlessness and toughness that I had trouble either accepting or forgetting.'"

So end the readings.

What is ironic, of course, is that Nixon himself----or at least some of his underlings----was accused of engaging in ruthless campaigning and dirty tricks.  Nixon may have resented what Kennedy did to him, but there are many who would argue that Nixon became like Kennedy in that respect, if he was not like Kennedy already (though some would go further and say that Nixon was much worse).  Pat said that Julie should stay her own sweet self rather than becoming like her unfriendly cabin-mates.  Could Richard Nixon have benefited from such advice?  Or would he have concluded that it was unrealistic in the rough-and-tumble world of politics?

I don't know yet if Julie will address her father's campaign strategies, or the dirty tricks of some of his underlings.  So far in my reading, she has discussed Richard Nixon's races in 1946 and 1950.  Overall, she defends her father's controversial campaigns, saying that he was merely pointing out the records of his Democratic opponents, Jerry Voorhis in 1946 and Helen Gahagan Douglas in 1950.  She also portrays the campaigns as grass-roots, stating that her family in 1946 invested a significant amount of its own nest-egg in the campaign, and that ladies in 1950 sewed dresses for Pat.  That kind of gives the campaign a down-home feel, doesn't it?  Of course, Roger Morris and certain other biographers would portray Nixon's campaigns as heavily-financed by rich special interests.  I should note, however, that Julie does depict the 1950 campaign as rough, on both sides.  She seems to acknowledge that her father attacked Douglas, but she also notes that Douglas attacked Nixon.  What surprised me is that, at least thus far, Julie is not particularly critical of Murray Chotiner, Nixon's controversial, take-no-prisoners campaign adviser, even though I have read in a couple of places that Nixon's family did not really care for Chotiner.  Julie narrates that Nixon came to rely more on the advice of his aides rather than that of his wife, but Julie also quotes Chotiner's praise for Pat's toughness!

But back to the topic of resentment and forgiveness!  It's hard for many people to move past resentment and to embrace forgiveness.  Pat, Richard, and maybe even Julie had a difficult time getting past the hurt that others had done to Richard in the political arena.  Maybe Pat still felt that she was following her own philosophy of life in that she was still nice to those people, whenever she came into contact with them.  (I don't know for sure if she was, and Julie in my reading thus far does not explicitly say that she was, but many of us maintain some friendly veneer when we're interacting with people we don't like.)  But I doubt that it was easy for her to think kind thoughts about them!

I think that Pat's philosophy of life is easier when it comes to the everyday snubs that one can regularly or occasionally experience.  If I were to obsess over the people who are not nice, I would not be functional, so I do need to follow Pat's philosophy of life, on some level.  But there are times when following her philosophy of life can be extremely difficult: when one has been attacked in the political arena, for example.  In that case, how would one forgive or at least forget, and move on?

Julie Nixon Eisenhower's Pat Nixon: The Untold Story 2

One feature that I noticed in my latest reading of Julie Nixon Eisenhower's Pat Nixon: The Untold Story, which I haven't really seen in other books about Richard Nixon that I have read, is that Julie quotes extensively from the love letters between Richard and Pat, both from the time when they were courting, and also after they had married and Richard was in the navy.  Other books I have read quote some of those letters, or they refer to bits of information in the letters in an attempt to make a specific argument (in Fawn Brodie's case, that Nixon's later stories about his war record were exaggerations).  But Julie quotes from them more extensively.

When I have read pieces of Nixon's love letters in other books about Nixon, they come across to me as cheesy and over-the-top.  But I actually liked some of the letters between Richard and Pat when I was reading passages from them in Julie's book, and the reason is that each was saying what he or she liked about the other.  Richard commended Pat's energy, and Pat praised Richard for the consideration that he showed at a party.  I'd actually like to quote from the latter letter.  Nixon in the navy had a hamburger stand, where he gave out coffee, juice, and food.  More than once in my reading of books about Nixon, I have seen the navy Nixon compared with Henry Fonda's character in Mister Roberts, a movie that I now want to see!  In any case, after Richard wrote Pat about a get-together at his hamburger stand, Pat wrote back:

"I always like to hear of your get togethers too----you always make people have a good time.  Our parties have always been your successes.  Remember the time you even made the chop suey!!  When I think of all the wonderfulnesses for me----didn't I take advantage?----but, dearest, it was appreciated then and now.  I never shall forget how sweet you were the night Margaret and I had the teachers for a wiener roast----You carted, helped with the salad, bought the pies, went to LA for Mary's gift."

Okay, I'll admit that "wonderfulnesses" is a little over the top, but I still like this letter, for a variety of reasons.  For one, it exemplifies Julie's portrayal of her father, at least in what I have read thus far.  Julie acknowledges that her father was a shy introvert, and yet he comes across as a bit more fun and sociable in her book, as compared with other books about Nixon that I have read.  Second, I like how Pat highlights what she specifically likes about Richard.  Anthony Summers, in The Arrogance of Power, argues that Richard did not really know Pat when he married her, and some people I have read argue that Nixon tended to idealize Pat in his love letters to her, or perhaps even treated her as a project when he was courting her.  I'm not sure what to say about this, but their letters to one another convince me that they genuinely admired qualities in each other.

And, third, what Pat said Nixon did at her party reminds me of what I, as a shy and socially-awkward introvert, would most likely do at a party.   I one time read a post by a lady with Asperger's, and she suggested that what people with Asperger's should do at parties is help out: set out the food, help in the kitchen.  That way, they're at the party, meaning that they're not offending the host by not showing up, but they're not exactly interacting with people and making small talk, for they're busy helping out!  That seems to be what Richard was doing at the wiener roast for teachers that he and Pat attended.

Julie Nixon Eisenhower's Pat Nixon: The Untold Story 1

I started Julie Nixon Eisenhower's Pat Nixon: The Untold Story.  Julie was the youngest daughter of Richard and Pat Nixon.

What I'll do in this post is quote a passage of the book that stood out to me, and then comment.  This will probably end up being a rambling post!

Will Ryan was Pat Nixon's father.  When he was slowly dying, his sister, Annie, came to help out his family, and she was trying to persuade Will to re-embrace Catholicism.  Will refused, until one day he expressed interest in spending his days in a Catholic sanitorium.  Will's son Tom was surprised, so Will explained his preference to his son: "It's all right to live without religion, but it's not all right to die without it."

That's actually a pretty provocative statement!  And it reminds me of things that some of my own relatives have said.  "My brother became religious and is going to church because he knows he's going to die soon, and he wants to enter the pearly gates," one of my relatives (not my own brother!) said.  "Christianity should be a way of life!"  This one relative was actually making the opposite point to what Will Ryan said, for my relative was saying that Christianity should be about how we live our life, not a last-minute decision before we die.  And this relative's father was one who developed a sudden interest in religion near the tail end of his life.  This relative's father wanted to be baptized in a river, not a bathtub, because the water of the river runs and flows, and he thought that would take away his sins!

Will Ryan may have wanted to enter the pearly gates.  Or perhaps he felt that religion could provide him with comfort in the insecure time of his death.  Maybe it was a combination of the two.  I don't judge people for having that sentiment.  At the same time, I do believe that Christianity should be a way of life, not simply something that one embraces shortly before one dies.

Is religion necessary for one to have good character?  Well, I believe that it can provide some people with a sense of moral responsibility and aspiration.  What kind of man was Will Ryan, according to Julie?  Julie, perhaps relying on her mother Pat's testimony, depicts him as one who loved to read and to learn, and yet he could get quite drunk.  Could religion have made him a better person by setting him on the straight and narrow?  Maybe, but there were probably reasons that he did not accept religion: he may not have wanted to be constricted by pressures to be perfect, or there were other things on his mind.

I've been reading the Book of Job lately, and a theme that comes up, in both the speeches of Job and his friends, is the person who chooses not to think about God.  This person is not interested in learning about God's ways, and he only calls on God in times of extreme peril.  He does not listen to God, but instead goes out and commits adultery or oppresses others for personal gain.  I know that most atheists are not that bad, and that many who don't believe in the Jewish and Christian God try to live moral lives.  At the same time, I can somewhat sympathize with this theme of Job: that it can be valuable for a person to seek to learn God's ways and to be in relationship with God, for that can endow a person with a sense of moral responsibility and aspiration.

I should mention another time when religion came up in my latest reading of Julie's book.  Pat's mother, Kate, died when Pat was a teenager.  Kate was friends with a nice Christian Science lady, and Kate was occasionally attending a Christian Scientist church.  Kate did not consult a medical doctor about her illness, and she soon died.  Julie says that Kate may not have chosen to see a doctor on account of her Christian Scientist friend's influence, or simply out of "her own determination not to give in to her illness" (page 25).  Whether seeing a doctor would have helped Kate, I don't know, for "cancer of the liver" was what was put on Kate's death certificate.  In any case, Kate's Christian Scientist friend was helpful to Kate's family after Kate had died, as she gathered clothes to dress Kate up for her funeral, which was held at the Christian Scientist church.  The Christian Scientist religion may have given this friend a generosity of spirit, and yet it may not have helped Kate.

These were some of the times when religion intersected with Pat's early life.  I've read in more than one place (not in Julie's book, but elsewhere) that Pat was an agnostic.  It will be interesting to see if Julie addresses religion later in this book.

UPDATE: On page 267, Julie says: "Since their marriage, my mother and father had not attached themselves to a particular denomination, choosing in each place they lived a church which provided a happy medium between my father's Quaker upbringing and the Methodist services Mother had attended as a child."  And, on page 402, Julie tells the story of when her mother told a group of women to pray for the press.  When a reporter then asked Pat if the press needs prayers, Pat replied, "We all do.  Who doesn't?"

Fawn Brodie's Richard Nixon: The Shaping of His Character 9

In Richard Nixon: The Shaping of His Character, Fawn Brodie argues that Richard Nixon had a troubled marriage with his wife, Pat.  This is not new in terms of the books about Nixon that I have read.  Brodie stops short of believing that Nixon was physically abusive of his wife, for Brodie states on page 454 that "There are also unsubstantiated reports that the resulting private quarrel at home was searing and violent."  But she does depict Nixon as rather dismissive and lacking in affection towards Pat.

I'd like to share three items about this topic.

1.  In my post here, I asked about what the reaction of Nixon's daughters was to their parents' relationship.  I wondered how Julie and Tricia could be so supportive of their father, if he was as bad of a husband as many writers say.  I'm planning to read Julie Nixon Eisenhower's biography of her mother, Pat Nixon, after I finish Brodie's book, so it will be interesting to see what Julie writes.  On page 455, though, Brodie states the following:

"Julie, then fifteen, and Tricia, seventeen, it must be remembered, had been brought up with parents who were inordinately proud of the family tradition of self-control and who continually tailored the facade of family happiness...Of Julie's wretchedness we learn more from Earl Mazo than from her father.  He was told that she said, 'All I want is for everyone to love everyone and be happy.  I can't study or do anything when one of us is not happy.'"

The context here was the family's discussion about whether Nixon would run for Governor of California in 1962.  Pat was against it, Tricia was for it, and Julie said that she would support whatever her father decided.

It was after Nixon lost that particular election that he allegedly got violent with Pat.  The "unsubstantiated reports" that Brodie mentioned on page 454 were about this alleged incident.  Anthony Summers, on page 233 of The Arrogance of Power: The Secret World of Richard Nixon, portrays Julie's recollection of this time frame as rather shadowy----as if Julie remembered something, but was in the dark about what was really taking place:

"Pat, Julie was to write, was watching television in the den when the television ran the 'kick around' speech.  At the point where Nixon attacked the press, she shouted 'Bravo!'  When her father came home, Julie recalled, 'We were waiting tearfully in the hallway at the front door.  Mother spoke first.  She said brokenly, 'Oh, Dick.'  He was so overcome with emotion that he brushed past and went outside to the backyard.  That afternoon was the first and the only time my parents gave way to their emotions simultaneously, and it bewildered Tricia and me....'

"Domestic life for a top politician is rarely what most families would consider normal.  What happened to bewilder the children that sad Wednesday in November 1962, however, may have been something they never learned of as children."

I don't know Julie, but I doubt that she would publicly endorse Summers' narration.  I'm interested in reading Julie's book to see what she does say about her parents' relationship, however.  Some of the reviews on Amazon dismiss her book, implying that it is a rather idealized portrait of her parents.  But I have read books that are quite critical of Nixon, and they treat Julie's book with a measure of respect----as if her voice is important----and some of the passages that they cite from her book seem to me to be rather honest, in that Julie acknowledges that things were not always rosy in her parents' marriage.  I'll see what my impressions of her book are!

(UPDATE: Brodie later in her book speculates that Julie became angry with her father, especially near the end of Watergate, and Brodie notes that Julie wrote a biography about her mother Pat, not her father.)

2.  Columnist Jack Anderson was a thorn in Richard Nixon's side.  There were even people in Nixon's Administration who wanted to assassinate Anderson, if you can imagine that!  Don Fulsom, in his anti-Nixon book, praises Anderson as a champion of righteousness, a muckraker, and an inspiration to muckrakers.  You can imagine my surprise, therefore, when I read in Brodie's book that Anderson argued that Richard Nixon actually had a good marriage.  After quoting people who claimed otherwise, Brodie states on pages 467-468:

"Jack Anderson, on the other hand, privy to much Washington gossip, described the Nixon marriage as a good one.  He believed Nixon 'loved his family very much.'

"[']At no time have I ever had a suspicion, save from irresponsible sources trying to make something out of nothing, that Nixon did not love her or in any way degraded her.  He held his wife in esteem and affection as far as I have been able to learn.  She apparently had a healthy attitude about him...a little like my wife.  Whenever I get to thinking that I'm important she always says the right thing to pull me right back down to earth.[']

"'Nixon's closeness to his wife,' Anderson said, 'was the only healthy thing about him.'"  Brodie's source for this is her own interview with Anderson on April 19, 1975.

How could Anderson's impression be so different from that of many others----eyewitnesses, journalists, etc.?  Perhaps Anderson saw something different----he highlighted the affection between Nixon and his wife rather than making a big deal out of what many deemed to be Nixon's slights or signs of disrespect.  And, since Anderson mentions his own marriage, perhaps he was looking at Nixon's marriage through those lens: he believed that there was enough similarity between the marriages, that he may have projected elements of his own marriage onto that of the Nixons.  I'm just speculating here!

3.  I recently watched a clip in which Frank Gannon asked Nixon why he did not mention Pat in his speech to the White House staff after he had resigned from the Presidency.  Some have made a big deal about this, since Nixon in that speech was reading about the death of Theodore Roosevelt's wife, without even mentioning his own.  Was Nixon slighting or disregarding Pat?  Nixon clearly indicated to Gannon that he did not care for that claim, then he went on to say that he did not mention Pat out of consideration for her.  He realized that she was saddened by the resignation, and he feared that she would break down publicly had he mentioned her in his speech.  Unfortunately, I cannot find that clip right now.