Highly intelligent and a passionate pragmatist, not an idealogue. Whatever history says, he was ahead of most all his successors, if not all, on a variety of counts (some criminal, of course).
shareI was thinking the exact same thing...many personal faults but highly intelligent
shareditto
share"a passionate pragmatist, not an ideologue."
Quite so. That is one of the main reasons why so many ideological-type conservatives were unwilling to really stand with him as "Watergate" evolved from a "caper" to an "affair" to an all-consuming inferno. They had always viewed Nixon as more of an opportunist than anything else, and as a consequence, they had little or no "skin" in the game.
It's now lost to history, but in August 1971 a group of the most influential conservatives in the media and politics (Wm. F. Buckley was included) issued a statement saying that conservatives should not support Nixon's Administration, and that it really didn't matter to them if he was re-elected or not. (This was right after Nixon announced his plan to travel to "Red China" the following February.)
Obviously, these people did not vote for McGovern in '72. But it illustrates how strained and distant Nixon's relationship with the right-wing actually was. And so when the Watergate dam burst open in April '73, Nixon had surprisingly few people willing to come to his aid.
Nixon was a highly able, highly intelligent person but, like everybody, he had his flaws. In his case it was that he never felt respected because of his humble background, which lead to many of is worst actions.
If you take Watergate out of the picture, his record as president was actually quite good. But, Watergate, rightly, destroyed people's image of him.
"If you take Watergate out of the picture, his record as president was actually quite good. But, Watergate, rightly, destroyed people's image of him."
That probably does sum-up the conventional wisdom about Nixon about as succinctly as possible. Even so, I reject both halves of it. Both the half about Watergate "rightly" destroying Nixon's image (I think "Watergate" -- while a bona-fide crime, a legitimate political issue and subject of investigation, was nevertheless preposterously overblown, a bizarre explosion of hypocrisy, hysteria, and trial-by-media), and also the half about Nixon's non-Watergate presidential record being "actually quite good" (I think he was a middling-to-weak president in just about every realm, even including his much vaunted foreign-policy).
In recent years, there has been a minor trend to give Nixon some credit for certain "liberal" achievements taken while he was in office. (OSHA, Clean Water Act, desegregation of Southern schools, etc.). Leaving aside the question of how beneficial to the nation, all-in-all, these developments truly were (including both the net policy-results and means used to achieve them), the fact remains that they came to fruition largely in spite of Nixon's opposition or neutrality. Sometimes this opposition/neutrality was "open" and sometimes it was covert, but either way, it is quite rich to see Nixon given the historical "credit" for these developments, which actually represented political punts -- or outright defeats -- for his administration at the time.
think "Watergate" -- while a bona-fide crime, a legitimate political issue and subject of investigation, was nevertheless preposterously overblown, a bizarre explosion of hypocrisy, hysteria, and trial-by-media
Great thread. Insightful comments.
Frank Langella was haunted by this character. Richard Nixon was an intelligent hard-working man from humble origins.
His book "Six Crisis" is worth a read.
Nixon brought about a thaw of relations with the USSR, as well as nuclear arms reduction talks.
Two presidents to be blamed for destabilizing and dangerous arms buildups were Kennedy and Reagan.