This letter is a spirited rejoinder to Daniel Silliman’s critique of Richard M. Nixon’s character. (Elijah Guevara, “Alumnus Releases Religious Biography of Richard Nixon,” Sept. 12, 2024).
In Guevara’s article, Silliman is quoted as saying, “If you see Richard Nixon as a failure, as a tragedy, as a bad person, you’re not wrong, but also thinking about his struggles and his inner turmoil will actually help you more and give you more insight than that kind of judgment gives you.” While I appreciate the empathy Silliman displays in the second half of this sentence, I find the notions of the first half to be preposterous.
First, Nixon was no failure.
He rose from a tragedy-filled childhood on an obscure lemon ranch in Yorba Linda, California, to election to the United States House of Representatives, Senate, and Vice President of the United States, all before the age of 40.
He engineered what has been generally regarded, until last November, as the greatest political comeback in American history.
As president, Nixon ended the war in Vietnam with honor. His opening to China re-made the geopolitical map by forcing the Soviets to the bargaining table. In so doing, Nixon allowed the United States to eventually end the Cold War on its own terms. Nixon then entered into the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty with the Soviet Union, the first agreement of its kind. He also signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with the Soviets. Nixon saved Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and his policies brought about the ejection of the Soviets from the Middle East.
In the domestic sphere, Nixon desegregated American public schools. He returned a measure of sovereignty to the Tribal Nations. He signed environmental legislation that resulted in cleaner air and water, particularly in the Great Lakes region.
Nixon changed the United States and the world for the better. He was no failure.
Nor was Nixon a tragedy. Political opponents within Nixon’s own Justice Department, acting under color — but devoid — of constitutional authority, forced him from office. Nonetheless, Nixon recovered both physically and politically after the resignation, rising to the status of a senior statesman who made important and lasting contributions to the public discourse. Today’s policymakers continue to mine Nixon’s post-presidency writings for insights.
Nixon may have been misunderstood, and he may have been a tough customer in his chosen professional field, but he was not a bad person.
At Nixon’s invitation, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and her children visited the Nixon White House with her children on Feb. 3, 1971, for the first and only time after their departure under tragic circumstances Dec. 6, 1963. The Nixons hosted Onassis and the Kennedy children for a private dinner, showed them the new official portraits of President John F. Kennedy and the former first lady, and took them on a tour to highlight recent renovations to the White House. In her characteristically graceful way, Onassis thanked the Nixons the day after her visit.
“You were so kind to us yesterday. Never have I seen such magnanimity and such tenderness,” she wrote. “Can you imagine the gift you gave me? To return to the White House privately with my little ones while they are still young enough to remember their childhoods? Thank you with all my heart. A day I have always dreaded turned out to be one of the most precious ones I have spent with my children.”
I doubt that a so-called “bad person” would so graciously host the widow and children of his chief political opponent at the White House without publicity or fanfare. I am likewise skeptical that a man beloved by his wife, his children, and his grandchildren — a man who was a dedicated and faithful family man for over half a century — can truly be regarded as a “bad person.”
I will not dwell on the overall theme of Silliman’s book at any length. But I will assert that when a mere mortal attempts to magically divine the innermost spiritual struggles of a fellow human — much less a consequential figure as complex as Richard M. Nixon — he is practicing something not dissimilar to phrenology. The last judgment of Richard Nixon, in spiritual terms, is exclusively reserved for the Creator.
Kipling Oren graduated Hillsdale College in 1994.
