The Death of a Deeply Flawed President

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Tomorrow will mark 15 years since the death of Richard Nixon.

He suffered a stroke on April 18, 1994 and died four days later.

It had been nearly 20 years since he became the first (and, so far, only) president to resign.

I was 8 years old when Nixon was elected president in 1968, and I was a teenager during the Watergate years. Most of what I knew of him at the time was what I had heard the adults in my world say about him. My parents were both strongly anti–Nixon, as were most of their friends. My mother's mother was a Nixon supporter; so was my mother's father, although he died during Nixon's first year as president. My father's mother was a Nixon opponent; my father's father died more than two years before Nixon was elected president.

My father called him by his nickname — "Tricky Dickie." In fact, Dad hated Nixon so much that he refused to see Oliver Stone's film about Nixon that came out about a year and a half after Nixon died. He had heard that the film trashed Nixon, but he simply refused to see it.

I parroted my father. During Nixon's life, I never called him President Nixon, only Tricky Dickie. And I accompanied my mother when she went door to door in our hometown in Arkansas campaigning for Nixon's 1972 opponent George McGovern, largely because McGovern was an outspoken foe of the Vietnam War. It took a lot of courage to campaign against Nixon that year, especially in Arkansas, but Mom had plenty of it. And having her 12–year–old son with her probably softened some of the reactions she received, although we had plenty of doors slammed in our faces.

I remember that, not long after Nixon resigned because of the Watergate scandal and the damning revelations from the subpoenaed White House tapes, we received a letter from some old friends who happened to be Republicans and had been devoted Nixon supporters. Most of that letter was newsy stuff, updating us on the activities of their family, but they added a politically oriented P.S. — "Tell David," it said, "that we agree. Dickie was tricky!"

That was quite a concession.

But it was a conclusion that most Americans had reached by the time he left office.

Well, I'm older now. It has been nearly 35 years since Nixon resigned, and, in many ways, my opinion of Nixon has changed. In some ways, I believe he was a good president. School segregation ended during his presidency. He focused federal attention, for the first time, on environmental concerns via the Environmental Protection Agency — which will be a worthwhile point to remember tomorrow, on Earth Day. His administration established the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Nixon signed the Clean Air Act of 1970, one of the most significant pieces of legislation ever signed into law. And, about six months before he resigned, he introduced the Comprehensive Health Insurance Act.

On the foreign scene, he made breakthrough trips to China and Russia. Even McGovern told Rolling Stone in 1983, "President Nixon probably had a more practical approach to the two superpowers, China and the Soviet Union, than any other president since World War II. ... I think, with the exception of his inexcusable continuation of the war in Vietnam, Nixon really will get high marks in history."

But the Watergate scandal showed how deeply flawed Nixon was. He had a complex personality, possessing a brilliant mind but a secretive, controlling nature. Some of the people in his administration brought out the worst in him and appealed to his narcissistic and paranoid character. Biographer Elizabeth Drew described Nixon as a "smart, talented man, but most peculiar and haunted of presidents."

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Volumes have been written about Nixon, and I suspect that he will continue to fascinate historians for years to come.