Nixon: "Never Look Back"
By Otto Friedrich; Adam Zagorin; Hays Corey
Monday, Aug. 13, 1984
The Time Magazine
Published at the tenth anniversary of his departure from the Oval Office.
Excerpts:
"Everywhere I go," says John Dean, the former White House counsel who first publicly tied Nixon to the Watergate coverup, "I hear people say that maybe Nixon wasn't all that bad. The passage of time is one reason. People have softened their views considerably." Another reason is that Nixon has spent the past ten years tirelessly and skillfully campaigning for rehabilitation, for public acknowledgment of what he considers his deserved status as elder statesman. Says Dean: "Richard Nixon is running for ex-President."...
Every day the Secret Service drives him 23 miles to his 13th-floor office near Wall Street, and from 7:30 on, he works the phones like a hungry stockbroker, making and receiving perhaps 40 calls by noon. He calls strategically placed colleagues in the Reagan Administration, though not the President. He calls old friends, like Florida Banker Bebe Rebozo, and even old foes, ...
...The American attention span is not long, but harsh feelings toward Nixon still persist. For every Nixon supporter who remembers the kitchen debate or the opening to China or the settlement in Viet Nam, there are others who recall his early campaigns attacking Democratic Administrations as full of "Communists and crooks." For everyone who thinks of Watergate as a politically exaggerated collection of minor misjudgments, there are many who regard it as a narrowly averted threat to American democracy.
For all that, the brand of unindicted co-conspirator can be neither erased nor forgotten. Nixon is still two years younger than the incumbent President and still insatiably full of ideas and strategies and ambitions. He is still an object of fascination to his foes as well as his friends. So the tenth anniversary of his departure from the Oval Office will not be a day like the others, even if nothing special happens. ...
Monday, Aug. 13, 1984
The Time Magazine
Published at the tenth anniversary of his departure from the Oval Office.
Excerpts:
"Everywhere I go," says John Dean, the former White House counsel who first publicly tied Nixon to the Watergate coverup, "I hear people say that maybe Nixon wasn't all that bad. The passage of time is one reason. People have softened their views considerably." Another reason is that Nixon has spent the past ten years tirelessly and skillfully campaigning for rehabilitation, for public acknowledgment of what he considers his deserved status as elder statesman. Says Dean: "Richard Nixon is running for ex-President."...
Every day the Secret Service drives him 23 miles to his 13th-floor office near Wall Street, and from 7:30 on, he works the phones like a hungry stockbroker, making and receiving perhaps 40 calls by noon. He calls strategically placed colleagues in the Reagan Administration, though not the President. He calls old friends, like Florida Banker Bebe Rebozo, and even old foes, ...
...The American attention span is not long, but harsh feelings toward Nixon still persist. For every Nixon supporter who remembers the kitchen debate or the opening to China or the settlement in Viet Nam, there are others who recall his early campaigns attacking Democratic Administrations as full of "Communists and crooks." For everyone who thinks of Watergate as a politically exaggerated collection of minor misjudgments, there are many who regard it as a narrowly averted threat to American democracy.
For all that, the brand of unindicted co-conspirator can be neither erased nor forgotten. Nixon is still two years younger than the incumbent President and still insatiably full of ideas and strategies and ambitions. He is still an object of fascination to his foes as well as his friends. So the tenth anniversary of his departure from the Oval Office will not be a day like the others, even if nothing special happens. ...
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment