Nixon

...He presumably played some part in their development into two of the more exemplary presidential offspring of recent generations...

...Above all, he appears early on to have come to the conclusion that life was a struggle in which Marquis of Queensberry Rules were irrelevant...

...His point is that poker taught Nixon to sense a bluff and to call it, as he did later, most notably, in the case of Alger Hiss...

...It seems certain that Nixon wanted to break out of his provincial environment, that, as he would say many years later, he listened to the sound of train whistles in the night...

...His foreign policies were far more subtle, intelligent, and flexible than his opposition's...

...In fact, the young Richard Nixon was ambitious, highly partisan, instinctively combative, and only a bit more scrupulous than Joe McCarthy...

...But Nixon's instincts were not so solid in dealing with Communist-led Latin American demonstrators who, hardly bluffing, came close to killing him and his wife during a state visit to South America in 1958...

...Possibly so, but with a father-substitute like this, who could blame Nixon if he became a bit paranoid...

...One can only say in exculpation that it was not yet possible to attack Brown for one of the graver political sins of the last generation, his role in rearing his son Jerry...

...He summarily dismisses the media image of her as "plastic Pat...

...Box 772A Fort Scott, KS 66701 1-800-523-5562 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 1987 47...

...Nixon's story suggests that it can also pass a point of diminishing returns, where it grinds one down and closes one off from the world...

...Throughout his youth, he rarely had fun of any sort...

...With that in mind, does the author have to put so much emphasis on the fact that during the war Nixon learned how to play a mean game of poker...

...no one, it seems, loved him...

...Had he not allowed himself to get caught up in the Watergate scandal, he surely would be remembered as one of the more talented and effective chief executives of this century...

...Did he really turn down a full scholarship to Harvard because of money problems...

...Many people respected him...

...T wo things appear to have changed 1 Nixon's life—his marriage and his military service...

...tion in 1974 even as I was dismayed at the prospect of a successor obviously inferior in ability...

...It is a question that in retrospect many thoughtful people must ask themselves about Richard Nixon...

...Kennedy, as Ambrose points out, was no better, intellectually or morally, than Nixon...

...He was right on Alger Hiss, whether by virtue of his poker experience or some other instinct...

...He lived the American Dream...

...Paul's Family Magazine P.O...

...all the while, he lived in conditions that would horrify a case-hardened social worker today...

...Ambrose leaves no doubt that the Old Hero wanted Nixon off the ticket in 1956, but could not bring himself to issue a direct order...

...He cites the comment of a Duke Law School acquaintance that Nixon was "not unmoral, just amoral...

...He was a constructive internationalist who not only defied the isolationist-minded businessmen who launched him into politics but educated them and made them like the world...

...Eisenhower had established his career on his reputation as a consensus builder...

...Yet I could never bring myself to vote for him...

...When he became President, he had no choice but to extricate the United States from Vietnam...

...He won their devotion, and an eventual presidential nomination, at the cost of irrevocably alienating most Democrats and many independents...

...Ambrose does his best to soften Frank Nixon's image, but he is not very persuasive...

...Nor was he himself very good at bluffing when he was away from the card table...

...Unable to afford Harvard, even with the aid of a full scholarship, Richard opted for Whittier College...

...This book ends at the nadir of Nixon's political life—just after he has told California reporters that they won't have him to kick around anymore...

...Overachievers who fight their way to the top are frequently unattractive...

...Ambrose does not explicitly analyze the development of Nixon's personality, but he finds in the young Nixon an insatiable thirst for achievement and recognition alongside a profound disregard for others...

...The word "sometimes" could have been replaced by "usually...

...Those born at the top, like John F. Kennedy, often radiate a charm that comes easily to those who feel they have nothing to prove...

...Many among my family and acquaintances, quite a few of them considerably more conservative than I, felt the same way...

...The result was an extra effort to appear "nice" or "sincere" that more often than not came across as phony...

...Ambrose's treatment of the marriage is intriguing, and satis46 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 1987 factory, given the difficulties of researching living subjects who value their privacy...

...Inevitably, the one who survived became a personal and political liability, a kind of Republican Billy Carter...

...Ambrose is more convincing when he examines the positive side of Nixon's career...

...it is hard to imagine how anyone could have done it with less damage...

...Ambrose suggests he well learned that debating, far from being a search for truth, is an exercise in persuasion and, often, in the manipulation of facts...

...Yet there is evidence that young Nixon was equally frightened of the larger world...

...The impact of Nixon's tour of duty in the Navy during World War II is much easier to deal with...

...Four years later, he made it through Duke Law School under similar conditions, and his younger brother was able to attend a nearby private prep school...

...No one can read of Nixon's child- hood and his life as a young adult without feeling sympathetic...

...My own guess is that he reacted out of a revulsion against Hiss's patrician smugness...

...In dealing with Nixon's early political career, Ambrose works hard to give him every benefit of the doubt...

...As Ike's secretary Ann Whitman put it, "the Vice President sometimes seems like a man who is acting like a nice man rather than being one...

...In the end, what brought Nixon down was his own personality...

...His newest and, to date, best biographer, Stephen Ambrose, poses the question a bit better than he answers it...

...The family survived only through ceaseless work...

...He brought to the presidency qualities central to the textbook conception of the office—a sense of policy direction, political realism, pragmatic opportunism, and a remarkable talent for political and diplomatic strategy...

...However one feels about his presidency—and I confess to a mixed evaluation—it is undeniable that in sheer personal competence he far surpasses his successors...

...Enclosed is $10.00...

...please send a one-year subscription to: Name Address City State/ Zip Code St...

...My hunch is that he displayed too many of the rough edges of the American success myth...

...s one might expect, Ambrose the major biographer of Dwight D. Eisenhower—is at his best in examining the frequently difficult relationship between the hero-President and his Vice President...

...Caring little for the Republican party and unwilling to sully his image with partisan campaigning, he used Nixon primarily as an effective Democrat-basher...

...Still, he cannot find a redeeming excuse for the character of Nixon's 1946 congressional campaign against Jerry Voorhis or for the rhetorical excess he showed following his 1962 loss to Pat Brown...

...And he was from time to time the victim of cheap shots himself, most notably the "secret fund" issue of 1952, a pseudo-scandal that nearly destroyed him...

...In the externals of his life, Nixon seems like someone who should have won the admiration of most Americans...

...Clearly, however, he thinks that Nixon's problems stemmed not from what he stood for but simply from the sort of man he was...

...It took him around much of America and into the South Pacific, taught him to deal with all types of men, and to manage new challenges...

...Perhaps it is none of our business...

...Nixon was a polarizer...

...Consequently, Nixon had little choice but to seek out opportunities for unsubstantial but noticeable diplomatic trips and to act as the Administration's chief campaigner...

...perhaps they were the outgrowth of a political death-wish that only a therapist could explain...

...In 1960, for example, he fully understood the importance of television but nevertheless agreed to go on the air with Kennedy and did so with insufficient preparation and inadequate attention to his physical appearance...

...It is more conceivable that Ike saw him as he did George Patton—a combat leader of the first order with a temperament that disqualified him for the top job...

...A shrewd political tactician, Nixon made critical mistakes in his 1960 presidential and 1962 gubernatorial campaigns...

...Instead, he had a way of appearing devious even when he was not...

...The author's explanations are not ter-ribly convincing: Truman's campaigning was as outrageous (HST was never known to use the word "treason" against his opponents), Helen Gahagan Douglas started the mudslinging in the 1950 campaign, American politics (or California politics) was a dirty business during these years, and so on...

...His mother was kind and concerned, but his father was difficult, temperamental, and quick to take a ruler or a razor strap to a disobedient child...

...He made his way through Duke Law School with a scholarship, money borrowed from his father, part-time jobs, and unremitting study...

...but Nixon did not try terribly hard to establish himself on the East Coast...

...he was a poor (or at least near poor) boy who not only made good but achieved the highest office in the land...

...If he had possessed half of Eisenhower's charm (or that of his old adversary Hiss), he would be remembered as one of the great politicians of this century...

...Yet his treatment of her is mostly within the confines of that very image...

...If Nixon, like most politicians, spent more time away from home than men in other occupations, he also was faithful to his wife and won the devotion of his daughters...

...on television there seemed no comparison...

...A delightful way to present the classics to children...

...If he does, I suspect he will leave us feeling that Nixon was a more impressive President than many people like to admit...

...In the latter role, he too often threw large chunks of raw (and frequently rancid) political meat to the party regulars...

...Indeed, as one surveys the various faceless dwarfs, Snow Whites, wimps, and assorted gnomes aspiring to the office today, one is compelled to feel that in 1988 we could do worse—and probably will...

...His 1962 campaign against Pat Brown with its references to "the mess in Sacramento" and Brown's alleged softness on Communism was ludicrous...

...One instinctively believes, however, that their marriage was more complicated than Ambrose makes it out to be...

...Still, Ambrose does not quite develop a full answer to the problem of why so many hated Nixon...

...instead I indulged in the luxury of leaving the presidential portion of my ballot blank...

...Why did so many Americans hate him...

...Well, possibly...

...His most recent book is Liberalism and its Challengers: FDR to Reagan (Oxford University Press...

...he depicts her as always dutiful, devoted to her husband's career, and largely responsible for rearing their two daughters...

...Two of his brothers died young, one of them unexpectedly, the other slowlyand tragically...

...One detects also traces of self-doubt, possibly self-destructiveness, that the author does not probe...

...Ike does not come out well...

...At one point, Ambrose suggests that Ike treated Nixon no worse than he treated his own son...

...He was too detached, too tightly self-controlled, too single-minded...

...Certainly his experiences in the military widened his horizons...

...Is it possible, then, that for all the lip service we give the American Dream, Americans do not much like the qualities it instills in those who achieve it...

...Nixon, by contrast, is pictured as almost callously neglectful of his wife, even indifferent to her physical safety, and usually out of contact with their children...

...Nixon was a first-rate officer who was liked and respected by the men who served under him...

...They tend to be tense, insecure, aggressive...

...few politicians have been so inept at concealing emotion...

...Allow us to introduce your children to our children: Tiny Tim Cratchit Hans Brinker - Sara Crewe The Little Match Girl Tom Sawyer - Becky Thatcher Little Red Riding Hood Laura Ingalls - Jim Hawkins Dick Whittington A quarterly magazine of Judeo-Christian culture...

...Perhaps they were the result of his customary overwork and inability to delegate responsibility...

...Nixon was no more insincere than most politicians, but I suspect that he was more prone than most to doubt his credibility...

...Perhaps, as Ambrose believes, Ike was just insensitive in Nixon's case, but such would be amazing in a man justly renowned for his skill in personal relations...

...Pat Nixon, he tells us, is an exceptional woman whose toughness and ambition matched her husband's...

...Like others in broad sympathy with many of his policies, I found myself so lacking in sympathy for the man that I cheered his resignaAlonzo L. Hamby teaches history at Ohio University...

...Time and again, he sent the younger man out on search-anddestroy missions, then privately deplored his rough tactics...

...Was he really compelled to return to Whittier because he was "only third" in his class at Duke...

...I would have done so in 1972 if I had thought there was any real prospect of a McGovern presidency...

...At no point did he give the Vice President any truly significant responsibility...

...His domestic policies—among them revenue-sharing and the aborted Family Assistance Plan—were at times bold and innovative...

...Of course they would, and I hope Ambrose will recount the second phase of the Nixon saga as well as he has recounted the first...

...American mythology tells us that this builds character...

...In covering Nixon's career through his ill-fated race for governor of California in 1962, Ambrose gives us a picture of a man who uniquely polarized the electorate, had a way of appearing devious, and (the author hints) may have possessed some self-destructive impulses...

...It is true that Duke Law School's reputation was then relatively unproved...

...In short, by most standards, Richard Nixon seems to have been a quite successful husband and father, much more so than the narrative leads one to believe...

...perhaps it is impossible to get at the full truth...

...Among his many accomplishments, he was a star debater in high school and college...