1. IrvingSnodgrass - July 6, 1999 - 11:01 AM PT
Let's take a look at Richard Nixon's accomplishements, both good and bad, in this thread. I know it may be hard to control the invective, from both sides, but I urge all participants to try to take a detached look, since it's now almost 25 years since Nixon resigned the presidency, and we may possibly have a bit more perspective.
2. Ronski - July 6, 1999 - 11:50 AM PT
I actually have lukewarm feelings about Nixon. He was a complicated individual. On the negative side he increased the size of the government, and carried out an immoral war he'd promised he would end (via that famous "secret" plan). His Supreme Court appointments were all over the lot. He engaged in character assasination at a time when most politicians were not going for the jugular (they did before, and have since), but he was something of a patriot. I believed he loved his country, but was a very unpleasant human being. I think his daughters turned out suprisingly normal. Thus end some very random thoughts.
3. Trialshark - July 6, 1999 - 11:54 AM PT
I thought we weren't going to have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore.
4. Ronski - July 6, 1999 - 11:57 AM PT
I saw that news conference on TV. I was 14. When I turned 20, I learned that nothing in politics is certain.
5. vonKreedon - July 6, 1999 - 11:58 AM PT
"You won't have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore." One in a series of lies! Collect them all!
6. BoomerJeff - July 6, 1999 - 12:23 PM PT
Nixon should be considered one of the most liberal Presidents of the Post-war era. Maybe the most liberal. He may have exceeded even LBJ in expanding the size, scope, power, cost, and annoying intervention of the federal government.
I watched his funeral and heard our own California Governor Wilson present a glowing, worshipful eulogy. Wilson stated that Nixon had personally mentored and instructed him to campaign to the right but govern to the left. For this advice Wilson gave Nixon a lot credit for his political successes and was eternally grateful.
It makes one want to puke.
7. BoomerJeff - July 6, 1999 - 12:28 PM PT
Of course the similarities between Nixon and Clinton are striking.
1. Demonizing political adversaries.
Nixon, Clinton, (and most of our liberal fraygrunts) are unwilling to consider the possibility that the application of coercive government power may have unintended consequences and costs that far exceed and are not justified by the benefits conferred on favored constituencies. No, anyone who cant get on board with the establishment line must be part of a diabolical conspiracy to do deliberate harm to the poor or the old, or the young, or someone. People of good will couldn't possibly have honest disagreemtnts.
2. Fear of free markets, free choices, free speech.
3. Use of government agencies like the IRS to directly damage political adversaries.
4. Desire to exert massive, complex, personal control over the population - Nixon via wage and price controls, and Clinton via attempted nationalizing of health care and health insurance, and continued health-care power grabs.
5. Deep character flaws including unwillingness to admit to any mistakes or sins, no matter how inconsequential, and a tendency to lie even when the truth would obviously serve quite well. At least Nixon kept his zipper up while in the oval office, as far as we know.
8. colossus - July 6, 1999 - 12:43 PM PT
A crook.
9. azurenw - July 6, 1999 - 1:19 PM PT
Congress passed the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969 which President Richard Nixon signed into law on January 1, 1970.
The Endangered Species Act (Public Law 93-205) was signed by President Nixon on December 28, 1973.
10. Fraaank9 - July 6, 1999 - 1:34 PM PT
Off the top of my head...
On the plus side, a lot of pro-enviroment legislation was enacted during his administration.
On the negative side ? Let's see...Where to begin ? Well, in order to get a better perspective of his administration's work in Indochina, no discussion should commence sans the views and contributions of perhaps a Laotian or Cambodian point of view. :-)
11. phillipdavid - July 6, 1999 - 3:04 PM PT
Nixon's Domestic Initiatives:
Nixon tried to persuade Congress to pass legislation prohibiting school desegragation through the use of forced busing. He forbade the Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare to cut off federal funds from school districts that failed to comply with court orders to integrate.
Hmmm...forbade? Tried to supercede the Courts? Just a ittle Imperial, I'd say.
At the same time, he began to reduce or dismantle many of the social programs of the Great Society, and the New Frontier. He cut of hundreds of federal grants for urban renewal, social welfare, job training, and educational assistance. He attenmtpted to reduce funding for dozens of other social programs. On occassion, he attemtpted to defy congressional opposition to these efforts by simply impounding funds for programs he considered unnecessary. Once again, just a little bit Imperial, I'd say.
In 1973, he abolished the the Office of Economic Opportunity, the centerpiece of the antipoverty program of the Johnson years.
Yet Nixon's efforts to satisfy the demands of the so-called Middle Americans were not enirely negative. One of his boldest efforts was an attempt to overhaul the nation's enormous welfare system. Cumbersome, expensive, inefficient, this beuracracy was a glaring symbol of what Nixon and his supporters considered the excessive intrusiveness of the federal governemnt. Nixon proposed what he called the Family Assistance Plan, which was designed in large part by his urban advisor, Daniel Patrick Moynihan. The FAP proposed what would have been in effect a guarenteed annual income for all Americans: $1,600 in federal grants, which could be supplamented by outside earnings up to $4,000. Many liberal applauded the proposal as an important step toward expanding federal responsibility for the poor. Nixon liked its simplicity. It would reduce the supervisory role of the federal government and transfer to welfare recipients daily responsibility for the
12. phillipdavid - July 6, 1999 - 3:05 PM PT
for their own lives. The FAP won appoval in the House in 1970, but was killed in the Senate after concerted attacks by welfare recipients who considered the benefits inadequate.
Nixon appealed to conservative and provincial elements in other ways as well. He issued strident denounciations of protesters and radicals, ordered the Justice Departemnt to arrest demonstrators and dissidents, and unleashed Vice President Agnew to attack not only youthful critics of his administration but the liberal news media and the "biased" television networks. He rejected as "morally bankrupt" the recommendations of a special commission on pornagraphy, which saw no reason for the government to suppress the distribution of obscene material. He expressed sympathy to those opposing abortion. He refused to consider extending amnesty to draft resisters. He was, in short, trying to establish a new stance for the federal government: one that balanced the commitments to the poor and minorities against a larger concern for preserving traditional values and protecting the status of the middle class.
13. AzureNW - July 6, 1999 - 3:30 PM PT
It seems quite out of character for Richard Nixon to have signed a law with so pervasive an impact on government control of industry as the Endangered Species Act. One hundred years from now, the effects of the environmental laws passed during Nixon's administration may stand as the most significant accomplishments of his presidency. People will be living in cities and working in industries shaped by those laws long after everything else Nixon did is forgotten.
14. AzureNW - July 6, 1999 - 3:51 PM PT
We should raise a toast in salute of the jerk as each of the dams on the Snake River and the Columbia are broken open.
15. cllrdr - July 6, 1999 - 4:27 PM PT
Richard M. Nixon? A pathological liar who sought election to the Presidency on the grounds that he would end the Viet Nam war, only to expand it on two fronts -- bringing death to countless numbers of Third World peasants that most of those who post here couldn't care less about.
As a Political leader he falls short of Hitler and Stalin. But that's only because of his essentially second-rate nature.
For a somewhat kinder view of Nixon, be sure to see "Dick" by the flawless Andrew Fleming (who I've just returned from interviewing for an article I'm writing the "New York Times"), which opens nationwide, August 3.
16. blueheart - July 6, 1999 - 5:13 PM PT
to Irv --
Thanks for starting the thread!
to all --
I'd like everyone to know that I'm the director of the Nixon Library and a former aide (from 1979 to 1990) to the late President and therefore not exactly a dispassionate commentator! But I'll try to stick to the facts. As I said in a post prior to the launch of the thread, certain political and culture figures appear to inspire incredible passion both pro and con, with both sides becoming so wedded to their predispositions that they go nuclear when they're challenged. Presidents Nixon and Clinton are our leading modern examples. We learn a lot about such figures, and about ourselves, when we challenge these entrenched positions.
to Ronski --
Why was Vietnam an immoral war? Because we were fighting for bad reasons, or because it wasn't winnable? If you take the latter view, there's new scholarship -- most recently a book called "A Better War" by Lewis Sorley that suggests that by the end of 1972 the Nixon
Administration and the South Vietnamese had effectively won the war, by which I mean they had ensured the survival of the Saigon regime -- so long as the U.S. kept the promises it made under
the Paris Peace Accords. Because of Watergate and Congress's policies during 1973-75, the U.S. did not, and Saigon fell to a Soviet-funded North Vietnamese invasion. If South Vietnam were
free and prosperous today -- an Indochinese South Korea -- wouldn't we view Nixon and his administration in a radically different way?
17. cllrdr - July 6, 1999 - 6:25 PM PT
"Saigon fell to a Soviet-funded North Vietnamese invasion."
Sure ran out of fuel awful quick.
18. phillipdavid - July 6, 1999 - 7:53 PM PT
Continuing with my thoughts on Nixon's domestic initiatives:
I question Nixon's desire to change the compostion of the Supreme Court; he received his largest ovation at the '68 convention when he pledged to do so.
In my view, the Warren court, even though it it may be properly called a court of "judical activism," did a lot of good things. Its rulings on racial matters, and its staunch defense of civil liberties were good for the nation, imo. But it was just these things that Nixon reacted against.
Some of the cases that led Nixon to pledge to change the compostion of the Supreme Court were:
1. Engel v Vitale (1962) where the Court ruled prayers in public school were unconstitutional.
2. Gideon v Wainright (1963) where the Court ruled every felony defendant is entitled to a lawyer regardless of his/her ability to pay.
3. Escobedo v Illinois (1964) where the Court ruled defendants must be allowed access to a lawyer before questioning by police.
4. Miranda v Arizona (1966) where the Court affirmed the obligations of authorities to inform a criminal defendant of his/her rights.
5. Baker v Carr (1962) where the Court ordered state legislatures to apportion representation so that votes of all citizens would carry equal weight. This greatly increased the political voice of blacks, hispanics, and other poor urban residents.
Looking back on these decisions now with an historical eye, my view is that these were all good decisions -- ones that benefited the nation. And looking back on Nixon's negative reaction to these decisions, it is hard to view Nixon in a positive light.
Sure, I know that his "silent majority" middle class consitutuents shared his sentiments and that maybe he was just politically pandering to their wishes, but still I think that a man of character would always take the larger social view, and the larger constitutional view, and work toward affecting beneficial changes for the poor a
19. phillipdavid - July 6, 1999 - 7:55 PM PT
and dispossesed.
The first two men Nixon nominated to fill vacancies on the COurt were awful choices too. They were men with a lack of character and a lack of ethical judgement. Clement F. Haynsworth came under fire for his conservative civil rights record, but the revelation that he sat on cases involving corporations in which he had a finacial interest was what doomed him. Nixon's next choice was particularly unfortunate -- G. Harold Carswell. He was entirely lacking in distinction and considered unfit for the Supreme Court.
Nixon became enraged when his nominations failed (when his Imperial will was thwarted?) and announced the votes had been a result of prejudice against the South. Sounds like the comments of a small man, to me. But Nixon learned his lesson well and thereafter only chose men of standing within the legal community: Blackmen, Powell, Rheinquist.
It is somewhat satisfying to know that these men fell short of what Nixon had hoped for. Rather than retreating from its commitment to social reform, the Court actually extended its reach in several areas. Just what president Nixon didn't want! In my opinion, the Court's social reforms (in specific areas) have been a fairly good thing for the country. I'm guessing Nixon's initial small-minded, ethically challenged nominees wouldn't have served the country as well.
20. stostosto - July 7, 1999 - 12:30 AM PT
I am enjoying lurking here.
21. stostosto - July 7, 1999 - 2:21 AM PT
I was 9 years old when Nixon had to resign. I didn't understand much of what was going on but one thing I had clear for me: This guy was a bad guy. Really bad. He was against everything that was good and everybody who tried to advance the world, from Viet Cong and the Vietnam war protesters to the new ways of life which young people were experimenting with; women's lib, communes, human relations based on caring instead of profit - all that. I guess you'd guess by this that I come from what Americans would call a 'liberal' background.
And maybe I do, though not terribly so. But all this was a sign of the times here in Denmark, in the rest of Europe as well, and in the U.S.
We've moved beyond that now, even if much of it sticks - women are undoubtedly more free today than before for example. I personally have also moved beyond it. Having been a sympathizer to this broad societal wave of demands for a better world, though never a partaker, and probably never a true believer, I have cynic'ed down. People are many things and not only egotistic. But they are *also* egotistic, and it would be wrong to disregard this fact when thinking about how to transform the world.
(Jeez. When I saw this thread was on, I thought the subject belonged in the "remembrance of things past" thread... Perhaps you can see why).
I can't think of Nixon without thinking of all this, and how he epitomized all the evil forces that were screwing up the world, and which all right-thinking people had to fight. I had this image of him without really reflecting on it, because a) why bother ; and b) everybody else seemed to confirm it if touched upon.
It was not until there was a discussion of 20th century American presidents here in the Fray that I began to wonder whether there might be other ways of looking at Nixon. And I was actually surprised at how many well-informed Fraysters seemed to have what Irv terms 'lukewarm' feelings about him.
It precipit
22. stostosto - July 7, 1999 - 2:21 AM PT
It precipitated reading an account of the Watergate ordeal. Reading that was, of course, designed to restore the villain image of Nixon. It did, but it also added an element of pity for the man. He seemed to be fundamentally out of touch and, well, unhappy.
Enough. I will follow this debate and perhaps read into some more Nixon biographical stuff. (Then, perhaps not. I am into Clinton biography at the moment. Stephanopoulos' and Dick Morris' books).
23. Wombat - July 7, 1999 - 6:33 AM PT
My parents were Nixon haters from his "commie hunting" days in the 1950s, and nothing he did in the 1960s through Watergate did much to change their (and my) opinion of him.
As I studied foreign policy in college and grad school, the effect of his policies--good and bad--made me revise my views. When the current crop of Republican yahoos attempted to do away with "liberal" aspects of the Federal government, my views changed further, as many of the programs they were trying to end were either started under Nixon or perpetuated by him.
Did Nixon's flaws and misdeeds outweigh his far-sightedness and "liberalism?" Yes, but in today's context, it is not as clear-cut as it was before.
24. 109109 - July 7, 1999 - 7:05 AM PT
Nixon's domestic initiatives are almost besides the point. The key to evaluating his presidency falls on a review of foreign policy initiatives and Watergate.
Watergate first. Nixon was, in crookery, Johnson cornered. They were involved in the hardball illegal activities of their time, replete with wiretapping, applying muscle when necessary, and having a delicious taste for the vendetta (I recommend an old book and a new one - Victor Lasky's "It Didn't Start With Watergate" and Michael Beschloss' recent book on the Johnson tapes - I do not recommend Jeff Shesol 's "Mutual Contempt" which manages to make the LBJ-RFK saga mundane) .
Much of this came from a discomfort with their own selves and a deficiency of self-esteem. For Johnson, he was always getting screwed by the Kennedy types, who were looking down on his meager beginnings and his poor education. For Nixon, it was the Eastern Establishment Jews who heckled him throughout his career. We had to wait for Reagan to get a president who came from little Eureka College, and could have cared less.
25. 109109 - July 7, 1999 - 7:17 AM PT
stos
"He seemed to be fundamentally out of touch and, well, unhappy."
Actually, his unhappiness stemmed from his fall, modern drama aside. And he was probably out of touch with regards to communes and Cream and bra-burning. Luckily, he was advanced in terms of the Middle East and China and geopolitics in general.
26. stostosto - July 7, 1999 - 7:47 AM PT
"he was advanced in terms of the Middle East and China and geopolitics in general."
Just out of curiousity: What were his achievements, exactly?
27. demurrer - July 7, 1999 - 7:49 AM PT
Didn't Richard Nixon support the Comprehensive Education and Training Act (CETA)? It poured hundreds of millions of dollars into city governments for public jobs which were dispensed by the local (usually Democratic) patronage machines.
28. CalGal - July 7, 1999 - 7:58 AM PT
"Nixon became enraged when his nominations failed (when his Imperial will was thwarted?) and announced the votes had been a result of prejudice against the South. Sounds like the comments of a small man, to me. "
Whatever Nixon's problems, he wasn't a small man. Besides, that reaction is hardly unusual for any president.
"I question Nixon's desire to change the compostion of the Supreme Court; he received his largest ovation at the '68 convention when he pledged to do so."
I find this astounding.
The man was a Republican politician who didn't like what the Court had been doing. Switch "Republican" to "Democrat" and then explain to me how that wouldn't be, say, Clinton. There is no difference between what Nixon did (or tried to do) and what Clinton did later in making damn sure that he got some right-thinking judges on the court--and undoubtedly getting lots of applause when he made those pledges while running for President.
(Obviously, Reagan and Bush did this as well, but I'm figuring you "question" their desire as well.)
So if you question his goals, fine. But that's just an extension of your basic disagreement. To question his desire to shape the Supreme Court is condemning him for the same actions that you would laud in a President you agreed with.
29. 109109 - July 7, 1999 - 8:04 AM PT
stost
Are you really curious? I hope so.
With regard to the Middle East, his establishment of detente with the Soviet Union contributed to the lessening of tensions after the 1973 war. It was U.S. and Soviet representatives who worked out the peace.
With regard to the Soviet Union, he achieved an arms limitations agreement in 1972.
With regard to China, that same year, he opened up relations, the first president to visit since it had gone Communist in 1948.
With regard to all of the above, he established a triangular diplomacy whereby he could pit one off against the other, to the advantage of the United States:
30. 109109 - July 7, 1999 - 8:05 AM PT
From a Kissinger piece in Foreign Affairs:
"By the end of Nixon's first term, we had vindicated the strategy of moving forward on a broad front. The Soviet Union was being constrained from geopolitical adventures by the stick of our opening to China and the carrot of prospects of increased trade. In 1971, we helped channel West German Chancellor Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik into a direction compatible with allied cohesion by linking West German recognition of the East German communist regime to a guarantee of free access to Berlin, thereby ending for the rest of the Cold War
Soviet harassment of the city's access routes. In 1972, we were able to step up military pressure on Hanoi without Soviet interference. The Soviets went ahead with the planned superpower summit despite the mining of Vietnamese harbors and the renewal of bombing of North Vietnam because they prized the benefits of a visit by Nixon more than ideological ties with Hanoi. It was also in 1972 that Soviet military forces were expelled from Egypt -- as we had predicted in 1970. By the end of 1973, the United States was dominating Middle East diplomacy. A strategic arms agreement numerically freezing the Soviet missile buildup without modifying any established American program had been negotiated. Linkage had prevailed."
I agree with Kissinger's general assessment, self-aggrandizing as it may be.
31. stostosto - July 7, 1999 - 8:12 AM PT
Niner
Yes, I am curious.
Are these achievements undisputed facts?
And, to take the Chinese one: What did it actually achieve? And didn't Mao's inscrutable and unscrupulous tactics play a role in making this opening possible?
Do you mean to say that the U.S. pitted China against the U.S.S.R.?
And what about his advanced geopolitics wrt Vietnam?
32. 109109 - July 7, 1999 - 8:29 AM PT
stosoto
In terms of history, I doubt you will find an "undisputed fact." Rather, the facts are true as stated, but the analysis is certainly rebuttable.
As for Vietnam, I did not list it as a foreign policy success because I don't believe that it was. Rather, Nixon was handed a horrifically complicated military venture, and his attempts to extricate the United States (i.e., "peace with honor") commensurate with a Vietnamization of the war was, ultimately, flawed. We were extricated, after a time. Preace was achieved, after a time. The delay of peace is a fair point of criticism (traditionally from the left). The abandonment of South Vietnam is a fair point of criticism (traditionally from the right).
33. 109109 - July 7, 1999 - 8:34 AM PT
As for the "inscrutable" Mao, I subscribe to the philosophy that foreign policy opportunities can be mutually beneficial.
And yes, triangulation strengthens the hand of the superpower doing the triangulating.
34. phillipdavid - July 7, 1999 - 12:55 PM PT
CalGal,
Message #28
"Whatever Nixon's problems, he wasn't a small man.
Besides, that reaction is hardly unusual for any president."
Nixon nominated two men, in succession, who were unfit. One didn't have the proper ethical mettle, and the other was just not the caliber of man fit for the job. He became enraged when they weren't accepted, and instead of accepting his own fault in nominating such innappropriate choices, he tried to pass the blame off to prejudice against the South. Sounds like a small-minded thing to do to me.
"The man was a Republican politician who didn't like what
the Court had been doing"
And that is what I questioned. I questioned his wisdom in deciding to pander to those who reacted negatively to all those cases I cited. If it was me, I wouldn't have reacted so. The Court, imo, was doing good things for the country through its "judicial activism." I don't care if Nixon was just doing the same sort of thing that Clinton would have done; I care about making the best decisions possible. And I don't think Nixon made good initial decisions wrt the Supreme Court and the best interests of our nation. I would question any president's decisions in that context.
35. Ronski - July 7, 1999 - 1:46 PM PT
blueheart,
Re: Message #16
Thank you for your thoughtful post. (And I would add that the U.S. side won the Tet Offensive, though the press at the time suggested otherwise.) Still, IMO, the war was immoral for both reasons you cite. It was unwinnable because the American public could not possibly sustain the commitment that would have been necessary to protect a South Vietnamese regime, and it was immoral using the rubric of what theologians discussing the concept of a just war employ: a balance of interests (useful in all policy discussions). That is, the gains that could be made by solidifying a Saigon government were outweighed by the loss of human life, both Vietnamese and Western, the destruction of elements of Vietnamese culture (a somewhat arguable point, given that Marxism would also damage native culture), destruction of the environment, and other considerations.
This is not intended to be an endorsement of Marxists and their fellow travelers a la Hanoi Jane, because they are largely scum. But the V.C. had the good fortune of being considered by many Vietnamese to be the true nationalists, which the American-supported successors to the French did not.
In the end, we did what that Yankee sage Sen. Aiken said we should do: declare victory and leave. We just should have done it a good deal earlier than we did.
I understand that reasonable people have very different opinions on this isssue, and I have no animosity towards those who fought for the U.S. and Saigon side. I have close friends who did. (Full disclosure: I was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam era, and if it helps you to understand further my position, I'm a Libertarian.)
36. cllrdr - July 7, 1999 - 1:56 PM PT
"This is not intended to be an endorsement of Marxists and their fellow travelers a la Hanoi Jane, because they are largely scum."
Gee whiz, ronski. I'm a nice guy -- really.
"But the V.C. had the good fortune of being considered by many Vietnamese to be the true nationalists, which the American-supported successors to the French did not."
They *were* nationalists. They were fighting off the Americans who had invaded their country and attempted to establish a puppet regime.
37. CalGal - July 7, 1999 - 1:59 PM PT
Phillip,
"And that is what I questioned. I questioned his wisdom in deciding to pander to those who reacted negatively to all those cases I cited."
You aren't questioning the pandering, are you? Because that's the same as Clinton "pandering" to those who were unhappy about recent abortion rulings. So it's his values and beliefs you question, not his methodology. But you are making it sound like two separate offenses.
"I disagreed with him on law and order issues." Offense 1
"He tried to stack the court." Purported to be Offense #2. But this would only be a second offense if you *agreed* with his goals but objected to his methods--or objected to the methods regardless of the goal. But you've said that you have no problem with the method if used towards goals you approve of. Therefore, it's not stacking the court you object to, but his goals. And you've already covered that in Offense #1.
He did nothing dreadfully unusual in trying to people the Court with folks who'd achieve his aims. As for his pique when his folks got turned down, surely Presidential temper tantrums are nothing new--or old.
38. ranheim - July 7, 1999 - 3:28 PM PT
#14 Azure
Are you serious? Or joking? In LA I have no way of knowing.
Are they being dismantled on purpose?
Or allowed to fail over time through no maintainance?
I have never heard any significant complaint about the TVA. But, plenty about the Aswan High Dam. I have a general opinion that one doesn't mess with Mother Nature without paying a price.
39. patsyrolph - July 7, 1999 - 5:25 PM PT
Alas I became so excited over having been able to
access three threads in a row I read the last page of Nixon. This is not good for my blood pressure.
Poor old lady has been voting _against_Nixon her entire political career. I suppose if I were willing to scroll back I would discover that many have already pointed to his HUAC activities the memory of which would just make me crosser.I will
comcede that I felt a teensy tiny bit of pity for him after seeing _Nixon in China_. Sorry to have come in just to stamp my feet; I promise not tp come back.
40. stostosto - July 8, 1999 - 12:39 AM PT
Niner
I asked you
"Do you mean to say that the U.S. pitted China against the U.S.S.R.?"
And you say, ostensibly in response:
" triangulation strengthens the hand of the superpower doing the triangulating."
My point in asking you this was that I don't believe the China-Soviet fall-out had much, if anything at all, to do with the U.S. They had been openly hostile towards each other at least since 1963, complete with military border skirmishes in a place called Ur..Us... something.
(What exactly do you understand by 'triangulation', by the way? U.S. vs. China vs. USSR?)
41. Ronski - July 8, 1999 - 7:00 AM PT
Ronski: "...largely scum."
Good Marxists: CellarDoor.
Bad Marxists: Too long a list to post here.
:-)
42. 109109 - July 8, 1999 - 7:28 AM PT
sto
You've misinterpreted my statement that Nixon exploited an existing enmity between China and the Soviet Union by perceiving that I said Nixon created an enmity between China and the Soviet Union.
Triangulation is exploitation of existing tensions between two parties by a third. You warm to one, then the other, then back, until you get the most candy and gum of all the girls on the block, because both parties are afraid of losing you to the other (a fear that stems from their fear of each other).
Hence, what is known as "the China card." I've given you some examples of how playing that card enhanced American foreign policy. I've also given you a smattering of Kissinger's view. Do you want more or do you have a contrary view?
43. colossus - July 8, 1999 - 9:06 PM PT
"opinions of Nixon as a man and as a president. What do you think?"
I recall a question from my 1972 Political Theory final, roughly:
Using the following models of totalitarianism (Arendt plus others) discuss whether or to what extent Richard Nixon is a fascist? A totalitarian?
I thought the question absurd so I chose another to answer. But its stuck with me lo these many years. I think he was a wannabe Stalin.
Why when Paco was just a leeetul jalapeno, I was driving around the White House, one humid August night in 1974, rather inebriated, honking my Fiat horn....
aaahhhh the memories.
44. colossus - July 8, 1999 - 9:10 PM PT
"Nixon's domestic initiatives are almost besides the point. The key to evaluating his presidency falls on a review of foreign policy initiatives and Watergate."
Actually his foreign policy intitiatives, his domestic policy and Watergate are almost beside the point.
All three areas can only be understood in the light of his and HK's Vietnam dance.
45. cigarlaw - July 8, 1999 - 11:58 PM PT
richard nixon was a god-damn lying son of bitch.
he's dead.
good.
46. hashke - July 9, 1999 - 10:00 AM PT
Nixon growled and barked a lot, but he liked dogs. He couldn't have been that bad.
47. Ronski - July 9, 1999 - 10:07 AM PT
I suppose insertion of the Hitler Rider would be overkill here, yes?
48. elliot803 - July 9, 1999 - 10:09 AM PT
Ronski:
"This is not intended to be an endorsement of Marxists and their fellow travelers a la Hanoi Jane, because they are largely scum."
Jane Fonda is not "scum."
49. Ronski - July 9, 1999 - 10:25 AM PT
Elliot,
You overlooked "largely." But I did think Fonda's behavior towards American servicepeople in the Vietnam era was pretty scummy. And many Americans feel that way, among them some who vehemently protested the war, as I did.
50. CIGARLAW - July 10, 1999 - 12:06 AM PT
but she was soooo good looking. one of the few people i ever met who looked better in person than in photos.
51. cllrdr - July 11, 1999 - 10:12 AM PT
Soory Elliot, but I can't agree with you.
Jane Fonda is, hands down, the creepiest person I've ever met in Hollywood.
And I've had lunch with James Woods, and spent an entire evening chasing round "The Bu" with James Toback.
52. blueheart - July 12, 1999 - 3:29 PM PT
cllrdr (message #15)
How did Nixon expand the war on two fronts? If you mean Cambodia in 1970 and the bombing of North Vietnam in December 1972, the former was undertaken to blunt the communists' spring offensive and save U.S. and allied lives (which it did) and the latter to bring both the north and south back to the bargaining table and complete the U.S. withdrawal (which it did). Neither killed "countless numbers of Third World peasants." Still unnumbered are the Cambodians killed by the regime we tried to keep from power, the Khmer Rouge, which had been plotting its holocaust-like class cleansing for over a decade. In view of what happened in Indochina once the U.S. pulled out, it is hard to make a case for those whom we were fighting. And yet...
53. blueheart - July 12, 1999 - 3:32 PM PT
stostosto (#21)
...argues that Nixon was against "everybody that was good and everybody who tried to advance the world, from Viet Cong and the Vietnam war protestors to the new ways of life which young people were experimenting with." Here in a nutshell is the generational narcissism (I don't mean you personally, stostosto) that persistently infects debate about the Nixon legacy. Young people of that era, as a class, were neither wiser nor more moral than those of any other time. In middle age, in this zany, booming economy they have proved to be among the most materialistic people of any time; this is the sum total of their "new way of life." As for the Viet Cong and the Khmer Rouge, they were no better than Serbian ethnic-cleansers. Once in power (and the U.S. antiwar movement helped them get there), they and their sponsors proved to be grasping, ruthless tyrants.
Looking at that era through a romantic haze of Doors music and retrograde VW ads precludes a fair viewing of Nixon and his policies.
Ronski (#35)
I think the war was indeed won by December 1972; South Vietnam might be free today if the U.S. had kept its promises. This "what if" is one of the most important of the postwar era. Yet scholars tend so far to evade it.
Patsyrolph (#39)
Please do come back! Regarding RN's "HUAC's activities": Alger Hiss was guilty. He betrayed his country before and during World War II and then lied about it all his life. So what's your problem with Nixon?
54. Ronski - July 13, 1999 - 7:58 AM PT
blueheart,
Again, I think that the idea that those promises could ever have been kept is naive. I agree with you that the notion is a fertile area for scholars and journalists. Can you cite any current references for some further reading?
As for Government keeping promises in general, let's see what happens if Taiwan, now formally abandoning the One China policy, actually is invaded by the Mainland (which I pray does not happen). Sending a few war planes to counteract China's war games three years ago is one thing, but actually defending Taipei from attack would be another.
And let's see how many promises are kep over the next couple decades with regard to Social Security (though I think there the chances are better than in the Straits of Formosa).
55. blueheart - July 13, 1999 - 10:19 AM PT
ronski:
GMTA -- just before logging on I'd read the NY Times coverage of President Lee's statement and asked myself the same question you posed. So here are three hopeful perhapses -- perhaps Lee's just jockeying for political position in the runup to the elections; perhaps Beijing knows that; and perhaps the U.S. does, too, and so won't rush too breathlessly to remind the world that its security umbrella won't remain in place in the event Taiwan formally declares independence.
As for Vietnam, you might check out Lewis Sorley's new "A Better War," which argues that Gen. Abrams successfully Vietnamized the war but which vastly underrates the lonely and politically hazardous decisions Nixon made to give Abrams the breathing room he needed. Sorley says the war was won by December 1972, which means that South Vietnam had the wherewithal to defend itself without U.S. troops. We did promise to bomb the north again if Hanoi violated the Paris Peace Accords (we didn't), to continue to fund Saigon to match Soviet support for Hanoi (ditto), and to send reconstruction aid to the north (a moot point once its aggression recommenced). Essentially we handed a win to the communists.
It's not certain Saigon would've survived. But it's possible, even likely, and in any event a helluva meaty question for scholars. One thing's sure: Demonizing Nixon helps us continue to evade responsibility for having abandoned an ally after asking 60,000 of our children to give their lives in her defense.
56. Ronski - July 13, 1999 - 10:48 AM PT
blueheart,
Thanks for the suggestion.
(I also think that Vietnam was doomed by the failure of international community, and specifically the U.N., to support the war, as opposed to the situation in Korea. But the Soviets would never have made the error they did with regards to the latter, storming out of the Security Council and handing the win in that vote to the U.S.).
57. IMTRENCHANT - July 15, 1999 - 1:53 AM PT
No one in U.S. public life contributed more than Nixon to U.S. led victory in the Cold War, and to shaping the U.S. dominated world we now live in. As Congressman, Senator, Vice President and President, for a period of nearly 50 years, Nixon was right about every important Cold War issue, from Alger Hiss to Boris Yeltsin. Most important, Nixon saw that any 'moral equivalence' drawn between the opposing sides in the Cold War (e.g., McCarthyism & The Gulag), as espoused in the CNN Cold War series, is, and always was buncombe. That he advocated his view effectively is plain: more Americans voted directly for Richard Nixon than for any other individual in the history of the U.S. republic.
As Vice President, Nixon served an often-disabled Dwight Eisenhower flawlessly through Ike's two terms as President, and in Nixon's own first term as President, he gave the U.S. the most imaginative and visionary foreign policy it has ever had, one that gave shape to the world we now live in. Because of his unique position as a bona fide 'cold warrior', Nixon managed, while avoiding a rightwing revolt in the U.S., to (i) preside with skill over what was tantamount to a 'Second U.S. Civil War', (ii) wind down U.S. participation in Vietnam, (iii) re-establish relations with China and (iv) develop a policy of detente that led to an unprecedented opening (and weakening) of the U.S.S.R.
In the years after Watergate, Nixon wrote ten best-selling books, mostly about Cold War policy, the most important being 'The Real War', which was published in 1979, just before the beginning of the Reagan presidency. In 'The Real War', Nixon laid down the blueprint for Reagan's post-Detente policy: U.S. economic superiority was deployed to weaken the 'evil empire' (aka the U.S.S.R.). Finally, it was Nixon who wisely advised a reluctant Bush administration to give its strongest support to Yeltsin, not Gorbachev, in order to transform the U.S.S.R. into a western-style democracy.
58. Aldavis - July 15, 1999 - 3:50 PM PT
IMTRENCHANT
I never was a big fan of Nixon. Quite the contrary back in the '60's, 70's when I was a Liberal. My take on Nixon was formed my the main stream media, who for the most part hate all conservatives. I guess the point is that I was mostly ignorant of what Nixon was accomplishing. I actually thought Hiss was a victim of Nixon and I bought into all the Helen Gahagan Douglas propaganda. So I enjoyed reading your post very much. There is no shame in once being ignorant; remaining so may be a shame. Hope to see more posts by you.
59. AzureNW - July 15, 1999 - 5:28 PM PT
hhmmmm....I thought IMTRENCHANT's comments about the transformation of the USSR into a western-style democracy were ridiculous. US anticommunism has reduced the former USSR to a starving, politically unstable third world country that is armed to the teeth, and US anticommunist hysteria hung over from the Cold War continues to be used as an excuse to grind indigenous people into the dirt throughout Latin America.
60. blueheart - July 15, 1999 - 6:47 PM PT
AzureNW -
With respect, I think you're way too hard on IMTRENCHANT. It's true that the Russians are a long way from democracy American-style. Our precise approach may never be right for them. But IMT...'s point, with which I agree totally, is that during 1989-1991, when many in the U.S. were still enamored of Gorbachev and hoping he would reform and streamline the one-party communist state (which, after all, was all he ever promised to do), Nixon urged us to back a leader who promised real economic reform, a pro-Western foreign policy, and a multi-party system - namely, Boris Yeltsin. That Yeltsin fell short of his ideals is manifest and was openly acknowledged by Nixon by the time of his death in 1994, which is why during his annual visits to Moscow he'd been meeting with and encouraging young, reform-minded leaders such as Gregori Yavlinsky. He knew Russians wouldn't have a perfect politics immediately, but he also knew that real change had to begin somewhere and that change would come more swiftly under Yeltsin. As for Russia's lamentable economic situation today, whose fault is that, really - those who encourage and practice reform, or those who created, sustained, and expanded the Soviet regime that required reform so desperately?
I'd say RN's encouragement of profound political and economic change in Russia and the impact it had on Bush and even Clinton Administration policy was one of his greatest achievements, in or out of office.
61. AzureNW - July 15, 1999 - 9:50 PM PT
blueheart -
"As for Russia's lamentable economic situation today, whose fault is that, really - those who encourage and practice reform, or those who created, sustained, and expanded the Soviet regime that required reform so desperately?"
Those who created and expanded the Soviet regime are at fault for its failures, but the United States played a significant role in creating and expanding that regime. It was especially clear when the USSR collapsed that they had never been the threat to the West they were portrayed to be. What had sounded like US propaganda aimed at building support for US weapons programs turned out to be just that. Our weapons technology and military grew fatter while the economy of the USSR was starved trying to keep up under suffocating trade and technology embargoes, pumping all their scarce resources into defense. My impression is that the USSR must have made a lot of mistakes of their own, but they were undoubtedly also viscously screwed by the 'Free World'.
62. wexxford1 - July 16, 1999 - 12:38 AM PT
Nixon was pure central casting when chosen by Madison Avenue for a role as a California pol, just like Ronnie Reagan, just like tapdancing Senator George Murphy, just like Jerry Brown and his poppa Pat,just like the Japanese-American fella who kept falling asleep-Hayakawa or something. The PR guys who invented Nixon are named in many bios of tricky Dick-indeed Reagan and Nixon had the same handlers and issue creators . When Nixon's brother ran off to get a wad of dough from another central casting comedian--Howard Hughes-- you had to pity the whole Nixon gang . But after all they were apple pickers in the depression, no ?
63. wexxford1 - July 16, 1999 - 12:50 AM PT
IMTRENCHANT-- So you think Dickie Nixon wrote ten best selling books, do you . TooralooraLoora,laddie,you jest fall for that American folklore like kids for a lottery ticket . The real Nixon we shall never know . The central casting Dick we know too well . Viciouly anti-commie when told, Lovey-dovey with the Commie Rats when told to perform that tap dance .Nixon was on a fast moving PR train, not driving it for gosh sakes . All Nixon knew first hand about presidential style was gotten from Ike who spend his days lollygagging, golfing,traveling,and reading the scrips that John Foster Dulles handed him . Nixon was probably mad because he never got to write a line, or give any spontaneous performance. But hey, it kept the morons marching vigorously . Nixon was probably just himself. He sure didnt lack for sponsors in Wall Street, now did he? For a little while he hung his hat in the cloakroom of a Wall Street law firm,but that was jest to give him walking around money. Churchill and Ike got huge payoffs from the publishing industry . Nixon said ' Me Too" and kept at the publishing racket for too long.A season or two in a TV soap opera would have paid more and lightened him up . Look at Clinton. He knows the White House thing is an act. Unlike Nixon he has no shame in being just another central casting actor . Writing books ? Please . What a bore that would be when you can make thousands a night pretending to gamble on cards .
64. IMTRENCHANT - July 16, 1999 - 1:55 AM PT
To AzureNW
You have said: "My impression is that the USSR must have made a lot of mistakes of their own, but they were undoubtedly also viscously screwed by the 'Free World'."
This quotation from your post (#61) is not unlike saying "Nazi Germany made a lot of mistakes of their own, but they were undoubtedly also viciously screwed by the 'Free World' when they were defeated by the Allies in World War II."
Surely it is a misreading of all that we know about the U.S.S.R., and how it behaved, to underestimate the importance the Western Alliance attached to defeating the U.S.S.R. by whatever means necessary. It is precisely in this context that Nixon's role was so important.
The problem faced by liberal democracies/republics in their standoff with totalitarian regimes has always been the one that Dean W.R. Inge phrased so aptly a very long time ago: "It does no good for the lambs to pass laws in favour of vegetarianism if the wolf has a different opinion."
The Western Alliance simply had no option but to recognize the truth of what Nixon wrote in his book, 'The Real War', and to act accordingly. I agree, in detail, with all that 'blueheart' has said about the current, tragic situation with respect to the Russian economy.
65. ranheim - July 16, 1999 - 5:50 AM PT
#59 & #61
I have never understood why being an "anti-communist" was/is in bad odor.
Liberals/progressives/socialists - that pretty well describes academia and the media - have political beliefs that are very, very similar to the communists. Is that the explanation?
In regard the arms race - it would take only one nuclear weapon to ruin one's day. I'm no fan of the military/industrial complex; but, thank God the old Soviet Union is gone. Defence spending is given a lot of credit for that event. The current chaos within its old borders notwithstanding.
66. Ronski - July 16, 1999 - 9:39 AM PT
The current chaos within Russia's borders result from their refusal to fully embrace Western ideals of free enterprise and a classical liberal state strong enough to enforce the rule of law. We should continue to encourage them to do so, but we owe them nothing.
Those who wish to engage in private charity to help Russians and other formerly Communist peoples, should do so. I send money to an American-based group that aids the Czech Republic.
67. AzureNW - July 16, 1999 - 10:57 AM PT
IMTRENCHANT -
I don't believe it was necessary for the Western Alliance to "defeat" the Russian people. I am not at all convinced they were ever the threat to me and my country they were always portrayed to be. I doubt they would have been much of a threat at all decades ago, had they not been constantly provoked with threats against them. The Western Alliance was involved in a declared war with Nazi Germany. That kind of war isn't directly comparable to economic and political sabatoge that was used to bring down the Russian people.
I don't trust the political motivations of the recognized experts on the subject enough to spend time trying to sift out the bullshit from the facts in all that has been said about the USSR. But there is no question in my mind I smelled bullshit propaganda for a very long time before the country was destroyed.
68. AzureNW - July 16, 1999 - 10:59 AM PT
ranheim -
"I have never understood why being an "anti-communist" was/is in bad odor."
Anti-communism is used as an excuse to exploit and oppress poor people, to slaughter and enslave Latin American Indians, as an example.
69. Ronski - July 16, 1999 - 11:51 AM PT
Azure,
Even allowing the argument that the Russians were no threat to the American people, I can assure you that the Baltic, Finno-Ugric, and non-Russian Slavic peoples of Eastern and Central Europe were very much threatened by them starting at least as early as 1940.
I believe much of what our government has done in Central and South America may have been harmful, and that we should generally stop meddling there. I would be interested if you could be more specific about what actions by the U.S. you are condemning, though I will not be able to reply until some time next week. Thank you.
70. blueheart - July 16, 1999 - 5:57 PM PT
This fascinating debate about the roots, significance, and outcome of the Cold War begs the question about the centrality of Richard Nixon's role.
He was both a hard-nosed anti-communist and the President who promoted an almost lyrical ideal of reconciliation with the communist world. *wexxford1* prefers to see these as contrary roles dictated to him by shadowy economic interests. If our leaders are all mere puppets, as *w* suggests, we might as well not bother debating about politics and politicians. I knew RN, however, and so could perceive his realism and idealism first hand. They were parallel, coexistent impulses. During the Cold War, they permitted him to promote policies of military and diplomatic vigilance on the one hand and outreach to the Russian people as well. As early as 1959, he said in a nationally broadcast speech in Moscow, "Let's go to the moon together." His Quaker-bred instinct was that contact by Russians with the West, far more than our military and economic superiority, would threaten and ultimately wear down totalitarian strictures. He appeared to have been exactly right.
Does his example teach us anything about how to conduct our relations with weapons information-stealing, neutron bomb-capable China? Do we limit our cultural and economic relations to punish espionage and human rights abuses? Or so we expand such relations on the assumption that contact with the West, and exposure to our way of doing things, hurt those in power far more than an hostile posture which permits the PRC's leaders to promote nationalistic unity in the face of an apparent foreign enemy (as they did so ruthlessly after NATO bombed their Belgrade embassy)?
71. joezan - July 16, 1999 - 8:10 PM PT
Azure:
"I doubt they would have been much of a threat at all decades ago, had they not been constantly provoked with threats against them."
Huh?
What were these threats, and who made them?
Who was it that would not rule out a first strike?
Who was it that said "We will bury the US"?
"Anti-communism is used as an excuse to exploit and oppress poor people, to slaughter and enslave Latin American Indians, as an example."
And what was the excuse for rolling over, enslaving and oppressing eastern European caucasians?
72. IMTRENCHANT - July 16, 1999 - 9:38 PM PT
To Azure NW
YOU SAY IN POST #67: "I don't believe it was necessary for the Western Alliance to "defeat" the Russian people. I am not at all convinced they were ever the threat to me and my country they were always portrayed to be."
MY RESPONSE: I do not assume 'your country' is the U.S.A. in anything I say here. The Western Alliance was not concerned to defeat the 'Russian people', but rather, to defeat a totalitarian Communist regime in the U.S.S.R., one that was clearly and expressly expansionist. As Ronski notes in Post #69, the U.S.S.R. began its imperialist march in the Baltic states, conquering Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania during WWII. Notwithstanding a claim that the U.S.S.R. was only given to defending its (Communist) interests, Soviet installation of missiles in Cuba in 1962 was, without doubt, the single, most immediate external threat to U.S. security in the country's history.
YOU ALSO SAY IN POST #67: "The Western Alliance was involved in a declared war with Nazi Germany. That kind of war isn't directly comparable to economic and political sabatoge that was used to bring down the Russian people."
MY RESPONSE: As in the Cold War, political and economic sabotage were vital elements in WWII. Sabotage of Japan's imperial ambitions, by restricting oil supplies to the 'Japanese people', led Japan to attack Pearl Harbour in 1941, and this, of course, led directly to the official U.S. and German declarations of war in WWII. Rightly or wrongly, critics and supporters alike have long 'credited' FDR with great cunning in having thereby manoeuvred the U.S. public into supporting a 'just war' against the Axis.
The felicific calculus about who was most 'responsible' for instituting the notion in the Western Alliance that the Cold War was a 'just war' can likely be traced, as in the case of WWII, to Winston Churchill, whose Iron Curtain speech is difficult to gainsay even a half-century later.
73. IMTRENCHANT - July 16, 1999 - 10:35 PM PT
To AzureNW
In the context of this forum, it may be more productive to assume that the Cold War, declared or not, was real enough, and to evaluate Nixon's part in it. I believe 'history' will honour Nixon as it will honour no one else in this connection, and for much the same reasons as 'blueheart' has touched upon in post #70.
For example, in his unsparing, yet admiring 3-volume biography of Nixon, Stephen Ambrose, the eminent U.S. historian, has favourably compared Nixon's non-confrontational handling of the Soviet threat to use Cuba as a base for its nuclear subarmines with the confrontational way that Kennedy dealt with the threat posed by the Soviet installation of land-based missiles in Cuba in 1962.
Further, when Kennedy instituted a nuclear Red Alert during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, this did not remove a Soviet land-based presence close to U.S. shores during the remainder of the Cold War, whereas when Nixon instituted a nuclear Red Alert during the Yom Kippur War in 1973, at the height of 'Watergate', the security of Israel was secured, a Soviet land-based presence in Egypt virtually ended, and for all practical purposes, the U.S.S.R. ceased to be a de-stabilizing influence in the Mideast from then on.
U.S. commitment to the Cold War was made in a Democratic administration (Truman/Marshall) and succeeding Republican (Eisenhower/Dulles) and Democratic (Johnson/Rusk) administrations adopted an almost-rigid attitude to Cold War diplomacy. Only with Nixon/Kissinger was there U.S. flexibility in respect to Cold War issues.
Unlike Acheson and others, who summarily dismissed the notion of seriously considering and acting on notions put forth by other members of the Western Alliance (e.g., Ostpolitik and Trudeau's China initiative), Nixon was flexible, adventurous and confident in his vision of what had to be done to develop a secure world order, one very much like that which now obtains.
74. ranheim - July 17, 1999 - 4:32 AM PT
# 68
Consider the case of United Fruit.
They were in many locations in Central and South America + Hawaii at or slightly before the turn of the century. Their exploitation began prior to the rise of communism; certainly before communism became a "player".
I am very doubtful that "anti-communism" is significant in the problems south of the USA's border.
75. blueheart - July 22, 1999 - 11:51 AM PT
This continuing debate about the Cold War suggests that the West is still coming to terms with its role. From one perspective, we won a magnificent ideological and tactical victory over a foe whose principles and interests were explicitly contrary to ours, and we did so without the nuclear exchange which could have occurred at virtually any point during 30 or more years. And yet Americans often second-guess the role that a parade of Presidents, including Nixon, played in bringing the victory about. Clinton, for instance, has apologized to the Africans, the Latin Americans, and no doubt others for what he says are Cold War excesses. His record and rhetoric show that he believes we did the wrong thing when we stood at the side of free Indochinese trying to resist Soviet- and PRC-supported aggression by North Vietnamese and Cambodian communists. Millions of Americans share his view -- the cream of a proud, indeed self-idolatrous generation. Their argument among themselves about Nixon will continue as long as does the argument about Vietnam.
Meanwhile, a new cold war now looms with China. In avoiding it, we should study the real lessons to be learned from the highly salutary outcome of the last one. I would argue, I hope with IMTRENCHANT, that the correct formula is Nixon's combination of toughness and vigilance on the one hand (whenever our interests or allies are threatened) and, on the other hand, an idealistic quest for reconciliation among peoples in spite of government policies that keep them apart. These days, for instance, who is telling us that the Chinese are culturally and historically different, somehow unfit for or uninterested in certain Westernized notions? Their government and its apologists say these things, while the Chinese people I know seem interested in the same things I am - their families, their livelihoods, their peace and security, and understanding their place in the universe (plus, of course, Madonna and Mark McGuire).
76. Ronski - July 22, 1999 - 12:22 PM PT
This has been a short but most interesting thread. My thanks to all who have participated, especially blueheart.
77. Ronski - July 22, 1999 - 12:23 PM PT
And where the boldface came from, I dunno.
78. blueheart - July 22, 1999 - 1:28 PM PT
Ronski:
Well, thanks. But does that mean we're ending it? One reason to keep this thread
open a few more weeks is that the 25th anniversary of RN's resignation looms
on August 9. There'll be a lot of press coverage and, no doubt, renewed interest
in debates about his legacy.
79. Ronski - July 22, 1999 - 1:48 PM PT
Then let's keep it going!
80. blueheart - July 22, 1999 - 2:56 PM PT
Ronski:
You're a great American! Thanks.
The Nixon and Kennedy threads in U.S. politics converged this week as the media
reported upon the February 1971 dinner President and Mrs. Nixon hosted at the
White House for Mrs. Onassis, Caroline, and John Jr. Mrs. Nixon wanted the Kennedy
family to see the Kennedys' official portraits prior to their public unveiling,
and she made sure that no announcement was made of their visit beforehand because
she knew coming back to the White House for the first time since JFK's death
would be highly emotional.
Afterwards everyone wrote the Nixons thank-you letters. The Nixon Library has
Mrs. Onassis's and John Jr.'s on its web site
(Richard Nixon Library and
Birthplace ) if anyone wants to check them out.
81. AzureNW - July 22, 1999 - 3:21 PM PT
Hey, there's stuff addressed to me in here I overlooked, too. How about that.
82. AzureNW - July 22, 1999 - 3:45 PM PT
joezan -
Re: Message #71
I haven't made much of a study of the history of the Cold War, so I can't provide
well supported aruments to refute your one-liner remarks without spending more
time and effort researching the subject, time and effort I want to waste on
other things right now.
I can answer a couple of points off the top of my head, though.
"What were these threats, and who made them?"
Good question. Too bad there is so little credible evidence available to answer
it.
"Who was it that would not rule out a first strike?"
The US, at least, would be my guess. The US doesn't rule out nuclear first strike
against any nation now, regardless of how that nation is armed. I would suppose
nuclear or any other kind of first strike has always been part U.S. policy.
"Who was it that said "We will bury the US"?"
Did you see the 60 Minutes interview with Kruschev's son explaining how that
line was deliberately taken out of context and used as anti-USSR propaganda?
This phrase is an excellent example of the kind of US Cold War propaganda I
was talking about, used to demonize the Russian people and whip up hysteria
against them.
"And what was the excuse for rolling over, enslaving and oppressing eastern
European caucasians?"
I don't know much about eastern European caucasians, except that some of them
who seemed fairly sane if dreary when I was a kid turned out to be murderously
insane when the Soviet boot was lifted from their neck. Che(k)oslovakia, Yugoslavia
looked funny and folksy if obsessive, but they turned out to be full of monsters.
83. AzureNW - July 22, 1999 - 3:56 PM PT
IMTRENCHANT -
Re: Message #73
Thanks for providing the background on the Cold War. It sounds as though Nixon
was less hysterical and dishonest in his approach to the USSR than several other
administrations, to his credit.
84. AzureNW - July 22, 1999 - 4:03 PM PT
"I am very doubtful that "anti-communism" is significant
in the problems south of the USA's border."
This is an incredibly ignorant remark, ranheim. Start by reading a few of the
many current news articles on Mexico, Nicaragua, Columbia, Guatamala and Peru,
and go from there.
85. AzureNW - July 22, 1999 - 4:05 PM PT
El Salvador, also.
86. AzureNW - July 22, 1999 - 4:06 PM PT
Let's add Cuba and Chile.
87. Wombat - July 22, 1999 - 6:40 PM PT
Czechoslovakia split peacefully, once the Soviet "boot" was lifted. Thinking with the opposite of your head...again.
88. AzureNW - July 22, 1999 - 9:19 PM PT
I was thinking of their leader and his wife, who were executed by their own
people, for committing unspeakable crimes against their own people instead of
protecting them from crimes, and of all the orphans. I will admit, I don't spend
very much time thinking about eastern European Caucasians.
89. Wombat - July 23, 1999 - 6:58 AM PT
You are getting Czechoslovakia mixed up with Romania. Maybe you should think a little bit more about Eastern European Caucasians before expressing opinions concerning them.
90. Ronski - July 23, 1999 - 7:37 AM PT
Wombat,
Dekuje (Thank you).
91. IMTRENCHANT - July 23, 1999 - 12:37 PM PT
To blueheart (Post #75)
Hopefully, Nixon's stategies and tactics, deployed so successfully in Cold War
I (U.S.S.R.), will, as you suggest, be applied with equal success in Cold War
II (China). As per your suggestion that the forum should continue, I'll contribute
to extending it by lending balance to some comments I had previously let pass
unremarked:
In Post #2, Ronski commented that Nixon "loved his country, but was a very
unpleasant human being. I think his daughters turned out suprisingly normal".
Some ten years AFTER 'Watergate', a Democrat, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who knew
Nixon at first hand, said of him: "I still regard Nixon as GOOD AND HONEST
AND DECENT [the caps are mine], and what impressed me most about Nixon's leadership
was what did not happen. The country was in danger of falling into something
approaching anarchy, or civil war, when Nixon took office, but Nixon, provoked
though he was, stayed calm and managed to ride out the crisis." Asked if
he were not guilty of exaggerating the threat to the Republic, Moynihan insisted:
"If anything, I am understating it."
In Post #19, phillipdavid commented that "the first two men Nixon nominated
to fill vacancies on the Court were awful choices", but as John Ehrlichman,
another unsparing chronicler of Nixon's actions, noted in 'Witness To Power',
the appointments that philipdavid deplored were suggested to Nixon by his Attorney
General, John Mitchell, whereas, according to Ehrlichman, , Nixon's "first
nominee, Warren Burger, WAS A NIXON DISCOVERY, NOT A MITCHELL RECRUIT [the caps
are mine]". There was never criticism of Burger's credentials to serve
as U.S. Chief Justice.
92. blueheart - July 23, 1999 - 5:30 PM PT
To IMTRENCHANT (post #91)
As I'm certain you know better than I, during the early years of the Nixon Administration
Moynihan was RN's point man on urban affairs as well as the upheavals on college
campuses. From my non-historian's reading of the record, including the White
House files, Nixon (along with many moms and dads) devoted a lot of time to
trying to understand what exactly America's most privileged and best educated
young people wanted. Moynihan wrote long, thoughtful memos and Nixon underlined
and annotated them copiously. Yet to an extent the campus upheavals were beyond
him. His cool, rational mind was unsuited to understanding why exactly children
from Greenwich and Manhattan and Los Angeles were letting their parents pay
$10,000 a year in university tuition so they could march around waving books
of Mao's poetry in the air (at the very time, we now know, Mao's Red Guards
were murdering Chinese university students who failed their political litmus
test). It certainly seemed like near-civil war conditions at the time, thanks
to the bombings and riots, but looking back at the anti-war movement, it's hard
to take very seriously because most of its leaders were such self-serving dilettantes.
Their regard for the oppressed Indochinese peasant appeared to dissipate almost
immediately after Nixon ended the draft. Since then everybody has repurchased
their Hendrix records on CD so they can play them in their BMWs and gone to
work as TV producers, producing hazy retrospectives on the sixties. And so the
baby-boomers have made an idol out of their generation and a scapegoat (in the
strictest Levitical sense) out of Nixon.
93. colossus - July 23, 1999 - 5:57 PM PT
This Thread, just like Tricky Dick, just won't die.
94. AzureNW - July 23, 1999 - 10:00 PM PT
Thanks, Wombat. I haven't paid much attention to the history of eastern Europe.
It doesn't concern me much except as far as I am involved through my government.
Ronski, I still don't understand how US policy is affecting Latin American Indians
well enough to express an informed opinion. I'm sure we are both aware to some
extent of the role anti-communist hysteria still plays today in Latin America,
but I'm not prepared to make a case in the face of the kind of raging denial
my revelations would probably invoke.
Aside from the fact that I have been blasted for being deliberately offensive
from time to time, the most hate filled attacks that have been made on me here
have been in response to hard truths I've spoken, like these are.