Nixon and his Quaker shotguns

Press, 22 July 1989, Page 24

Nixon and his Quaker shotguns

From tha President: Richard Nixon’s Secret Filas, Edited by Bruce Oudee. Andre Deutsche, 1989. 640 pp. $53.72. (Reviewed by Alan Conway) It has been estimated that the Nixon White House generated daily about 22,000 pages from all sources. This means that there are more than 30 million pages which historians can work their way through if they have strength, dedication and a touch of insanity. Even the log-book of Nixon’s White House tapes runs to 27,000 pages! For 14 years after Watergate, the ex-President claiming executive privilege fought a battle through the courts to keep his "Special File” secret but, eventually, more than 3 million pages were released through the National Archives. This book, the first selection available in print, gives a vivid insight into the workings of the Oval Office and into the cut-throat rivalry of the White House staff. Richard Nixon was a compulsive memo writer, even to his own family, and the disease must have infected most of his assistants who seemed to think that their jobs depended on the volume of correspondence that they could produce. The result is that only a portion of the memoranda is from the President and by far the greater is from his subordinates. One assumes, perhaps naively, that those in high political positions spend most of their waking hours dealing with matters of great pith and moment. (Why else should they be paid such hugh salaries?) From the evidence presented here, however, it appears as if Nixon spent much of his time worrying about his public image. Aware of this fact, his staff whom he treated with imperial arrogance devoted themselves to the task of shafting Democrats, inquisitive journalists, and anyone seen as posing a threat to the re-election of a President who saw himself going down in history as the equal of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

Thus, Nixon’s obsessive concern with everything, good or bad, which might reflect on his presidency bordered on the farcical. For instance, he requested that the cork tiles leading out into the garden from the Oval Office and which bore the imprints of Eisenhower’s golfing shoes should be cut up, mounted on plaques, and presented to old friends and golfing buddies of the former President.

Even stranger was his meeting with Elvis Presley who claimed that he had been making a special study in depth of drug abuse and Communist brainwashing techniques and was eager to offer the President his services as a Federal Agent at Large to young people. Nixon could also be very petty. He complained to Haldemann, his White House Chief of Staff (who with Ehrlichman made up the “Berlin Wall” which kept unwelcome Congressmen and Cabinet Ministers at bay), that he strongly objected to Henry Kissinger always being seated

next to the most glamorous women at State Dinners. There is no indication

that this complaint did anything to cramp Henry’s style. • The administration was very sensitive to the voting power of women and always gave lip-service to the Equal Rights Amendment. Within the White House, however, the feminists were invariably and disparagingly referred to as “The Butch Brigade.” The President, interestingly enough, saw himself as a political “Dirty Harry.” He tried to make Clint Eastwood’s day by inviting him to the White House for dinner when he learned that Eastwood was a leading member of the “Youth for Nixon organisation. The extracts are presented in chronological order which does not help a great deal because the greater part of the book is made up of disconnected trivia. Nevertheless, those readers who are willing to spend just a little over $53 can indulge themselves in some innocent eavesdropping without any ill effects. In addition, they can enjoy one joke which was reserved for the President’s use on some suitable occasion although, presumably, not when trying to explain the Watergate break-in. The story is that of a Quaker lady surprising a burglar in her home. She lifts her shot-gun and quietly says, "Sir, I wish thee no bodily harm but thee is standing > ;ght where I am going to shoot.” There is no escaping the fact that Richard Nixon and his personal staff were corrupted by absolute power. On the positive side, however, he did a great service to the United States. He made it very difficult for future Presidents such as Ronald Reagan to act outside the law and not be called to account.

The Nixon who emerges from these memoranda can, perhaps, be best summed up in the words of Patrick Henry who wrote just before the American Revolution, “Human nature is corruptible and lusts after power.”