Nixon Reconsidered 1

I started Joan Hoff's Nixon Reconsidered.  I first heard of this book when I was in high school.  I believe it was in 1994, when the book came out.  I had a subscription to the rather conservative Insight magazine (which someone bought for me for my birthday present), and it had an article about Nixon Reconsidered.  According to the article, Hoff's book was arguing that Nixon made significant progressive accomplishments on the domestic front.  I guess that didn't surprise me that much.  Back when I was in the sixth grade, I read Peter Hannaford's book, The Reagans, and (if I recall correctly) it discussed how Reagan was quite critical of President Nixon's proposed Family Assistance Policy (FAP).  In my mind, the fact that Nixon even proposed such a policy told me that Nixon was open to liberal ideas.  Moreover, one of my relatives had a copy of John Bircher Gary Allen's Richard Nixon: The Man Behind the Mask, and I read pieces of it when I visited his house.  At the beginning of the book, Allen quoted someone who complained that, under the Nixon Presidency, liberals get the action, whereas conservatives get the rhetoric.  I knew that Nixon wasn't exactly a conservative, in the Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater sense.

Still, the article in Insight about Hoff's book intrigued me.  I hoped to read Hoff's book someday, and, nineteen years later, that is what I am doing.  Why did Insight's description of the book intrigue me at the time?  Well, although I was aware that Nixon was open to liberal ideas, I really didn't know anything about his accomplishments in the environment and civil rights.  The notion that a Republican President would have a successful track record in making progressive accomplishments on issues of concern to liberal Democrats gave me a sense of glee.  Moreover, I was intrigued by a historian stepping forward and arguing that Nixon was essentially a good President.  My impression at the time was that not many people did that (though some praised his China policy).  My perception (limited as it was) was that Nixon was widely considered to be a crook, a liar, and a villain, and those who thought otherwise were Republicans (like the fictional Alex Keaton) who were blinded by their own partisanship.  But, with Hoff's book, here was someone who was proposing an alternative understanding, one who was arguing that we should reconsider Nixon.

As I said in my post here, I was worried that Hoff's book would be primarily a laundry list of President Nixon's domestic accomplishments, which I thought might get old and dull after a while.  But, as I look at the book's Table of Contents, I see that Hoff discusses other issues as well, such as Nixon's foreign policy, and also Watergate.  The book may be worth reading to get her take on a wide variety of issues pertaining to the Nixon Presidency.

So far, my reading of Hoff's book had not been dull.  I have had to go back and reread sentences because I was mindlessly reading, and something told me that Hoff had just said something profound and so I needed to go back and reread what I just read.  Hoff discusses such issues as Nixon being aprincipled (in her eyes), and also how the "modern industrialized state" and the media have been conducive to "the formation of the aprincipled megastate" (page 12), one that is repressive yet generous, and that justifies morally questionable activities using righteous-sounding terminology.

What particularly interested me in my latest reading, however, was Hoff's discussion of her historical methodology.  She said that she did not want to rely solely on interviews with people "about events that took place a quarter of a century ago", since one cannot always trust people who are interviewed, people who have their own agenda and who may want to rehabilitate their own reputation "by telling researchers or reporters what they want to hear" (page xiv).  Rather than just relying on interviews, Hoff also wanted to look at documents.  The reason that this interested me was that I had just finished Roger Morris' Richard Milhous Nixon: The Rise of an American Politician.  Morris does refer to documents, but he also relies a lot on interviews, or the testimony of eyewitnesses.  I wondered if I could really trust what many of these eyewitnesses were saying, or if they had their own agenda, which either clouded their recollection or influenced them to distort the past deliberately.  At the same time, I figured that if more than one eyewitness testified to something, there was greater likelihood that what they related actually happened.  In addition, I wondered if we would have much of a history if we could not, on some level, trust the testimony of eyewitnesses.  I recently watched a YouTube video of Pat Buchanan interviewing Gore Vidal in the 1980's about Vidal's book, Lincoln.  Buchanan appeared to be taking issue with Vidal's claim that Lincoln had syphilis, and Vidal responded that he was basing this on the testimony of someone who knew Lincoln, someone who is actually one of the few sources we have about Lincoln's young adulthood.  If one dismissed this source, Vidal seemed to be implying, we don't have much left about that particular time in Lincoln's life!

Nixon's Shadow 3

For my blog post today on Nixon's Shadow: The History of an Image, I'd like to highlight something that David Greenberg says on page 44.  The context is the aftermath of Richard Nixon's 1946 run for U.S. Congress, in which Nixon unseated incumbent Democrat Jerry Voorhis.

"Voorhis alleged in 1947 that Nixon's minions had bullied shopkeepers, workers, and newspaper editors into suppressing their support for him.  'Merchants were warned that if they dared to sign newspaper statements in my support, as they had in previous campaigns, their line of credit would be cut off at the bank.  One large banking institution sent the word 'down the line' that its employees were not to vote for Jerry Voorhis.'  The sole editor in the district who had previously supported him, Voorhis added, 'was informed the next morning by his landlord that he had read the editorial and the editor would have to 'get out.'"

That reminded me of something that John Bircher Gary Allen wrote in his book, Richard Nixon: The Man Behind the Mask.  Allen referred to an article in the conservative publication Human Events that said that, during the 1952 Republican National Convention, wealthy bankers were trying to torpedo the candidacy of Republican Robert Taft by threatening to call in the loans of pro-Taft delegates; their aim, according to the article, was to preserve their cozy relationship with the government through the New Deal, which Taft would threaten, but which Dwight Eisenhower was open to keeping.  Voorhis would probably narrate his own situation differently: he would most likely say that the wealthy bankers were against the New Deal, and so they preferred Republican Richard Nixon over Jerry Voorhis, who was himself an ardent New Dealer.  Yet, assuming that what the Human Events article and Voorhis say is true, it's disturbing that private interests were using their control over the livelihoods of others to bully people into retreating from the political arena.  I think of something that a poli-sci professor said more than once: that government is not the only source of coercion.

Ambrose's Nixon: The Triumph of a Politician 9

Dean Acheson was President Harry S. Truman's Secretary of State in the years 1949-1953.  He was attacked by elements of the right-wing, which accused him of surrounding himself with Communist spies and of contributing to the fall of China to the Communists.  And, after Alger Hiss (who was accused of being a spy for the Soviets) was convicted of perjury, Dean Acheson's statement that he would not turn his back on Hiss invited further criticisms from the right.  Richard Nixon himself was a critic of Acheson.  In the 1952 Presidential election campaign, Nixon as Dwight Eisenhower's running-mate called Democratic Presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson a "graduate of Dean Acheson's Cowardly College of Communist Containment" (Nixon's words).

But when Nixon was President and was conducting U.S. policy for the war in Vietnam, Acheson was one of Nixon's most vocal supporters, and Nixon turned to Acheson for advice.  Stephen Ambrose talks about a March 19, 1969 meeting that Nixon had with Acheson on pages 259-260 of Nixon: The Triumph of a Politician, 1962-1972.  What intrigued me was Ambrose's portrayal of Acheson as one who had a tough-on-Communism attitude.  On page 260, Ambrose characterizes Acheson's advice to Nixon on Vietnam as follows:

"Acheson's advice, as always, was to keep the powder dry, make no concessions, enter into no negotiations, and dig in for the long haul."

After narrating that Acheson, like Nixon, initially supported President Lyndon Johnson's 1965 decision to send a substantial number of troops to Vietnam, only to later confess to Nixon that this decision was wrong, Ambrose discusses Acheson's negative views on negotiating with the Soviets:

"These confessions of converted Cold Warriors were of course completely private.  Neither [Acheson nor Nixon] would have dreamed of admitting in public that he had been wrong, nor did the realization lead Acheson to wonder if perhaps he had been wrong in his consistent refusal to ever negotiate with the Soviets (from the time of Potsdam, July 1945, until he left office in January, 1953, Truman had not had one meeting with the Soviet leader)."

When Nixon asked Acheson if it was "a good time to initiate discussions with the Russians" (Nixon's words), Acheson said no.  Ambrose dryly narrates: "Indeed, in Acheson's view, it was never a good time."  Ambrose says that Nixon valued Acheson's support on such issues as missile defense, but that Nixon never again sought Acheson's advice on dealing with the Russians.  Ambrose seems to imply that Acheson was frozen in a stock anti-Soviet ideology.

So Acheson was firmly anti-Communist!  That's not what the right-wing literature that I used to read had to say about him!  Recently, I read the book on Richard Nixon by John Bircher Gary Allen, entitled Richard Nixon: The Man Behind the Mask.  Allen in that book is quite critical of Acheson.  Allen presents the usual right-wing criticisms, such as the accusation that Acheson surrounded himself with Communists in the State Department, and the criticism of Acheson for refusing to turn his back on Alger Hiss.  But Allen makes another accusation on page 162: "...Joseph Stalin had hired Acheson to be the Soviet Union's personal attorney in the United States prior to the official recognition of the Soviets by FDR...During Acheson's tenure as their legal representative, the Communists made tremendous advances throughout the world."

I don't know if Acheson was ever the personal attorney for the Soviet Union.  I checked the wikipedia article about Acheson, and it did not mention that.  It did say, however, that Acheson in 1945-1946 favored detente with the Soviet Union, a plan for "international control of atomic energy", and conciliation towards Stalin.  But the article then goes on to narrate that Acheson became concerned about the "Soviet Union's attempts at regional hegemony in Eastern Europe and in Southwest Asia", and thus Acheson came to be an architect of Truman's Cold War policy against Soviet expansionism.  In short, Acheson changed his mind and became more anti-Soviet, according to the wikipedia article.  The thing is, that did not seem to be enough for many of Acheson's right-wing critics.  You will recall that Nixon associated Acheson with containment.  That was a debate at the time: Should the U.S. only seek to contain Communism by stopping its expansion, or should the U.S. pursue the liberation of countries already under Communist control?

I have one book that I have not yet read, How the Far East Was Lost: American Policy and the Creation of Communist China, 1941-1949, by Anthony Kubek, who was a Professor of History at the University of Dallas.  You can find a brief biography of Kubek on this site, which talks a lot about non-conformist historians, or revisionists.  While Kubek is a non-conformist, his book is praised on the back cover by David Nelson Rowe of Yale University.  Just thumbing through the book, I get the impression that Kubek argues for standard right-wing points about the fall of China to the Communists----that the U.S. contributed to it.  When I looked up Acheson's name in the index, I saw Kubek's reference to his argument in the book that Acheson pressured the Nationalist Chinese to negotiate with the Communists.  Was this an exception to Acheson's usual aversion to negotiating with Communists?

I enjoyed this Amazon review of Dean Acheson's Present at Creation: My Years at the State Department.  The reviewer is Stan Vernooy.  Vernooy says that Acheson has been accused by some of being too tough on Stalin, and by others of being overly "accommodating and naive" about Communism.  But what Vernooy says is that he (meaning Vernooy) learned more humility as he read Acheson's book, for Acheson highlighted the complex considerations that were involved in arriving at decisions.  That makes me wonder if Acheson truly was as knee-jerk anti-Soviet as Ambrose seems to portray.  Perhaps there was complexity in Acheson's approach to foreign policy.  I don't know enough about Acheson to say, but there's plenty out there for me to read about him!

Ambrose's Nixon: The Triumph of a Politician 5

For my blog post today on Stephen Ambrose's Nixon: The Triumph of a Politician, 1962-1972, I'll use as my starting-point something that Ambrose says on page 140:

"Through his life, Nixon revealed what he wanted to reveal, and hid what he wanted to hide.  The staff had hit on the best way to present their man, but he was still the same old Nixon.  Newspaper reporters' indignation to the contrary notwithstanding, the Nixon campaign of 1968 was brilliantly conceived and executed.  It was geared specifically to Richard Nixon's strengths and weaknesses, it was well thought out, it had nuances too detailed to go into here, and it was successful."

Richard Nixon as a Presidential candidate in 1960 campaigned in all fifty states.  He was even campaigning in Alaska on the weekend before Election Day!  Nixon was exhausted in the 1960 campaign, and, according to a number of analysts, that showed.

But Nixon's adviser H.R. Haldeman advocated a different approach for 1968.  Ambrose summarizes Haldeman's proposal as follows, on page 138:

"The right way, Haldeman wrote, was to use television to the maximum while keeping direct voter and reporter contacts to a minimum.  One minute on the network evening news would reach more people than three months of barnstorming.  Nixon would have to make only one speech a day to provide the necessary footage."

Essentially, Nixon would answer questions within a townhall sort of format, for which panelists would be recruited from the community.  Panelists who were critical of Nixon were included, since Nixon often shone when he was answering hostile questioners, "assuming", Ambrose narrates, "that the questioner did not know many details and in any case had no chance to follow up" (page 139).  The meeting would be edited for five-minute TV segments, and so Nixon could relax, knowing that "the embarrassing or awkward moments" would be edited out (Ambrose on page 139).

There was a scene about Nixon's use of this townhall format in Oliver Stone's Nixon.  Nixon was being grilled by an African-American, who was accusing Nixon of creating divisions in the country.  Haldeman in the movie was upset that someone let that questioner in!  But Nixon managed to artfully circumnavigate the question.  I can't find the scene on YouTube, but part of it is in the movie's trailer (see here), starting at 1:36.
And John Bircher Gary Allen talked about this townhall format in Richard Nixon: The Man Behind the Mask, saying that Nixon often gave the same stock, generalized answers to the same stock, generalized questions.

What Ambrose says about the 1968 campaign stood out to me because it made me think about the topic of hard work.  Hard work is not always a good thing.  Don't get me wrong----Nixon was not lazy, even when it came to the 1968 Presidential election.  Nixon spent the years between 1962 and 1968 meeting with foreign leaders and learning about the world, such that, according to Ambrose, Nixon had more knowledge and understanding in 1968 than he did in 1960.   But Nixon in 1968 did not over-exert himself, for over-exertion did not serve him that well in 1960.  My impression from Ambrose is that Nixon's campaign in 1968 was more relaxed.

The key, I think, is to work hard, but to do work that is necessary, and to allow for some relaxation so that one can be fresh and maybe come up with original ideas.  On a related note, see Sam Tee's post on hard work here.

Ambrose's Nixon: The Triumph of a Politician 4

I have five items for my blog post today on Stephen Ambrose's Nixon: The Triumph of a Politician, 1962-1972.  We're in July-December 1967.

1.  Richard Nixon liked to say "let me make it perfectly clear", and variations of that phrase.  Nixon said that he needed to be candid in order to dispel his reputation as someone who was devious.  On pages 121-122, Ambrose says the following about Nixon's statements that he would be candid, clear, or precise:

"Some of his oft-used statements preceding a statement included: 'to be perfectly candid,' 'speaking quite frankly,' 'putting it bluntly,' 'let me be quite precise,' and 'let me make it perfectly clear.'  In fact, in most cases, he was about to be the opposite.  For example, whenever he promised to be 'quite precise,' he would fly off into a generalization; whenever he promised to make things 'perfectly clear,' he always left them more opaque than ever."

That's funny!  And it's only one of several examples of a funny passage in Ambrose's book.  That's why Ambrose is such an enjoyable author to read.

Incidentally, other authors I've read have commented on Nixon's statements that he would be clear or candid.  Eli Chesen in President Nixon's Psychiatric Profile says that Nixon used that expression because of his own insecurity.  If Nixon were secure, Chesen contends, he would just assume that people would accept his remarks as candid!  The thing is, as Nixon said, there were a lot of people who didn't do that, for they regarded Nixon as rather devious.  Then there's John Bircher Gary Allen's Richard Nixon: The Man Behind the Mask.  Allen says that, whenever Nixon says he would be clear or candid, people should watch out!  They're about to be conned!

2.  On page 122, Ambrose talks about Nixon's extensive knowledge and how that helped him in his campaign:

"He was a masterful political speaker for two good reasons.  First, he just knew too much.  Talking to big-business men or to intellectuals, he could go on for hours without a single note, reeling off statistics on production, population growth, educational levels, and gross national products for nearly every nation in the world, or speculate on this or that personality in those countries, not on the basis of something he had read but on the basis of personal knowledge.  As to American politics, no one, not even the President, knew the players and the game more intimately than Nixon."

Ambrose's second reason for Nixon's effectiveness as a political speaker was that Nixon knew how to speak to the fears and concerns of the white middle class.  But I won't go into that topic right now.
Having read four of Nixon's books, I have to admit that Nixon comes across as very knowledgeable and intelligent.  But, in the course of reading books for my Year (or More) of Nixon, I've noticed something else that Ambrose discusses: that Nixon was not always consistent.  For example, Nixon during President Lyndon Johnson's Presidency was saying that the U.S. should escalate the war in Vietnam.  But when Johnson did that and sent more American troops, Nixon then said that Johnson was making a mistake, for the U.S. shouldn't make South Vietnam too dependent on American forces.

I'm all for flexibility, for new situations may call for changes in strategy.  Moreover, I don't think that all charges of flip-flopping within the political arena are particularly fair.  Bill Clinton was portrayed as a waffler by Republicans in 1992, but I thought that Clinton was simply expressing alternatives to the typical banal left-right polarity.  John Kerry was called a flip-flopper in 2004 for voting for funds for the Iraq War before voting against them, but Kerry explained to my satisfaction why he did that: it was because things were added to the appropriations after he voted for them that he did not like.  Mitt Romney's changes of position, however, turned me off.  They seemed to me to be frequent, and they made me wonder if he had any core, or a fairly firm stance about what the United States should so about such-and-such a situation, or even enough knowledge to arrive at such a stance.  I can understand why there were people who felt this way about Nixon.  And yet, Nixon could do a good job in communicating that he knew stuff.

3.  On page 120, Ambrose says the following about Nixon's views on Ronald Reagan, a conservative Republican who had just become Governor of California:

"When he saw lines like that, or heard Reagan lecture to the university people about their responsibilities, Nixon knew who his chief competitor was, whatever he told the press about Rockefeller or Romney."

This passage is good because it enhances the drama of Ambrose's narrative.  A serious political player is entering the arena who is of concern to Nixon!  Reagan's talk and action about order on college campuses (which Nixon also talked about) spoke to a lot of people.  And Reagan also had a Nixonian talent for saying something without being overly blunt.  When Reagan was asked if Johnson deserved blame for the loss of lives in Vietnam, Reagan replied that Johnson wasn't cold blooded or callous, but that as President Johnson would get credit for a victory, and so Johnson should also take responsibility for the consequences of his war policy.  Ambrose says Reagan's response here was "a Nixon-like reply that the master himself could not have topped" (page 120).

4.  Julie Nixon became engaged to David Eisenhower, who was Dwight Eisenhower's grandson.  On page 129, we read: "when Julie told her father, he had so little to say----he hardly looked up from the legal pad he was writing on----that she felt let down and went to her mother for consolation.  Pat spoke to her husband."  Nixon wrote Julie a note, which was slipped under her door.  The note said that probably no father thinks that anyone is good enough for his daughter, that Julie and David were lucky to have found each other, that Fina (the maid from Cuba) said Julie brings life to the home, and that Julie will bring life to her home wherever it might be.

It was a sweet note.  I don't think that Nixon disapproved of David, per se, for he got along well with David.  Ambrose says that Nixon and David spent hours talking about politics and baseball!  My guess is that Nixon was depressed when Julie came to tell him the news, or he was preoccupied within his own little world.

5.  Nixon's mother Hannah passed on in 1967, which means that she never got to actually see her son become President of the United States.  Hannah had read a newspaper columnist say that Nixon was through.  On page 128, Ambrose narrates:

"Nixon, at a loss for appropriate words, had said, 'Mother, don't give up.'  And the woman who had never known the meaning of the word quit, the mother who had given birth to, nurtured, and helped train one of the most remarkable personalities of her time, the saint (it was a word used to describe her by others long before her son used it) who had wiped up her oldest boy's tuberculosis spittle (and that of so many others) in a desperate attempt to give Harold Nixon his fair chance, denying herself meanwhile even the smallest luxury or comfort, the wife who had tamed and civilized Frank Nixon, had pulled herself up in bed.  She had looked intently into her son's eyes.  For her at least, one may suppose that time no longer existed, that it was not 1965 but 1915, or 1925, or '35 or '45 or '55.  Whatever the year, whatever the current crisis, her admonishment to her boy was the same.  'Richard,' she had said, 'don't you give up.  Don't let anybody tell you you are through.'"

Some may see Ambrose's narration here as sappy and over-the-top.  I think it's beautiful, and it moved me to tears.

Seize the Moment 3

For my write-up today on Richard Nixon's 1992 book, Seize the Moment: America's Challenge in a One-Superpower World, I will again quote passages from the book, following each quote with my comments.

1.  On pages 176-177, Nixon discusses what the U.S. should do in response to China's unfair trading practices (i.e., barriers to imports and failure to "protect intellectual property rights"):

"Our response, however, should not be across-the-board tariff increases but rather more discriminating tactics such as blocking China's entry into GATT or cutting back China's export quota under the International Multifibre Agreement of 1974, which regulates all textile imports into the United States.  If we want to have an impact on the changes occurring in China, we should not pull the plug on trade.  Increasing economic progress will bring progress on human rights and civil liberties."

Nixon is a big proponent of free trade in this book, for he believes that this can encourage countries to become more self-sufficient.  He is not naive about free trade, mind you, for, like Pat Buchanan in The Great Betrayal, Nixon argues against the idea that free trade can contribute to peace by making countries economic beneficiaries of each other.  Nixon notes historical examples of countries with mutual economic relationships that went to war with each other, and Nixon thus contends that free trade should not be seen as a substitute for an effective military.  Still, Nixon likes free trade.

Nixon does well to address head-on a question that protectionists have asked: What do we do if other countries are not playing fair?  I don't know enough to evaluate his solutions. I wonder if blocking the entrance of China into GATT would be a short-term solution, since what if China were to behave itself to get accepted into GATT, only to return to its unfair trading practices after being accepted?  Could China then be kicked out of GATT?  Would the World Trade Organization effectively police China's unfair trading practices?  (I'm sure there are answers to these questions, but, as I said, I don't know much about this issue.)

It's interesting that Nixon says that trade with China can encourage its progress on human rights, for Nixon on page 259 argues that the U.S. should not establish diplomatic or trading relationships with Cuba and Vietnam until they "meet specific political and human rights conditions..."  Nixon in his memoirs and in this book often argues that we can encourage progress in Communist dictatorships through cultivating diplomatic and economic relationships with them, rather than leaving them in isolation.  Why does he deem Cuba and Vietnam to be exceptions to this rule?  Incidentally, the next book that I will read by Nixon, Beyond Peace (1994), appears (at least from the back cover) to advocate trade with Cuba.  

2.  On page 265, Nixon responds to the charge that liberal trade policies will result in the outsourcing of jobs to countries where workers are paid less:

"If U.S. corporations located their facilities simply on the basis of lower wages, they would all have moved to Mexico already.  In addition to wage levels, other variables such as output per worker, transportation capabilities, and the quality of human resources are all part of the economic equation."
Nixon probably has a point here.  There are still manufacturing companies that remain in the U.S.  If outsourcing were too lucrative, how would there be any manufacturing companies here?  Perhaps they stay because our infrastructure is better, or for other reasons.  And yet, it seems to me that outsourcing is still a problem.  My understanding is that manufacturing jobs are on the decline in the U.S., and that outsourcing is probably one reason for this.

I wish that Nixon had addressed more extensively in this book the question of what we would do if we had a hard time competing.  Nixon criticizes U.S. agricultural subsidies because he thinks that they give U.S. farmers an advantage over foreign farmers, who are looking for a market for their goods (and need that market for their country to advance economically).  But what would happen to us if loads of cheap foreign crops are coming into our market, in direct competition with the American farmer?

3.  On page 256, Nixon criticizes the way that foreign aid to Africa has been wasted, hinting that free-market capitalism can set Africa onto the road to prosperity:

"Over the past decade, the United States and other Western industrialized countries have injected over $100 billion in aid and credits into sub-Saharan Africa.  Most was wasted because inefficient and corrupt governments refused to put into place policies to provide average farmers and workers with incentives to produce."

Ironically, John Bircher Gary Allen made a similar argument in his right-wing critique of Richard Nixon, entitled Richard Nixon: The Man Behind the Mask.  Gary Allen essentially argued that foreign aid props up socialism and ends up being wasted, and that the best way for impoverished foreign countries to advance economically is for them to embrace the free market.

What stood out to me in what Nixon said on page 256 was that he saw a place for the average farmer in Africa: the average farmer should have incentives to become more productive.  This, in my opinion, conflicts with what I've heard often takes place in the Third World, in the name of capitalism: multinational corporations come into the country, take people's land, use that land for cash crops or mass production, and reap handsome profits, while paying their Third World workers dittly-squat.  Nixon actually argues that it can economically help a Third World country to allow multinational corporations to come in.  Indeed, multinational corporations provide Third World countries with capital and produce a lot of goods.  But I wonder if there is a way for small farmers to be able to keep their land, and to produce enough to be competitive on the global market.  Or should they be competitive in the global market?  What would be so wrong with small farmers producing enough to feed their own country?  Is there a way to make private ownership work for people in the Third World, as opposed to making it work for multinationals?

And yet, I'd like to mention an example that Nixon cites of foreign investment contributing to improved conditions for the poor.  On pages 257-258, Nixon lambastes Apartheid in South Africa, contending that its discriminatory policies are "economically stupid" because they deny blacks "equal economic opportunities" and thus end up squandering their productivity and talents.  But Nixon does not think that American disinvestment from South Africa is the answer.  Nixon states on page 258 that "Many American companies, such as Ford motor company, had financed black housing, schooling, recreation, and health facilities."

4.  On pages 219-220, Nixon appears to take a rather anti-Israel tone, as he defends a "land for peace" approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:

"While we are right to support Israel's survival and security, we would be wrong to back the current Israeli government's extreme demands.  [W]e should understand how the occupied territories came into Israel's possession through the 1967 war.  Aggressive military moves by Arabs created the crisis----perhaps even made the war inevitable----but Israel launched the first attacks.  Former prime minister Menachem Begin said in August 1982, 'In June 1967, we again had a choice.  The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us.  We must be honest with ourselves.  We decided to attack him'.  [T]he Arab-Israeli conflict poisons our relations with the Muslim world and undercuts our ability to cooperate with countries with modernist, pro-Western leaders.  Israel's occupation of Arab lands----and particularly its increasingly harsh treatment of the Palestinians----polarizes and radicalizes the Muslim world."

Nixon is for Israel going back to its pre-1967 borders, while Jordan would possibly administer the West Bank, and Syria the Golan Heights.  Nixon addresses the question of whether this would compromise the security of Israel.  Under Nixon's proposal in this book, conventional offensive weapons would be banned from the territories that are returned to the Palestinians, the returned territories would be a "buffer zone", checkpoints would ensure that weapons are not smuggled into the West Bank for an attack on Israel, and the U.S. would consider an attack on Israel to be an attack on the U.S., and would respond accordingly.  I wonder to what extent this overlaps with and differs from current proposals for a Palestinian state.

I was talking with my brother about Nixon's claim that Israel started the 1967 war.  My brother agreed that Israel attacked first, but he said that it was a pre-emptive strike----that Egypt was planning to attack Israel, for Egypt had been anti-Israel since the 1940's.  This wikipedia article quotes Nasser as saying on May 27, 1967: "Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel. The Arab people want to fight."

5.  On page 226, Nixon argues that Palestinians in the occupied territories should elect representatives to the peace talks, without Israelis exercising a veto power over their choice:

"...elections should be held in the occupied territories to select Palestinian representatives for the peace talks.  Israeli leaders have insisted on advance approval of those who might serve in that role and on blackballing anyone with any association----no matter how distant----with the PLO.  That is unreasonable.  We did not like negotiating with Stalin or his successors, but since they held power, we had to deal with them.  Unless Israel comes to terms with its enemies, no peace agreement will enhance its security."

The reason that this passage stood out to me was that it reminded me of a question that Katie Couric asked of Sarah Palin in 2008.  Palin was saying that we should support democracy in the middle-east, and Couric then asked about Hamas' victory in a Palestinian election.  What happens when democracy leads to an outcome that the U.S. considers undesirable?  I've wondered how I would answer that question, for it is indeed a difficult question.  I'd probably give an answer similar to what Nixon said about Palestinian elections for representatives at the peace talks: that we should accept the Palestinians' choice, and try to deal with that choice if we can.  That doesn't mean that we should be okay with everything Hamas does----threatening Israel, after all, is wrong.  But part of democracy is accepting people's choice (though whether Nixon consistently did that as President has been debated).

Richard Nixon: The Man Behind the Mask 2

I finished Gary Allen's 1971 book, Richard Nixon: The Man Behind the Mask.   Gary Allen was a member of the right-wing John Birch Society, and he critiqued Richard Nixon from a right-wing perspective.

In my latest reading, Allen referred to an example of President Nixon playing political hardball to keep a surtax on income in an alleged attempt to control inflation (perhaps because the tax would reduce consumer spending and thus demand): Nixon, according to Allen, "made the surtax vote a loyalty test and threatened conscience-stricken Congressmen with cuts in federal spending in their home districts" (page 363).  In addition, Allen criticized President Nixon's extravagant spending on his staff and his houses, in a time of inflation and recession.  And Allen speculated that the conspiratorial elite (i.e., the international bankers) were dangling before Nixon the possibility of becoming the President of the entire world.  Allen predicted that Nixon's inflationary policies would lead to severe unemployment, which would accompany dramatic unrest.  Nixon would then establish a socialistic dictatorship, in Allen's scenario, and that would be followed by a world government.

As I said in my last post, Allen resembles the left-wing Jerry Voorhis, who himself wrote an anti-Nixon book.  Voorhis' Nixon played political hardball.  Voorhis also depicts Nixon as extravagant (for himself, not the needy) and grandiose, as Nixon flies to foreign countries and acts like a king.  Voorhis is not as apocalyptic as Allen, for Voorhis does not seem to envision the Nixon Administration as bringing a total end to the republic; Voorhis expects for there to be another Presidential election!  Voorhis does, however, feel that Nixon is disregarding the Constitution, is concentrating more power into the hands of the Executive Branch, and is creating an atmosphere in which people are afraid to express public dissent.  

Granted, there are differences between Voorhis and Allen, even when they overlap.  Let's take the issue of taxes.  Voorhis depicts Nixon as wanting to shift the tax burden onto the middle-class through a Value-Added Tax, while lessening it for the rich.  Allen, similarly, criticizes Nixon's idea for a Value-Added Tax, and he notes that some of the rich elites are able to avoid taxes by placing their money in foundations.  And yet, Allen does not care for Nixon's plan to get rid of a 7 percent tax credit for capital investment, for corporations are the institutions that produce.

I'd like to talk some about Allen's views on an alleged conspiracy to create a one-world government.  According to Allen, a group of international bankers and the elite Council on Foreign Relations are seeking to create a one-world collectivist government, and Nixon himself is working towards that end.  How does Allen support this thesis?  Well, he does cite books, article, and documents!  He refers to a CFR paper that envisions a new international order, as well as the Reece Committee, which depicted the CFR as globalist.  He mentions support by financiers for the Bolshevik Revolution, and an ex-Communist in the U.S. who narrated that she had to consult American financiers for her orders; for Allen, the Insiders created the Communist threat to cause trouble in the world and thereby to scare people into accepting a one-world government, in which Communists would have a significant amount of power.  Allen quotes an article from the conservative (yet non-conspiracy theory-oriented) Human Events, which depicted wealthy bankers trying to torpedo the Presidential candidacy of Republican Robert Taft in 1952 by threatening to call in the loans of pro-Taft delegates; the article said that these financiers wanted to preserve their cozy relationship with the federal government that the New Deal brought about, and Eisenhower was more open to that than Taft was.  Overall, Allen contends that these wealthy conspirators like liberalism: he refers to Carroll Quigley's Tragedy and Hope, which says that financiers were subsidizing leftist causes; he contends that government bail-outs and controls encourage monopolies that can protect the wealthy from competition; and his argument also appears to be that the wealthy insiders can benefit from a socialist government that controls all property and makes the people into serfs, especially when the wealthy insiders are the ones behind that government.  Allen maintains that Nixon himself has supported world government and the lessening of U.S. sovereignty.  Nixon supported resolutions for world government back when he was a Congressman; as Vice-President Nixon fought the Bricker Amendment that protected American sovereignty from treaties; he has supported a world court; he has pushed for the UN Genocide Convention which (according to certain conservative critics) could drag Americans before a foreign or domestic court for offending a group of people; and he has expressed support for the Atlantic Union and the United World Federalists.

What do I think about all this?  There may be a grain of truth to what Allen is saying, and yet I think that reality is more complex than that.  While I acknowledge that elites have influence over politics and government, I doubt that those elites can be characterized as leftist, per se.  Granted, some of them may enjoy a cozy relationship with government, and they may deal with Communists or leftists when they feel that it might benefit them, but I doubt that they are committed to left-wing socialism.  When a socialist such as Salvador Allende nationalizes American businesses in Chile, I doubt that they're for socialism then!  When antitrust laws threaten their monopolies, they may support a more laissez-faire governmental approach at that time!  If the CFR is so soft on Communism, then why did certain CFR members within the U.S. Government support and possibly even back coups against left-wing regimes?  Moreover, Allen contends that the Insiders are for war: the Insiders wanted the U.S. to enter World War I and World War II, and they dislike isolationism.  And yet, Allen is all for a hawkish approach towards the Vietnam War!  Why couldn't one posit that the anti-war left was opposing the goals of the Insiders in its support for U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam?  And why, according to Allen, are there conservative heroes who are supporting globalism?  Allen says that Nixon supported the Atlantic Union.  Well, according to Allen on page 304, so did Barry Goldwater!  My impression is that Allen is not particularly a fan of Goldwater, for he depicts Goldwater as someone who did not have the heart to be President; yet, Allen does appear to present Goldwater as someone the Establishment did not want as Chief Executive.  Was Goldwater a supporter of a one-world government?  Or maybe endorsing the Atlantic Union does not mean that one is part of some globalist conspiracy to create a one-world collectivist regime, and Allen is jumping to conclusions!

I should note three articles.  One is wikipedia's article on Carroll Quigley, whom a number of conspiracy theorists love to quote and cite.  Someday, I will read and blog through Quigley's book, Tragedy and Hope.  But, for now, I'd like to note wikipedia's quotation of Quigley, who said in this article that Allen misunderstood him (and the article also contains Allen's response).  According to Quigley, the Round Table Group, which was linked to international bankers, was working to "establish what I call a three-power world: England and the U.S., Hitler's Germany and Soviet Russia" (Quigley's words).  That differs from a one-world government.  Quigley also said: "[Gary Allen's] None Dare Call It Conspiracy insists that international bankers were a single bloc, were all powerful and remain so today.  I, on the contrary, stated in my book that they were much divided, often fought among themselves, had great influence but not control of political life and were sharply reduced in power about 1931-1940, when they became less influential than monopolized industry."  Another article I'd like to mention is this one by Will Banyan.  My impression (and I'm open to correction on this) is that Banyan believes that there are powerful interests that want to create a new world order, but he doubts that Nixon was closely allied to them, and he highlights nuance in Nixon's record regarding world government.  It's worth the read, for anyone who's interested.

The wikipedia article on Gary Allen calls him a "sociopolitical researcher".  I'm not sure what that entails, but, believe it or not, I can see that.  Allen is a shrewd political analyst, who knows about political strategy and has ideas about what makes voters tick.  How does that jive with his conspiracist tendencies?  Don't conspiracists treat political figures as mere puppets of a monolithic power-structure, which is orchestrating events according to a plan?  At times, Allen seems to want to distance himself from that characterization of conspiracism, and he acknowledges that political figures are acting according to their own ambitions and agenda.  At other times, however, Allen appears to present political events as things that do not happen accidentally, but rather are caused.  Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if the rich and powerful have vast influence.  Actually, I'd be surprised if they did not!  But do I believe that they have a monolithic political agenda and are orchestrating all events in American politics?  Not really.

Richard Nixon: The Man Behind the Mask 1

I started Gary Allen's 1971 book, Richard Nixon: The Man Behind the Mask.  Allen was a member of the right-wing John Birch Society, and he also wrote speeches for Governor George Wallace of Alabama.

Whereas the last book that I read, Jerry Voorhis' The Strange Case of Richard Milhous Nixon, was a critique of Nixon and Nixon's policies from the left, Allen attacks Nixon from the right.  Voorhis portrayed Nixon as someone who hampered the federal government's attempts to ameliorate the country's problems, beefed up spending on national defense, and assaulted Indochina with repeated bombing.  Allen, by contrast, depicts Nixon as a big-spender (on the domestic side), as one whose Administration is inhabited by liberals, and as one who shrinks the size of the U.S. military while refusing to do what it takes to win the Vietnam War.

And yet, there are areas in which the left-wing Voorhis and the right-wing Allen overlap in their critiques.  For one, both are critical of President Nixon's outreach to Communist China (or, for Allen, Nixon's desire to reach out to Communist China, since Allen's book came out in 1971).  Allen is much more critical, mind you, for Allen is probably against the U.S. reaching out to Communists, period, whereas Voorhis speculates that it might have been a good idea had the U.S. reached out to the Chinese Communists early on (in the 1940's), and Voorhis also says that it would have been appropriate had Nixon sought to normalize relations with Red China in a low-key manner (rather than with the flash that accompanied the normalization).  And yet, Voorhis does not strike me as overly thrilled that Nixon publicly and unexpectedly reached out to Red China, since it is a dictatorship that frightens other countries (such as India).

Second, both Voorhis and Allen essentially depict Nixon as ambitious----as one who is looking out for himself and his own political advancement rather than maintaining any commitment to a certain set of principles (left or right).  For Voorhis, this means that Nixon behaves progressively at the right time to get votes, while ordinarily he impounds government funds that are appropriated for domestic programs and serves the interests of his rich buddies, who don't like taxes, regulations, antitrust suits, protesters, their companies getting nationalized in socialist countries, etc.  For Allen, this means that Nixon talks like a conservative to get votes (since Allen argues that a significant number of American voters, including union people who have entered the suburban middle-class, lean to the right), yet governs like a liberal.  Allen also believes that Nixon serves the interests of the rich and the elites, but Allen understands the rich and the elites in this case----not to be right-wing----but rather to be international bankers and members of the Council of Foreign Relations, who (according to Allen) desire a world collectivist government that they can exploit for their own power and wealth.

Both Voorhis and Allen present Nixon as rather duplicitous, as one who tells people one thing and does another.  Voorhis says that Nixon does this with our foreign friends.  And Allen tells a story about how Nixon in 1962 told conservative Republican Joe Shell that he (Nixon) did not intend to pursue the California Governorship, freeing Shell to seek the Republican nomination.  Nixon then turned right around and entered the race, after Shell informed liberal Republican Nelson Rockefeller that he (Shell) was not in Rockefeller's corner!  (Allen seems to be arguing that Nixon was serving Rockefeller's interests in this case.  For Allen, Nixon and Rockefeller may or may not like each other, but Nixon realizes that he needs Rockefeller because the Eastern Establishment's support is necessary for his own political advancement.)

Third, Voorhis and Allen argue that Nixon distorts statistics for his own ends.  Voorhis contends that Nixon does this in seeking to argue that crime is slowing down, that farmers are doing well, and that the U.S. under his Administration is spending more on domestic concerns than on the military.  Allen, however, says that Nixon spreads foreign and domestic aid around in his Administration such that he's spending more on these things that he's letting on.

What's interesting is that the right-wing Allen actually speaks highly of the left-wing Voorhis in this book.  You may recall that Nixon in 1946 defeated and unseated Voorhis in his race for U.S. Congress, thereby launching Nixon's political career.  Allen portrays Voorhis as an anti-Communist and as an opponent of deficit spending, the Federal Reserve, and the international bankers.  Meanwhile, Allen accepts the popular leftist claim that New York banking interests were financially helping out Nixon's campaign, probably because this fits into Allen's narrative of Nixon being a tool of the international banking conspirators.  Allen refers to Voorhis' story that someone from a New York financial institution visited California to encourage influential people there to support Nixon, describing Voorhis as "one of the most dangerous men in Washington" (page 131).

Allen also is not overly critical of Nixon's opponent for the U.S. Senate, liberal Democrat Helen Gahagan Douglas.  According to Allen, Douglas and her husband were both members of Communist fronts, yet Allen says that "Although Mrs. Douglas was blind in many ways about Communism (as she remains today) and was used by the Communists, she was not consciously pro-Communist", for she was a strong opponent of Henry Wallace's Progressive Party (page 147).

Allen's assessment of Douglas intrigued me, for at least two reasons.  First, Allen acknowledges that Douglas was not pro-Communist, even though she was in Communist fronts.  Throughout his book, Allen resorts to the sort of argumentation that presents people as part of a conspiracy on account of the groups that they are in, or the people with whom they are close: if you or your family are or once were in the Communist Party, or the Council on Foreign Relations, or in an international banking firm (in a high-ranking role), or on friendly terms with Nelson Rockefeller (i.e., being his lawyer), as Allen argues is the case with high-ranking people who have helped out or served Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon, then you very well might be part of the globalist conspiracy, with the goal of promoting domestic (and ultimately worldwide) collectivism!  When it comes to Douglas, however, Allen doesn't think it's that simple! Even if Douglas had loose (perhaps unknowing) affiliations with Communists, Allen argues, she also had anti-Communist views.

Second, although Allen presents Nixon's aggressive, red-baiting campaign strategies against Voorhis and Douglas as rather misleading and unfair, Allen appears to think that Nixon would have done well to have used that kind of strategy when he ran against John F. Kennedy in 1960, and against Pat Brown in 1962.  On page 212, Allen laments that Nixon did not attack Kennedy for seeking to repeal a loyalty oath provision, for supporting "Communist revolutionaries in Algeria", and for wanting to repeal the Battle Act provision prohibiting "the sending of strategic materials to Iron Curtain countries", or Lyndon Johnson (Kennedy's running-mate) for killing a bill allowing states to "punish subversion."  On pages 219-220, Allen wonders why Nixon did not attack Pat Brown for being President of the Northern California chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, which the House Committee on Un-American Activities called "the foremost legal bulwark of the Communist Party" (HUAC's words); for his close association with the California Democratic Council, which an FBI undercover agent said was formed with Communist Party assistance; and for opposing Proposition 24, which would ban the Communist Party in California.  Allen thinks that Nixon could have won with this strategy.  Had Nixon run as a right-winger in 1960, Allen argues, he could have gotten more of the South, which would have made a difference in that close election.  And, on the basis of polls, Brown's poor record, and a certain conservative who did win in California in 1962, Allen believes that Nixon could have defeated Pat Brown for the Governorship of California.  Why didn't Nixon go for the jugular, according to Allen?  My impression is that Allen thinks that Nixon was serving the Establishment, which had a strategy: there would be an overtly liberal Presidency during the 1960's, then a covertly liberal Presidency after that.  (Allen acknowledges some nuance to this, for he argues that Lyndon Johnson ran as somewhat of a conservative against Barry Goldwater in 1964.)

That brings me to Alger Hiss, the alleged Communist spy whom Nixon took down when Nixon was in Congress.  For Allen, the Alger Hiss case has enabled Nixon to pursue liberal policies without a whole lot of scrutiny from conservatives.  After all, how could Nixon be soft on Communism, when he was the one who brought down Alger Hiss?  (Allen acknowledges some nuance to this, for throughout his book he quotes a number of conservative critics of Nixon or Nixon's policies, such as William F. Buckley, James Kilpatrick, and Human Events magazine.)

What does Allen have to say about the Alger Hiss case?  Allen does not buy Nixon's narrative that he (Nixon) courageously stepped forward to take on Alger Hiss because he smelled a rat during Hiss' testimony, when so many others were believing Hiss.  Allen says that Karl Mundt of HUAC in a 1962 interview related that President Truman's Assistant Secretary of State secretly showed him (Mundt) State Department information indicating Hiss' guilt, and that this was before Nixon even heard Hiss' testimony.  Allen also says that "a group of ex-Communists and former FBI agents" was pressuring Nixon to go after Hiss, but Nixon was very reluctant to do so.  Allen bases this on what an anonymous person from that group told him (meaning Allen).  And Allen quotes Martin Dies, who had been chairman of HUAC.  (The source is a May 1964 article that Dies wrote for American Opinion, a Bircher publication.)  Dies said that HUAC knew about Hiss for a while, even before Chambers and Hiss testified, and that Dies had interacted with Chambers on numerous occasions.  After Dies left Congress, Dies' Chief Investigator and Secretary, Robert Stripling, heard from Chambers, and Stripling passed on the facts that he (Stripling) learned to Congressman Richard Nixon.  Nixon decided to take up the Hiss case and thereby advanced his own career (which was why Allen says that Nixon overcame his timidity and took it up!).  But Dies narrates that Nixon later chose not to reward Stripling by giving Stripling a post in the Eisenhower Administration, as that would alienate the liberals whom the Eisenhower Administration was trying to appease.  Later in the book, Allen finds it odd that Nixon as President has been served by friends or supporters of Alger Hiss.

Allen's discussion of the Hiss case fascinated me.  I've read speculation that Nixon already knew about Hiss' guilt before Hiss' testimony, but, in books about Nixon that I have read thus far, the argument about that has hinged on the account of Father Cronin of the FBI, who said this was the case, only later to retract that claim.  Allen refers to sources that indicate that Nixon knew about Hiss' guilt before Hiss testified, and also that Nixon was not the only one who believed that Hiss was guilty.  Whether or not I like or accept Allen's Bircher spiel about a globalist conspiracy, Allen's discussion of the Hiss case definitely makes his book worth reading.

Allen also makes some points about the events leading up to Nixon's Checkers Speech, in which Nixon said that a fund that he had from donations was for political purposes, not for his own personal enrichment.  Allen says that most politicians had this sort of fund.  But Allen refers to additional two considerations.  First, Allen seems to imply that Nixon may have been using his political influence to help some of the contributors.  Allen mentions an article in the Washington Star saying that "Nixon's office had interceded on behalf of [Dana] Smith [who put together the fund] in a Justice Department case in which a company owned by Smith's family was seeking a tax rebate of more than half a million dollars" (Allen on page 157).  Allen also says that the firm that the National Republican Committee hired to look into the fund found that a few contributors "had contacted Nixon to request his assistance in connection with matter pending before a department or agency of the government" (Allen's quote of the September 24, 1952 Washington Star).  Second, while Allen acknowledges that much of the fund was for political purposes, Allen says that Nixon "had earlier admitted to columnist Peter Edson that had it not been for the fund, he could not have made the down payment on his house in Washington" (Allen refers to the Lost Angeles Daily News, September 17, 1952). 

This is the first thing I have read that criticizes Nixon on the fund issue, for other books I have read have tended to defend Nixon.  I wonder, though, if what Allen presents on the fund actually shows that Nixon used any of it for personal purposes.  Dana Smith may have organized the fund, but was he a contributor?  Contributors may have asked Nixon for help, but did Nixon say yes?  And did Nixon use part of the fund for his house, or was Nixon merely saying that, because the fund covered political activity, Nixon didn't have to use his own money for that, and so the fund enabled Nixon to use his own money to make a down-payment on his house?

Jerry Voorhis: The Strange Case of Richard Milhous Nixon 5

My post today on Jerry Voorhis' The Strange Case of Richard Milhous Nixon (copyright 1972, 1973) will focus on economics, yet it will also get into national defense policy.  The topics of this post will overlap with those in my post on Voorhis' book a few days ago----in which I listed a number of Voorhis' criticisms of President Richard Nixon's policies----but today's post will be a little more detailed. 

Voorhis portrays the Nixon years as a time of high unemployment, inflation, and slow growth, and Voorhis cites statistics to argue that things got worse once Richard Nixon became President.  (Nixon in his memoirs acknowledges that high unemployment was a problem during his Administration, but he believes that he solved the inflation problem, at least for a time.)  What were Voorhis' ideas on how to improve the economy?  Voorhis was essentially for increasing demand, thereby stimulating production of products and creating jobs.  Voorhis was for the government creating permanent public sector jobs, as well as tax cuts for the middle-class rather than the wealthy.  For Voorhis, it was important to get money to the middle and the lower economic classes, since they would spend it.  Voorhis, like a number of liberals today, held that cutting taxes for the rich and expecting that money to trickle down not only was unrealistic, but it also created economic problems, particularly deficits.

Voorhis criticizes President Nixon's economic plans on a variety of grounds.  First, Voorhis says that President Nixon has raised interest rates in an attempt to tame inflation, but the effects of that have been counterproductive.  Not only has it slowed down production and thus the supply of goods (thereby contributing to inflation), since many businesses are reluctant to borrow money when interest rates are high, but the businesses that do borrow money from the banks end up passing on the cost of the high interest rates to their consumers.  Second, Voorhis critiques Nixon's support for monopolies and oligopolies, which suppress competition and thus contribute to high prices----since monopolies and oligopolies refrain from producing that much and keep prices high in order to maximize their profits.  According to Voorhis, if price ceilings were put on these companies, then they would have to keep their profits up in other ways, ways that are more beneficial to the American people, such as by producing more.  Then did Voorhis support President Nixon's wage-and-price controls?  Voorhis expresses a number of problems with them, such as their exemption of certain companies (i.e., utilities), and Voorhis notes that, in some areas, inflation has continued to go up even with the controls.

Voorhis has problems with President Richard Nixon's policies on national defense, on economic and other grounds.  Overall, Voorhis maintains that Nixon's national defense policies are fiscally irresponsible because they increase government spending, contributing to deficits, and Voorhis considers a high national debt to be bad because defaulting on that debt could be deleterious to the economy.  While Nixon portrays himself as a budget-hawk and the Democratic Congress as spendthrifts, Voorhis states, Congress is actually more fiscally responsible than Nixon when it opposes Nixon's spendthrift agenda on national defense.  But could not higher defense spending create jobs?  Voorhis acknowledges that there are many Americans who work within the military-industrial complex, but, overall, he does not believe that increased defense spending stimulates the economy.  Rather, for Voorhis, it creates only a few high-paying jobs, does not put goods on the market, and diverts production to an area that has waste (and Voorhis quotes conservative Senator Barry Goldwater's criticism of waste in military spending).  Voorhis thinks that it is wrong for the U.S. government to spend so much on the military, when there are schools in the U.S. that are closing.

Voorhis has a problem with the arms race, which he argues is continuing, notwithstanding SALT.  Nixon wants for the U.S. to negotiate with the Soviets from a position of strength, but, as Voorhis says, the Soviets probably have the same mindset!  And how many arms do both sides even need, since it takes only a few arms to wreak destruction?  Then is Voorhis for unilateral disarmament.  My hunch is yes.  On page 174, Voorhis refers to a time when the U.S. Government (under pressure from UN ambassador Adlai Stevenson) decided to halt the "testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere" because it was "spoiling air, water, and food", and "to challenge the Soviets to do the same."  The Soviets agreed, and the result was a nuclear test ban treaty.  I vaguely recall reading right-wingers, however, who alleged that the Soviets violated that treaty.

Richard Nixon in his memoirs said that the U.S. Government under his Administration was spending more on meeting the needs of humanity than it was on defense.  Voorhis contends that Nixon is basing this on a faulty calculation, and that the U.S. Government is actually spending more on the defense under Nixon.  Voorhis argues that support for veterans should be considered spending on defense, and he also says that Nixon counts as domestic spending programs that he had nothing to do with creating and that have their own source of revenue, such as Social Security.  (At least I thought that Voorhis made that point about revenue.)
  
One more point.  In reading about Jerry Voorhis in biographies about Nixon, I learned that Voorhis was in favor of nationalizing the Federal Reserve.  It will be interesting to read what John Bircher Gary Allen says about Voorhis in his own biography of Nixon, since the John Birch Society, while being conservative, has actually been quite critical of the Federal Reserve!  (And, peeking into that book, Allen does not seem to be particularly negative about Voorhis, or Helen Gahagan Douglas, for that matter.)  Voorhis talked some about the Federal Reserve in my latest reading of The Strange Case of Richard Milhous Nixon.  To be honest, I did not really understand what he was saying.  He's not entirely like Ron Paul, who endorses the gold standard and dislikes the Federal Reserve because it creates money out of thin air to support a growing government.  Voorhis seems to think that having a Federal Reserve is preferable to economic panics, and that some deficit spending may be necessary at times.  Moreover, Voorhis says that Nixon was probably right to undermine the gold standard.  And yet, Voorhis also appears to criticize private interests creating money out of thin air and demanding higher interest rates as a condition for purchasing government bonds.  Moreover, Voorhis, like many critics of the Federal Reserve, points out that the Constitution says that Congress has the power to coin money.  But Voorhis also makes a point that I don't understand: that the Federal Reserve regards as debt what actually is credit.  I'm not sure what he's talking about there, but he does promote nationalizing the Federal Reserve!