Rise, ruin, and recovery

Thirty years ago this week, Richard Nixon died. His life offers one of the most intriguing American stories, filled with grit, determination, ruin, and redemption.

Richard Nixon did not want to leave the White House in the wake of the Watergate scandal that destroyed his presidency. Barry Goldwater, one of the most respected men in the U.S. Senate and one of the most popular Republicans, had to visit the president and tell him that he did not have the votes to survive. Nixon reluctantly decided to resign. It had to be the hardest thing he ever did, because Richard Nixon was not the kind of man who could give up on anything.

The young Richard Nixon grew up in near poverty in California with Quaker parents who lost two of their sons to tuberculosis. Richard was accustomed to his mother addressing him with the old Quaker language of “thee” and “thou.” He fought his way through school both socially and academically. When a prominent school club wouldn’t include him, he created a new one. When a young woman wouldn’t go out with him because she had a date, he insisted on driving the couple. She would eventually marry Richard Nixon. He excelled at Whittier College and made his way to law school at Duke University.

Like virtually all young men of his time, Nixon served in the military in World War II. His mother would not have been happy to hear about the money he won playing poker. He got something bigger than poker winnings out of his time in the war, though. He would ride his service to Congress. During his short time in the House, Nixon made his mark by backing Whittaker Chambers in his claims that one of the pillars of the American establishment, Alger Hiss, was a spy for the Soviet Union. Chambers, an editor of Time magazine, knew the truth about Alger Hiss because he, himself, had been underground as an agent for the Communists. Nixon, a sharp-eyed legal mind, noticed flaws in Hiss’s testimony that led him to support Chambers. When Chambers was able to produce microfilm evidence, Hiss was ruined. Nixon’s ascent began.

Nixon then won election to the U.S. Senate and very quickly became Dwight Eisenhower’s choice to be his running mate for the presidency. At that point, Nixon’s career shone even brighter than that of John F. Kennedy, another young World War II veteran who had enjoyed wealth, connections, and other advantages. Opponents tried to derail Nixon with accusations of financial impropriety, which he brilliantly countered with his famed “Checkers” speech in which he referred to his wife Pat’s “respectable Republican cloth coat” and explained that the family dog was a gift, but the kids loved him and he wouldn’t return him.

After two terms with Eisenhower, Nixon lost one of the closest elections in American history to John F. Kennedy in 1960. Though there were accusations of irregularities in voting in Chicago, Nixon refused to contest the election. He then suffered a painful rejection in the governor’s race in California in 1962 and seemed to be finished. Nixon returned with a stunning comeback in 1968 and then won one of the biggest landslide elections in American history in 1972. It was after that victory that Nixon successfully went to China and divided Communist China from the Soviet Union. Few presidents have ever been so popular as Nixon was after that visit. The heights made his fall all the more shocking when Nixon’s presidency rapidly unraveled in the Watergate scandal. The man who never gave up, even when everyone counted him out, had done himself in with campaign dirty tricks that were completely unnecessary.

But Nixon did not go away. It was well understood in Washington that Nixon was one of the most formidable foreign policy intellects the United States has known. There are numerous accounts of how the president would end evening gatherings by taking his audience around the globe and offering an exceptionally learned commentary on the situation in each region. He would go on quietly to advise presidents Carter, Reagan, and George H.W. Bush. The activity was not publicized for obvious reasons, but these figures knew that Nixon was no mere political celebrity. He had the knowledge and experience that could make a difference.

Nixon’s fall was as great as Americans have ever seen. He was humiliated by the transcripts of tapes demonstrating his profanity and his anger while in office. His fierce competitiveness and resentment of all the fighting he’d had to do showed in his private conversations. He is the only president to be forced from office. And yet, the man who in 1962 told reporters, “You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore,” kept getting back up trying to serve his country. And, in his own way, he did so to the end.