Conrad Black's Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full 5

I have two items for my post today about Conrad Black's Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full.  We're in the time of the Truman Administration, and Richard Nixon is a United States Senator representing the state of California.  These two items, in my opinion, exemplify Conrad Black's treatment of Nixon and the events surrounding him.

1.  On pages 170-173, Black talks about General Douglas MacArthur's desired strategy for the Korean War, which would lead MacArthur into conflict with President Harry S Truman.  On page 170, Black summarizes MacArthur's stance: "He considered Korea an opportunity to suck into the peninsula and destroy the Chinese Communist army, to bomb China's industrial areas to rubble, and so to weaken the People's Republic that Chiang Kaishek's Nationalists, who had just been chased off the mainland to Taiwan, could return."  Black says that MacArthur has been accused of advocating that the U.S. threaten to use nuclear weapons, but Black believes that this is false (though Black notes on page 171 that President Dwight Eisenhower "would discretely threaten this, to his and America's profit").  Black's opinion is that MacArthur using Chiang's soldiers and providing them with air support "would certainly have broken the stalemate in Korea, with interesting results" (page 171).  Yet, Black doubts that Chiang would have been able to resurrect his own rule in mainland China, for Chiang was corrupt, inept, and unpopular with many in that country.

As Senator, Richard Nixon introduced a bill that would reverse President Truman's recall of General MacArthur.  Nixon in his book, Leaders, says that his speech to the Senate at the time actually distributed the blame between Truman and MacArthur.  Nixon on pages 98-99 of that book quotes himself as saying in that speech: "Let me say that I am not among those who believe that General MacArthur is infallible...I am not among those who think that he has not made decisions which are subject to criticism.  But I do say that in this particular instance he offers an alternative policy which the American people can and will support.  He offers a change from the policies which have led us almost to the brink of disaster in Asia----and that means in the world."  Black not only considers Nixon's proposal in the Senate to be "an unconstitutional usurpation of the prerogatives of the commander in chief", but he also dismisses what Nixon would say in Leaders as "a reinterpretive reading of his remarks" (page 172).  Black goes on to say that MacArthur was insubordinate, but Black is also critical of how Truman handled the situation.  According to Black, Truman could have warned MacArthur privately, or Truman could have left MacArthur as governor of Japan, where MacArthur's contribution was widely acclaimed.  Black states that this "would have blunted the impact of MacArthur's removal", and that the "general was seventy-one and retirement, if decorously executed, would not have been premature" (page 173).

Overall, I found Black's discussion of Truman and MacArthur to be fair and balanced, in that Black talked about what he considered to be the positives and negatives of both men.  On how Black covered Nixon in terms of this situation, I wish that Black had gone into more detail about how Nixon's treatment of his Senate speech in Leaders was "a reinterpetive reading of his remarks", for Nixon in Leaders actually quoted from his own Senate speech.  How exactly would Black interpret Nixon's remarks, if he doesn't buy into how Nixon is interpreting them?  They sound pretty straightforward to me: Nixon did not see MacArthur as infallible!   At the same time, perhaps one could argue that, even if Senator Nixon tried to convey that he was being balanced and fair-minded, the big picture was that Nixon was backing MacArthur.

Incidentally, I read an Amazon review that critiqued Black's treatment of the Korean War.  It's by History Addict, who says:

"The Nixon biography is not quite as good as the FDR study. There are, for example, a few glaring geopolitical mistakes. On several occasions Black writes that the United States should have brought Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist army from Taiwan into the wars against Chinese proxies--North Korea and then North Vietnam--and, given that Chinese troops were advising those proxies, let them fight Chinese soldiers themselves. That would in fact have been an enormous error, for Chiang's primary goal in the 1950s and 1960s was to provoke a war between the United States and China both to prevent a Sino-American rapprochement and to increase the odds that the PRC would collapse and he could return in glory to the mainland. Given that goal--and Chiang's cynical and manipulative history--it would have been disastrous to make the United States dependent on his behavior and that of his military."

I'm not sure on what History Addict bases his claims, but my hunch is that they're based on something, since History Addict has read history.  What I'm getting from History Addict's remarks is that Chiang could have decided to sit back and let the U.S. and the Red Chinese duke it out, without involving his own soldiers.  That way, the Communists in China would be weakened and Chiang could return to power, without losing his own men.  History Addict's point is that Chiang would not have wanted for his own soldiers to be involved in the Korean War, so he'd be reluctant to participate in MacArthur's plan.

2.  On page 178, Black addresses the charge that Nixon in one case sought to craft policy to benefit contributors:

"Some critics and historians have made something of the fact that [Nixon] sent in a bill to enable two contributors to his fund to drill for oil on federal land in California.  Nixon did not push hard for the bill, which died.  Nixon didn't lift a finger for the people who had given him a few thousand dollars, which were uncontroversially spent."

I've seen this sort of thing more than once in Black's book: Black attempts to defend Nixon from charges that Nixon was unethical or corrupt.  I don't believe that Black reflexively defends Nixon, mind you, for there are plenty of times when Black is quite critical of Nixon.  Whereas Irwin Gellman in The Contender, for example, disputes that Nixon at the 1952 Republican National Convention was trying to undermine support for Earl Warren and was playing different sides (Robert Taft and Dwight Eisenhower), Black essentially says that Nixon was doing precisely that: that Nixon was claiming to be for Taft to undermine support for Warren, while also supporting Eisenhower (pages 189-190).  On one of the big accusations against Nixon, Black maintains that Nixon was rather shady.  And yet, here and there, Black dismisses some of the other charges that historians have made against Nixon.

The charge that Nixon favored special interests looms large in Roger Morris' Richard Milhous Nixon: The Rise of an American Politician.  I'd say that it's a major theme of the entire tome, for, even when talking about California prior to Richard Nixon's birth, Morris refers to the special interests that sought to consolidate their wealth and power in the state.  Jerry Voorhis would go against these special interests, Morris argues, whereas Nixon as a politician would favor them.  Black appears to have a different perspective, however.  While Black acknowledges that Nixon in his campaigns for the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate received a considerable amount of money (something that historians who are more favorable to Nixon tend to downplay, or even deny), Black also disputes that the contributors to Nixon's fund were millionaires (not that Morris says that they were, but Morris does regard them as well-off special interests).  He also seems to deny that their contributions got them any favors from Richard Nixon.  For example, regarding Nixon's political fund, which would be controversial in the 1952 Presidential election, Black notes that Nixon did not know who the donors are (something that Morris disputes).  The implication here may be: How can Nixon benefit contributors, when he does not even know their identity?  At the same time, like Morris, Black acknowledges that Nixon's political fund from the contributions of California businessmen was designed to make Nixon into a high-profiled spokesperson for conservatism (or Morris would say special interests).

These are my impressions so far, and I have not yet finished Black's tome.

Conrad Black's Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full 4

For my blog post today about Conrad Black's Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full, I'll talk about Black's discussion of the Alger Hiss case, in which ex-Communist Whittaker Chambers accused Alger Hiss of being a Communist spy when Hiss served in the U.S. Government.  Congressman Richard Nixon's involvement in bringing down Alger Hiss would launch Nixon to political stardom.

What's interesting about Black's narration and analysis of the case is that, in some areas, his conclusion appears to contradict the body of his presentation.  Black concludes that Hiss was a Communist sympathizer who passed on documents to the Soviet Union, that Hiss was a "loyalty risk", and that Hiss in his first appearance before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) committed perjury when he denied knowing Whittaker Chambers.

Earlier in the book, however, Black seems to see more nuance in the situation.  On page 112, Black says that "all Hiss had really done was deny knowing Chambers from his photograph and dispute Chambers's uncorroborated recollections."  That's not exactly lying under oath, is it?  Hiss just said that he didn't recognize Chambers from his photograph, since Chambers looked like a lot of people; as far as I know, Hiss did not make a blanket, unequivocal statement that he did not know Chambers.  Nixon said that Hiss' equivocations ("as far as I can recall," or words to that effect) were what made Nixon suspicious of Hiss when Hiss first appeared before HUAC.  (Black appears to buy, however, that, even before Hiss' initial appearance before HUAC, Father Cronin was feeding Nixon information about Hiss, which contradicts the story that Nixon often told.  Father Cronin claimed that he fed Nixon information, only to retract that claim in 1990.  What's interesting about Black's acceptance of the idea that Cronin fed Nixon information is that Black wrote his biography about Nixon years after Cronin retracted his claim.)

On page 116, Black disputes the charge that Alger Hiss played a role in getting the Soviet Union three seats in the UN General Assembly.  (Black goes on to say that FDR arranged for the U.S. to have three seats, too, but that FDR and Truman failed to follow through on that right.)  And, on page 138, Black acknowledges that there were problems with the typewriter that was alleged to belong to Alger Hiss, the typewriter on which Hiss supposedly copied State Department documents so they could be passed on to the Soviets.  As Black says, "What the government thought to be the Hiss typewriter they traced to a sale in 1927, two years before company records indicated it was manufactured."  Black then goes on to say that J. Edgar "Hoover himself was reduced almost to demanding that the facts be made to conform to the prosecution's requirement."

Ultimately, in his conclusion, Black says that "The conspiracy of incompetence was far wider than any subversive one, and included Hoover, Clark, Hiss, Chambers, most of HUAC, and many judges and Justice Department officials" (page 144).  Black excludes Nixon from this conspiracy of incompetence, contending that Nixon was courageous and diligent, and that "his pursuit of Hiss was not discreditable", for "Hiss was lying" and "had been a security risk" (page 144).  In my opinion, while Black's criticism in his conclusion of the FBI, HUAC, and others is consistent with his look at the Alger Hiss case in the body of his presentation, his dogmatism about Hiss' guilt is not.  I much prefer how Roger Morris handled the Hiss case: Morris concluded by saying that he did not know if Hiss was a Communist.  Speaking for myself, and based on my reading, I'm not particularly impressed by how Hiss handled himself during the case, nor am I convinced that he was innocent, for he contradicted himself in his testimony.  But I also have questions about some of the "evidence" that was used to convict him, plus Hiss did appear to oppose the three votes for the Soviets at Yalta.  Consequently, I can't be dogmatic about his guilt.

Conrad Black's Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full 3

For my blog post today about Conrad Black's Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full, I will use as my starting-point something that Black says on page 126.  The subject is President Harry Truman's run for re-election in 1948.

"Truman was 'giving 'em hell' and making tremendous inroads, warning that the Republicans were reactionary enemies of the working families of America."

The reason that this passage stood out to me was that I had recently listened to a speech by Pat Buchanan, which was delivered in 2013 for the centennial of Richard Nixon's birth.  (To watch the speech, see here.)  Buchanan was saying that the same people who praised Harry Truman's "give 'em hell" campaign in 1948 were quite critical of Richard Nixon's hard-hitting campaign against liberal Democrat Helen Gahagan Douglas when he ran for the U.S. Senate in 1950.

I was not sure how to react to that.  I had read Greg Mitchell's book about Nixon's 1950 Senate race, Tricky Dick and the Pink Lady, and what Mitchell said that Nixon and Nixon's supporters did in that campaign disturbed me.  And yet, I'm not always disturbed when one candidate attacks another candidate.  I actually enjoyed watching Barack Obama's attacks on his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, in 2012.  And, although I don't know a great deal about Harry Truman's "give 'em hell" campaign for re-election in 1948, I don't exactly flinch when I read that Truman warned that the Republicans were "reactionary enemies of the working families of America" (Black's summary).

So why do I like it when Obama and Truman attack their opponents, while I am disturbed when I read about Richard Nixon's hard-hitting campaign against Douglas?  Is it because Obama and Truman were Democrats, whereas Nixon was a Republican, and I tend to agree with Democrats more than Republicans?  I hope that it's not just that.

There are a variety of things that disturbed me when I was reading Mitchell's book.  Probably what disturbed me most was that the 1950 race destroyed Douglas politically.  Douglas made political blunders in her campaign, but Nixon's campaign was calling her pink, in a time when there was widespread fear of Communism.  Moreover, the way that much of the press sided with Nixon and did not allow Douglas to adequately get her message out struck me as unfair, and the mob-like, disruptive approach of some of Nixon's supporters also bothered me.  On these sorts of issues, I try to be fair and to apply the same standard to both sides.  Granted, I enjoyed watching the news media point out Romney's mishaps on a daily basis, because I thought that would lead to Romney losing the election, but I believe that Romney should have been able to get his message out.  And I'm not overly keen on supporters of one candidate bullying supporters of the other candidate, or going to the other candidate's events and being disruptive.  I want for people to be able to say what they want to say, without having to put up with a mob, or with disruptive people.  I'd say this also about the liberals who disrupted the 2004 Republican National Convention when George W. Bush was giving his speech: they should have allowed Bush to give his speech, without disruption.

On the 1950 race, to tell you the truth, I don't think that everything that Nixon said about Douglas was unfair.  Nixon was saying that Douglas' ideas would hinder the United States' attempts to protect itself from Communism, and I believe that he was entitled to that opinion, and that he was right to make that an issue in 1950 (though he was not the first to make it an issue, for some of Douglas' opponents in the Democratic primary harped on it, as well).  Douglas was to the left of even a number of Democrats, and I can understand why many would believe that her ideas would not be useful in the face of the Communist threat.  Had Nixon simply said that he questioned her judgment, not her patriotism, I wouldn't have had a problem with his campaign.  But, while that was his message (on some level), he and his campaign went beyond that.  They called Douglas pink.  And there were Nixon supporters who went so far as to call her red.  That damaged her significantly, considering the fear of Communism at the time, whereas I doubt that Truman's attacks on the Republicans or Obama's attacks on Romney did as much damage.

Conrad Black's Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full 2

For my blog post today about Conrad Black's Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full, I'll use as my starting-point something that Black says on page 47:

"Because [Nixon] was not confident of his ability to cajole or charm or at least legitimately persuade, as required, almost anyone he met, he designed his career around his strengths and weaknesses.  Being, because of his shyness, an outsider, at least until he was thoroughly integrated into a group, he judged the susceptibilities of others with the observant keenness of a wary pugilist.  Because he was not flamboyant or overpowering, he addressed ordinary people in a way that reminded them of themselves.  And when he did not feel obliged to be devious, he had great and natural, even inborn, empathy for the disadvantaged and was generous to the unfortunate.  He demonstrated this throughout his life, with no ulterior motive."

In some of my blog posts for My Year (or More) of Nixon, I have talked about how Nixon (to use Black's words) "designed his career around his strengths and weaknesses."  Like Nixon, I myself am shy, and I have long been somewhat of an outsider (though, as Black notes, Nixon eventually came to be a part of groups).  What stood out to me in my reading of this passage was how (according to Black) Nixon could turn his shyness and less-than-flashy personality into a strength, politically-speaking.  I was wondering, though, if I could turn my own shyness into a strength in similar ways.

Black says that Nixon's shyness and outsider status enabled him to analyze people from a distance.  Is that true with me?  I don't know.  Often, when I am an outsider, I am resentful of the insiders for not deeming me good enough to include me in their group.  Rather than looking at them with some degree of objectivity, I tend to attach to them a negative label (i.e., "snob"), which disregards the nuance of who they are as people.  Moreover, if I am an outsider, that means that I don't know the insiders particularly well, and thus I lack the understanding that is necessary to judge adequately their strengths and weaknesses.  With all of this, however, I can still identify somewhat with Black's point that Nixon's shyness and outsider status could provide him with the distance that would help him to evaluate people.  The reason is that Black's point reminds me of something that Adam McHugh said in his excellent book, Introverts in the Church: that introverts are like the narrator of the story rather than the characters.  There actually are times when I feel that way.

Black says that Nixon's less-than-flashy personality enabled Nixon to come across to people as someone who was like them.  Is that true with me?  I don't know.  I rarely thought of my less-than-flashy personality as being an asset in those terms, as being something that can actually draw people to me.  I saw it as a deficiency: as something that hindered me from impressing people.  I think of the Kevin Spacey character's statement in the movie American Beauty: "That's all right, I wouldn't remember me either!"  But, come to think of it, there are people who have remarked that I have a soothing personality.  One lady said to my Mom that I explained to her what I was studying, without talking down to her.  Not everyone is that comfortable around me, but there are people who are.

Black says that Nixon had empathy and generosity towards the outsiders and the unfortunate.  Do my shyness and outsider status make this true of me?  I'd say "yes" and "no."  On the "no" side, my resentment at being an outsider can sometimes lead me not to care about other people and their problems.  "They don't care about me, so I don't care about them," I think to myself.  On the other hand, because I know what it's like to struggle, I do tend to sympathize with others who struggle.  Both hard resentment and empathy or sympathy coexist within me.

Lincoln (2012)

I watched the 2012 movie Lincoln last night.  I don't go to the theater much these days, so I wait instead for movies to come out on DVD.  I remember when Lincoln was in the theaters, and I read this one article that argued that the movie was inaccurate in depicting Abraham Lincoln as an abolitionist, since Lincoln at times denied that his desire and intention were to abolish slavery.  Lincoln at one point affirmed that he would accept Southern states back into the union, without requiring them to abolish slavery.  The thing is, the movie essentially acknowledged that Lincoln said those sorts of things.  But, according to the movie, Lincoln was saying those things for political purposes: so that he wouldn't alienate the northernmost Southern states, which were thinking of staying in the union.  The movie appears to depict Lincoln as one who at his base was repulsed by slavery.  In trying to persuade a representative to support the Thirteenth Amendment that would abolish slavery, Lincoln said that a desire for justice was one of the few things that he got from his father, who was not a particularly kind man.

I enjoyed the movie immensely.  I had to admire the congressmen who were voting for the Thirteenth Amendment, against pressure to vote otherwise.  These congressmen would have to come to work the next morning and put up with their powerful colleagues who voted against the Thirteenth Amendment, colleagues who had power over what responsibilities people got (or didn't get). 

The figure of the radical Republican Congressman Thaddeus Stevens (played by Tommy Lee Jones) was quite intriguing.  A wikipedia article said that new interest in Stevens has occurred as a result of the Lincoln movie.  I've heard various things about Stevens in the course of my lifetime.  In elementary school, Stevens was portrayed to me as a villain and an extremist who wanted to punish the South and who unfairly sought the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson.  When I watched the movie Separate but Equal, which was about a companion case to the Brown vs. the Board of Education Supreme Court decision against public school segregation, I noticed that one of the lawyers on the anti-segregation side, in seeking to determine if the Fourteenth Amendment was against segregation, referred to an anti-segregation statement by Thaddeus Stevens.  And Republicans today, in their attempt to argue that the Republican Party is not racist, appeal to the radical Republicans and Thaddeus Stevens.

My impression is that Thaddeus Stevens was an idealist, one who believed in racial equality and who wanted to take away some land from Southern landowners so that African-Americans could have it, as the movie depicts.  Perhaps this sort of policy would have given newly-freed African-Americans a good start, in contrast with leaving them poor and dependent.  But Lincoln believed that some of Stevens' ideas were extreme, and Stevens himself felt that he had to moderate some of his public beliefs to get the Thirteenth Amendment passed. 

I was not aware of the view that Stevens had an African-American mistress, Lydia Hamilton Smith.  According to this wikipedia article about her, "While Smith was private about her personal life, during her time with Stevens, neighbors considered her his common law wife," and the article provides a couple of footnotes for that, before going into the uncertainty about what exactly her relationship with Stevens was.  I did find the scene in which Stevens took off his wig, climbed into bed with Smith, and told her about the Thirteenth Amendment to be moving, however.  Stevens in the movie was a misanthrope, one who claimed that he desired the good of the people without really liking the people themselves.  But perhaps one reason that Stevens was a supporter of racial equality was his love for Lydia Hamilton Smith.
Excellent movie!

Processing Church This Morning

I'm still processing a social encounter from church this morning.  I walked in and shook someone's hand, asking him how he was doing.  Later, we had the passing of the peace, and I asked this same gentleman how he was doing.  He replied, "The same as I was when you asked me two minutes ago!"  I responded, "My social repertoire..."  I was about to say that it was limited.  Before I could get all that out, he retorted, "I know," then proceeded to shake other people's hands.

I probably should vary my social repertoire a bit.  I could ask a person how he's doing when I first see him, then later say that it's good to see him, or something like that.  I doubt that I've utterly alienated this gentleman from me, since he's a nice person, and I've had my share of social flub-ups with him in the past.  He's thought that he's made social flub-ups with me, come to think of it.

The pastor emeritus was conducting the service this morning, since the pastor and his wife are away on vacation.  The pastor emeritus will be conducting the service next week, as well.  I was paying particular attention to the service this morning because, next week, I'll be doing the liturgy, and I wanted to see how the liturgy is done this week so that I'd know how I should do the liturgy next week.  The pastor emeritus usually organizes the service differently from the pastor.  I took notes on what the liturgist did today (i.e., what parts of the program he read), and, after the service, I told the pastor emeritus that I'll just do what the liturgist did today.  I asked him if that was all right, and he responded, "Oh, I don't know."  I guess I'll just go with my plan, then!

Conrad Black's Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full 1

I started Conrad Black's 2007 biography of Richard Nixon, entitled Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full.  I was initially hesitant to read Black's book for My Year (or More) of Nixon, since I already have enough books about Nixon to read, plus Black's book is really long (like, over 1,000 pages).  But I found myself visiting Amazon repeatedly to see if the price of Black's book had gone down.  I decided not to buy Black's book, but I checked it out from the library, so I could see if I wanted to read it.  Now, I'm reading it.  I'll see over time if I made a good choice!

I haven't read anything earthshakingly new about Nixon in Black's book up to this point, and I had to get used to Black's prose.  Moreover, after reading Roger Morris' detailed and extensively-documented tome about Nixon's early life and political career up to (and including) 1952, I found Black's discussion of Nixon's childhood, college years, and time at Duke Law School to be very disappointing.  But I'm finding as I continue to read Black's book that I am enjoying it more and more.  Black has been accused by reviewers of being pro-Nixon, of seeing Nixon in a sympathetic light because Black himself has had legal problems (and that accusation, incidentally, is one reason that I was motivated to read Black's book).  But, in my reading thus far, Black strikes me as fair-minded.  I think there are times when he acts as if he is some God-like narrator who knows for certain what really happened, and that gets on my nerves: at least Morris backed up more of his narrative with eyewitness testimony.  But I commend Black for sifting through the strengths and weaknesses of pro- and anti-Nixon narratives.  For example, in his section on Richard Nixon's 1946 Congressional race against Democratic incumbent Jerry Voorhis, Black disputes that the Committee of 100 that asked Nixon to run were huge industrialists, yet he also acknowledges that Nixon received a lot of money for his campaign, and that Nixon's portrayal of Voorhis' record was not particularly accurate.  Overall, Black steers a middle-ground between pro- and anti-Nixon narratives.

I also enjoy when Black calls out Nixon's BS.  For instance, Nixon in his 1946 campaign liked to appeal to his background in the Navy in World War II, and Nixon would talk about what his fellow Navy-men in the foxholes wanted in terms of political policy.  Black says that, for one, Nixon technically was not in a foxhole, and, two, even if he were in a foxhole, the men with him there would probably not be discussing politics with him!

I'm also noticing that Black keeps bringing up Franklin Roosevelt.  Black sometimes compares Nixon to Roosevelt: for example, Black notes that both were not good businessmen.  Black also defends Roosevelt against the right-wing charge that he sold out Eastern Europe to the Soviets.  And Black appears to regard the New Deal as something that was alleviating the Great Depression (on some level).  Black is largely regarded as a conservative, and he seems to understand the concerns of business-people who were opposed to the New Deal.  But I appreciate his sympathetic, albeit three-dimensional, portrayal of Franklin Roosevelt.  Incidentally, Black wrote a massive biography of FDR, and I may someday read that, alongside pro-New Deal and conservative anti-New Deal works, as well as Amity Shlaes' The Forgotten Man.  Black in his biography of Nixon may be bringing up Roosevelt continually to remind us that he wrote a book on FDR.  I prefer to think, though, that Black just can't get FDR out of his system!

This is not exactly the post that I was planning to write today.  I was intending to write about what Black says about how Nixon's social challenges actually made him into an effective politician.  I think I'll save that post for tomorrow.