European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - April 26, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Commentary the stars and stripes 13 even now we re puzzled by the loss we feel David s. Broder he was the omnipresent figure the Man of Sov. Many incarnations that the journalistic Clieh of four different dec flies was the new  and now that Richard millions Nixon has passed into history the revisions of his reputation will no longer be determined by his own contrivance but by the judgment of schol ars. It pains me to say so but he was Formant of us the Central political figure of our times. Meg Greenfield the washing ton Post s editorial Page editor de fined herself and Many others As being of the Nixon generation too Young to re member a time when he was not on the political scene too old to expect to see a time when he is  and now that he has gone Many of us Are experiencing a sense of loss we did not expect to feel it always puzzled me How anyone could become a Nixon fan. He was More uncomfortable in Ordinary social situations making Small talk with people or swapping stories -7 than any other politician i have Ever known. On an agonizing evening in Billings mont., during the1960 Campaign he came to a cocktail party the hotel threw for the visiting press and put an instant Damper on the festivities. He floundered through a series of awkward attempts at humor. When he excused himself after a half hour and went Back up to his room everyone heaved a sigh of Relief. Why anyone As ill at ease As Nixon would choose a career in politics is baffling. But that was Only one of the Many mysteries about him that most of us in the press never deciphered. The Intelli gence the self discipline the dogged de termination that brought him Back from so Many rejections including the ultimate shame of a forced resignation from the presidency the analytical skill the Tacti Cal toughness the occasional leaps , like the opening to China All these were evident. But they were so intermingled with his brooding suspicion of other people especially reporters and other politicians the strangeness of his personal relationships his almost neurotic sense of self pity that the whole Man seemed less than his parts. V by ,--.--. / " still he was a larger than life figure both in politics and government. No on since for occupied the Center of the National stage longer than Nixon. He was on the ballot in every state five times be tween 1952 and 1972. He was the focus of National attention and controversy far longer than that. As a freshman House member in the late 1940s, he helped stage the dramatic downfall of Alger Hiss the most prominent new dealer charged with shovelling state department secrets to the soviet Union. More than a Quarter Century later As president he became the target of even More dramatic congressional hear Ings and judicial proceedings. Watergate became a trial by fire for All three branches of the National government and for the fourth estate the press As Well. As a reporter in the newsroom of the Washington Post when Nixon and his agents were doing their damnedest to discredit the paper and cover up the crime i found his actions  no reason except his inability to own up to what had happened he subjected the american people to almost two years of unnecessary turmoil and division. He caused Long term damage to the Bond of Trust Between the government and the citizenry without which democracy can not survive   -. That weighs heavily on the balance Sheet against the genuine accomplishments Domestic and foreign of his years As president and vice president. When he accepted the presidential Pardon that Cost the honorable Man who was his successor Gerald Ford his Chance at being elected president i thought Nixon might have the decency to live out his life in privacy. But of course he wanted yet another comeback and achieved it with the help of the same Short memory press and Public he had duped before but i have to say i retrospect that the damage Richard Nixon did to Public Trust and to political institutions was just one in a succession of blows this Republic has suffered in re years. Since Dwight d. Eisenhower we have endured a series of presidents whose misjudgments or character defects Are easily cat alged. The historians will have to decide Why this has been an Era of seriously flawed presidential leadership and when they understand that perhaps they can explain the contradictions in the Man who died Friday the Man who struggled so hard to gain the presidency Only to be remembered for the ignominious manner in which he left it almost 32 years after the Man embittered by defeat in the California gubernatorial race announced that he was hold ing his last press conference Richard Nixon has spoken his final words. But he leaves so Many questions unanswered about himself and his country. C w8hlngton Post Odd no matter what its combination of triumphs and tragedies any life defined primarily by tenacity must seem at the end a Story of some bravery but evermore melancholy. In Richard Nixon s Long slog through various valleys of humiliation to political Triumph and disgrace and partial rehabilitation there were Many episodes of glory but a constant  political life turned on five close Calls. In 1948, he had the right Hunch about Alger Hiss. Watching the Washington establishment rally around Hiss Nixon honed his cynicism and stoked his resent ments. _.  1952, his place on the ticket with Eisenhower jeopardized by financial dealings of a sort not uncommon at the time Nixon steadily More cynical saved himself with the checkers speech before what was then the largest television audience in history. In 1960, he lost the presidency by a thin margin and perhaps by fraud. In 1968, 18 years after he had last won an election on his own he won a 43 percent  if in 1973, his lawyers had not sent the water Gate committee a memo containing an exact quote froma conversation with John Dean the committee staff might never have thought to inquire about a taping sys tem and he would have completed two terms. But any one thinking that Nixon deserved a better Fate from watergate should remember his silence As his Brave daughter Julie crisscrossed the country defending him against charges he knew to be  was an intelligent Man despised by intellectuals. A Man with a gnawing sense of his inferior education he nevertheless brought into his administration two Harvard professors As foreign policy and Domestic policy advisers Henry Kissinger and Daniel Patrick cynicism Moynihan and he also enlisted the services of other extraordinarily talented intellectuals including Georg Shultz James Schlesinger and Arthur Burns. If we take As a simple but serviceable measure of modern liberalism s program the expansion of the Cen trial government s role As society s supervisor Nixon s administration was More Liberal than any other than Lyndon Johnson a since the second world War. In the Nixon years the Federal government created the environmental Protection Agency and the occupational safety and health administration it began racial quotas and set asides Nixon favored an enormous Industrial policy project the Federal funding of the supersonic passenger air Craft he proposed a guaranteed annual income he instituted wage and Price controls the most sweeping intrusion of the state into society since the new Deal he was smitten by John Connally a tory Democrat with a zest for government Domina Tion of markets. George f. Will Nixon s largest achievement was the opening to China. But As the architect of detente he probably prolonged the life of the soviet Union. And although he fancied himself at daggers drawn with the nation s intellectual elites he joined the foreign policy elite in making a fetish of arms control with the soviet Union. That project was impossible until it was unimportant impossible because of the soviet Union s hegemonic Aims then unimportant because the soviet Union was imploding ate at Nixon Nixon was spectacularly ill suited by temperament to become president in the late 1960s, a moment of extreme cultural fragmentation traditional political pre occupations with economic redistribution were being supplanted by anxiety about the disintegration of the cultural Unity of the postwar period. Lacking an Artic ulate defense of the cultural values under siege he be came a vessel of soldering animosities. In the House of representatives where his ascent to National prominence began with his confrontation of Hiss his career was closed by the House judiciary committee s impeachment hearings. His remaining 20 years were spent using his reputation for statecraft to regain some of the Public s respect and even the affection that often accrues to the tenacious. Until his forced retirement from Active politics the acids of resentments had ulcerated his personality until self pity was its strongest faculty. Politics is mostly talk a lot of it Small talk with strangers at which Nixon was never comfortable. Rarely and never contentedly employed other than at politics he measured out his life in bites of Chicken a la King with contributors and county chairmen. That is not Good for the soul. In his nationally televised Farewell to his staff in the East room of the White House on aug. 9, 1974, he read Theodore Roosevelt s words about the death of his wife and when my heart s Dearest died the Light went from my life  that equation of the Joss of political office to the death of a loved one was terrifying testimony to the toll ambition can take on character. C Washl Nolton Post