TIME: Almanac 1995

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<text id=90TT0832> <link 93XV0028> <link 93XP0475> <link 93XP0469> <link 93HT0404> <link 93HT0392> <link 93HT0382> <link 93HT0376> <title> Apr. 02, 1990: "I Could See No Reason To Live" </title> <history> TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1990 Apr. 02, 1990 Nixon Memoirs </history> <article> <source>Time Magazine</source> <hdr> EXCERPT, Page 34 I Could See No Reason to Live By Richard Nixon </hdr> <body> In an emotional and extraordinarily candid memoir, the former President describes the agony of his exile and his struggle for renewal [(c) 1990 Richard Nixon. From In the Arena, to be published in April by Simon & Schuster, Inc.] San Clemente, 1974 As our plane circled the El Toro Marine Air Base on the afternoon of Aug. 9, I could see hundreds of cars lined up trying to get into the already overflowing parking area. I had not thought I could find the energy to make another speech that day, but I managed to thank them for welcoming us home, and I vowed to continue to fight for the great causes of peace, freedom and opportunity that had been my motivating principles from the time I first ran for Congress in 1946. As we walked toward the helicopter, I heard someone from the crowd shout out, "Whittier is still for you, Dick!" Thanks to Gavin Herbert and a group of volunteers from U.S.C., La Casa Pacifica's grounds were beautiful almost beyond description. I said to Gavin, "It is good to be back in a house of peace." But it was only a lull before a storm. The following day, the blows began to fall again. The special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, had been delighted when my chief of staff, Al Haig, informed him of my decision to resign. He thought it would be in the best interests of the country. Haig reported to me that based on his conversation, he did not believe we would continue to suffer harassment by the special prosecutor. He had not reckoned with the young activists on Jaworski's staff. Far from being satisfied by the resignation, their appetites for finishing the injured victim were whetted. When my daughter Tricia's husband Ed Cox urged me not to resign, he warned me that this might happen. He had known several of Jaworski's staff at Harvard Law School and had served with some in the U.S. Attorney's office in New York City. He said, "I know these people. They are smart and ruthless. They hate you. They will harass you and hound you in civil and criminal actions across the country for the rest of your life." He was right. They were following the dictum of the 19th century Russian revolutionary Sergei Nechayev: "It is not enough to kill an adversary. He must first be dishonored." One after another, the blows rained down. I resigned from the Supreme Court and the California and New York bars. The Supreme Court and California accepted my resignation. The New York Bar Association refused to do so and instituted disbarment proceedings. Scores of lawsuits were filed against me by individuals seeking damages for assorted Government actions. Few involved presidential decisions. Most were dismissed, but all had to be defended. The cost was staggering. In the 16 years since I resigned the presidency, I have spent more than $1.8 million in attorneys' fees to defend myself against such suits and to protect my rights that were threatened by Government action. The Supreme Court ruled against me on my suit to gain possession of my papers and tapes, including those that were private. A scandal magazine printed letters that I was supposed to have written to a countess in Spain whom I had never met. They were obvious forgeries, but the story was never retracted. The pounding continued unrelentingly. I was the favorite butt of jokes on the talk shows. Hundreds of columns attacked me. A number of anti-Nixon books were published. Those by critics I understood. Those by friends I found a bit hard to take. The Rose Bowl game in 1975 was interrupted on television by an announcement of the conviction of John Mitchell and my other top aides. I could no longer even take refuge in my favorite avocation, watching sports on television. It was not enough for my critics to say that I had made terrible mistakes. They seemed driven to prove that I represented the epitome of evil itself. My Second Most Painful Decision I will never forget the moment that Jack Miller, my attorney from Washington, came into my office in San Clemente on Sept. 4, 1974, to inform me of President Ford's decision to stop the hemorrhaging by issuing a presidential pardon. Now I had to decide whether or not to accept it. I told Miller I was worried the pardon would hurt Ford politically. He said that in the short run, it would. But he added that if the country continued to be obsessed by Watergate, Ford and others would suffer even more from being unable to devote their attention to urgent problems. Miller also knew my desperate financial situation. He pointed out that the costs of defending actions against me would bankrupt me. In view of what happened soon thereafter, he was remarkably perceptive when he added that he thought that I had taken as much physically, mentally and emotionally as I could and that I should accept the pardon for my own well-being and my family's. His strongest argument was that because of the publicity over the past year and a half, there was no way I could get a fair trial in Washington. Next to the resignation, accepting the pardon was the most painful decision of my political career. The statement I issued at the time accurately describes my feelings then and now: "I was wrong in not acting more decisively and more forthrightly in dealing with Watergate, particularly when it reached the stage of judicial proceedings and grew from a political scandal into a national tragedy. "No words can describe the depths of my regret and pain at the anguish my mistakes over Watergate have caused the nation and the presidency--a nation I so deeply love and an institution I so greatly respect." The pardon was granted on Sept. 8. The predictable occurred. Ford went down in the polls, and I was subjected to a whole new round of attacks in the media. Nothing Left to Fight For I have always believed that there is a direct relationship between mental and physical health. Events in the aftermath of the pardon proved it, as far as I am concerned. Twenty years had passed since I had last suffered from phlebitis, blood clots that usually occur in the legs. Just before my trip to the Mideast in June 1974, my left leg began to swell. Hot and cold compresses reduced the swelling, but it increased alarmingly again when I had to stand too long at various ceremonies. It became even more aggravated when I went to the Soviet Union in July. In Minsk I had to walk for almost a mile and a half over cobblestone paths, and the pain was excruciating. When I returned to Washington, the pain subsided, and I was so busy in the weeks before the resignation that I forgot about it completely. A few days after the pardon, the swelling recurred. My family doctor, Dr. John Lungren, urged me to go to the hospital, warning that if a clot should break loose and go to the lungs, it would be fatal. That got my attention. I went to the hospital. For almost two weeks, I slept very little because the nurse had to come in every hour to refill the intravenous heparin medication to dissolve the blood clot. It was a miserable experience. When I returned home, I told Pat that I would never go to the hospital again. Within three weeks, I was back. Lungren had warned me that sharp pains in the abdomen would be a danger signal. After X- rays, the doctors decided that an operation should be performed immediately. I remember the pinprick of the anesthetist's needle and being wheeled down to the operating room, but for six days thereafter I was in and out of consciousness. My first recollection was of a nurse slapping my face and calling me. "Richard, wake up," she said. "Richard, wake up." I knew it was not Pat or Lungren. In fact, only my mother called me Richard. When I woke up again, Lungren was taking my pulse. I told him that I was anxious to go home. He said, "Listen, Dick, we almost lost you last night. You are not going to go home for quite a while." He told me I had gone into shock after the operation. My blood pressure had gone down to 60 over 0. Only after four transfusions over three hours were the doctors able to push it back to normal. I learned later that Pat, Tricia and Julie had been standing by me in the room for most of the night. When I woke up again, I asked Pat to come in. I now knew that I was in pretty desperate shape. Pat and I have seldom revealed our physical disabilities to each other. This time, I couldn't help it. I said that I didn't think I was going to make it. She gripped my hand and said almost fiercely, "Don't talk that way. You have got to make it. You must not give up." As she spoke, my thoughts went back again to the Fund crisis in 1952. Just before we went onstage for the broadcast, when I was trying to get all of my thoughts together for the most important speech of my life, I told her, "I just don't think I can go through with this one." She grasped me firmly by the hand and said, "Of course you can." The words were the same, but now there was a difference. Then I had something larger than myself to fight for. Now it seemed that I had nothing left to fight for except my own life. Among my first visitors was Jerry Ford, who was in California campaigning for congressional candidates. I must have looked like hell, because he blurted out, "Oh, Mr. President!," despite the fact that since my resignation we had been on a first-name basis. He did his best to give me a lift, but I knew that the pardon had hurt him and that the campaign was not going well. Shortly afterward, a nurse wheeled me into another room, with a window. She pointed to a small plane with a sign trailing behind: GOD LOVES YOU AND SO DO WE. I learned that the Rev. Billy Graham's wife Ruth and some of her friends had arranged it. I am convinced now that but for the support of my family and the thoughts and prayers of countless people I have never met and would never have a chance to thank, I would not have made it. There was still bad news to come. A few days later someone brought the results of the 1974 off-year elections to my hospital room. The Republican Party was in even worse shape than I was. I knew that from that time on, the Democrats who won would be called Watergate Democrats and the Republicans who lost would be called Watergate Republicans. After the millions of miles I had logged and the thousands of speeches I had made for Republican candidates over the years, I knew that this was my final legacy to the party. It would be a heavy burden for the rest of my life. When I left the hospital and returned home to La Casa Pacifica, I thought that now, at least, I might get a little relief. It was not to be. Judge Sirica wanted me in this courtroom to testify against John Mitchell and the other defendants. He ordered three doctors to examine me to see if the reports on the seriousness of my illness were true. Even now, so-called biographers and journalists blithely inform their readers that I cynically arranged my near fatal illness to quell public opposition to the pardon. So Sirica's three doctors came to San Clemente. Each took turns poking and pinching and pulling. One was obviously a little embarrassed by the exercise, but the other two seemed to enjoy their work. They were at least professional enough to report that I could under no circumstances travel to Washington and testify. I did not get the lift that I should have from the news that I would not have to go to Washington. I was a physical wreck; I was emotionally drained; I was mentally burned out. This time, as compared with the other crises I had endured, I could see no reason to live, no cause to fight for. Unless a person has a reason to live for other than himself, he will die--first mentally, then emotionally, then physically. At low points in the past, I have been sustained by recalling a note Clare Boothe Luce handed to me right after Watergate first broke, when she was sitting next to me at a meeting of the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. It was St. Barton's Ode. "I am hurt but I am not slain! I will lie me down and bleed awhile--then I'll rise and fight again." This time it did not work. I did not have anything to fight for. Three lessons stood out from my years in the wilderness after I lost the 1962 California Governor's race. -- Defeat is never fatal unless you give up. -- When you go through defeat, you are able to put your weaknesses in perspective and to develop an immune system to deal with them in the future. -- You never know how strong you are when things go smoothly. You tap strength you didn't know you had when you have to cope with adversity. My six years in the wilderness in the 1960s helped me survive the crisis I confronted in 1974. But residing in the deepest valley is far different from passing through the wilderness. Historical precedents existed for what I went through in the 1960s. Others lost major elections, yet came back to win later. But there was no precedent for what faced me in the 1970s. No one had ever been so high and fallen so low. No one before had ever resigned the presidency. I was down but not out. My enemies wanted to make sure I did not rise again in view of my past record of comebacks. They tried to discredit everything I had done, to blame me for my Administration's failures and to credit others for its successes. Newspaper articles invariably referred to me as the "disgraced former President." I was hated by some, ignored by others. It became unfashionable for even my friends to say anything positive about the Nixon era. While in the wilderness, De Gaulle once sardonically remarked, "Insults would have been more tolerable than indifference." I didn't have that problem--my enemies berated me, and many of my friends maintained a discreet distance. Getting Back to Par My immediate priority was to recover my health. I needed to do this to have the energy to engage again in creative activities. To my great surprise, golf became my lifesaver. I was fortunate to have Colonel Jack Brennan, my top military aide during my last two years in the White House, as my administrative assistant in San Clemente. He was an excellent golfer, but even more important, a patient and understanding partner. Combined with occasional swims in the cold water of the Pacific and a few laps in a heated pool, the golf routine did the trick. Within a year, I was shooting a few pars on the golf course and was back to par physically. I also had to recover my financial health. All of my assets were invested in real estate. My presidential and congressional pensions took care of ordinary expenses. But I had to find a way to pay my attorneys' fees. In addition, the Government allowance for office expenses was inadequate to cover the staff I needed to answer my huge volume of mail. I needed extra income. I ruled out one potentially lucrative source, honoraria for speeches. It was not the right time for me to begin to speak out. But even more important, I had had a policy of not accepting honoraria for speeches ever since I had been elected Vice President in 1952. Presidents Hoover, Truman, Eisenhower and Johnson all refused honoraria, and I did not want to be the first former President to start the practice. I therefore decided to find some other source of income. My physical recovery, while important, was not enough. A healthy vegetable is still a vegetable. As I recovered physically, I was able to tackle the more important but more difficult challenge of spiritual recovery. To recover physically involves regaining the ability to get up in the morning; to recover spiritually requires restoring the will and desire to do so. No one can recover spiritually from a major loss without the help of others. While a political figure depends on others in many ways, he ultimately rises and falls as a result of his own decisions and actions. A personal defeat therefore is an isolating experience. Spiritual recovery is hastened by overcoming the sense of isolation, by recognizing the fact that your family, friends and supporters still stand with you, and by putting the defeat in perspective. My first line of support was my family. No man has ever had a stronger family than I have had. In the weeks, months and years of slow recovery, a day never passed without their support. Never once did they moan about the disastrous impact of my shattering defeat on their lives. In many ways, it was worse for them than for me. When they read or saw the latest attack, their instinct was to refute the distortions and falsehoods. But they had to suffer in silence. They could not fight back. I also relied on support from my friends. When you win in politics, you hear from everyone. When you lose, you hear from your friends. After Watergate, it was a miracle that I had as many as I did. Some came to see me, some telephoned, others wrote encouraging letters. As good friends, they did not dwell on the tragedy of the past. Thankfully, they did not express sympathy, for the only thing worse than self-pity is to be the object of pity from others. And finally, the letters from tens of thousands of people from all over the world whom I had never met played an indispensable role in bucking up my spirits. It was heartwarming to know that while there was no longer a Silent Majority, at the least the minority that remained was not silent. With the wounds of body and spirit healed, I was now prepared to deal with my greatest challenge--mental recovery. This was the decisive factor in my decision to write my memoirs. When I finished Six Crises after losing in 1960, I observed that writing the book was my seventh crisis, and I vowed that I would never write another. But writing my memoirs now served several purposes. It provided part of the income that I needed. It was an enormous mental challenge requiring full use of all my creative abilities. Writing a book is the most intensive exercise anyone can give his brain. Most important, it provided the therapy needed for a full spiritual recovery by enabling me to put Watergate behind me. The Myths of Watergate Reliving those days in cold print was not easy, but I tried to close the book on that episode. In the three years I spent writing my memoirs, I addressed every facet of the crisis my excellent editorial staff, under the leadership of Frank Gannon, could uncover. I learned a number of things I had not known as the events of Watergate unfolded. I was able to put all the events of that time in perspective--to learn not only what happened but why, and to provide some guidance so that others could avoid a repetition of those problems. As I wrote, I was able to look back at Watergate and separate myth from fact. At the core of the scandal was the fact that individuals associated with my re-election campaign were caught breaking into and installing telephone wiretaps at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate Hotel. After their arrest, others in my campaign and in my Administration attempted to cover up this connection to minimize the political damage. I failed to take matters firmly into my own hands and discover the facts and to fire any and all people involved or implicated in the break-in. I was also accused of taking part in the cover-up by trying to obstruct the FBI's criminal investigation. Alone, that would probably not have been enough to bring down my Administration. But the term "Watergate" has come to include a wide range of other charges that my adversaries used to try to paint my Administration as, in their words, "the most corrupt in American history." Together, these accusations represented the myths of Watergate, the smoke screen of false charges that ultimately undercut my Administration's ability to govern effectively. The most blatantly false myth was that I ordered the break-in at the Democratic headquarters. Millions of dollars were spent by the Executive Branch, the Congress and the office of the special prosecutor to investigate Watergate. Not one piece of evidence was discovered indicating that I ordered the break-in, knew about the plans for the wiretapping or received any information from it. The most politically damaging myth was that I personally ordered the payment of money to Howard Hunt and the other original Watergate defendants to keep them silent. I did discuss this possibility during a meeting with John Dean and Bob Haldeman on March 21, 1973. In the tape recording of this meeting, it is clear that I considered paying the money. I should not have even considered this option, but the key facts were that I rejected offering clemency to the defendants as "wrong" and at the end of the conversation ruled out any White House payment of money to the defendants. Moreover, those who made this accusation ignored the even more crucial fact that no payments were made as a result of that conversation. The most serious myth--the one that ultimately forced me to resign--was that, on my specific orders, the CIA obstructed the FBI from pursuing its criminal investigation of the Watergate break-in. I discussed this possible course of action with Bob Haldeman in the famous "smoking gun" tape of June 23, 1972. At that time, I thought that since some former CIA operatives had participated in the break-in, the CIA would be concerned that their exposure would reveal other, legitimate operations and operatives and that the agency would therefore welcome a chance to avoid that outcome. I thought that would also prevent the FBI from going into areas that would be politically embarrassing to us. In my talk with Haldeman, I made the inexcusable error of following the recommendation from some members of my staff--some of whom, I later learned, had a personal stake in covering up the facts--and requesting that the CIA intervene. But that mistake was mitigated by two facts. First, the director of Central Intelligence, Richard Helms, and his deputy, Vernon Walters, ignored the White House request and refused to intervene with the FBI, despite the pressure from members of my staff. Second, when FBI director Pat Gray complained to me in a telephone call three weeks later, on July 12, about attempts to suppress his investigation, I told him emphatically to go forward with it, and I instructed Haldeman and John Ehrlichman to make sure the campaign and the Administration cooperated with the investigation "all the way down the line." No obstruction of justice took place as a result of the June 23 conversation. The most widely believed myth was that I ordered massive illegal wiretapping and surveillance of political opponents, members of the House and Senate, and news media reporters. All of these charges were false, and no evidence was presented to substantiate them. The most ridiculous myth was that I was the first President to tape some of my conversations. F.D.R. was the first to do so. Scores of tapes are kept in the Eisenhower Library. Several thousand hours of tapes are stored in the Johnson Library, none of which will be available until the year 2023. Of the several hundred hours of tapes in the Kennedy Library, only 12% have so far been made public. The rest, according to the Kennedy Library officials, will be kept secret indefinitely. What, then, was Watergate? When the break-in first hit the news, my press secretary, Ron Ziegler, aptly called it a third-rate burglary. To compare Watergate with Teapot Dome, the Truman five-percenter scandals and the Grant whiskey scandals misses the point totally. No one in the Nixon Administration profited from Watergate. No one ripped off the Government, as in previous scandals. Wrongdoing took place, but not for personal gain. All Administrations have sought to protect themselves from the political fallout of scandals. In retrospect, I would say that Watergate was one part wrongdoing, one part blundering and one part political vendetta by my enemies. The Watergate break-in and cover-up greatly damaged the American political process. While not unusual in political campaigns, these actions were clearly illegal. Over the years, I had been the victim of dirty tricks and other kinds of vicious tactics in the cut and thrust of political warfare. What happened in Watergate--the facts, not the myths--was wrong. In retrospect, while I was not involved in the decision to conduct the break-in, I should have set a higher standard for the conduct of the people who participated in my campaign and Administration. I should have established a moral tone that would have made such actions unthinkable. I did not. I played by the rules of politics as I found them. Not taking a higher road than my predecessors and my adversaries was my central mistake. For that reason, I long ago accepted overall responsibility for the Watergate affair. What's more, I have paid, and am still paying, the price for it. Apart from its illegality, Watergate was a tragedy of errors. Whoever ordered the break-in evidently knew little about politics. If the purpose was to gather political intelligence, the Democratic National Committee was a pathetic target. Strategy and tactics are set by the candidate and his staff, not the party bureaucracy. I also contributed to the errors. As a student of history, I should have known that leaders who do big things well must be on guard against stumbling on the little things. To paraphrase Talleyrand, Watergate was worse than a crime--it was a blunder. When first informed about the break-in, I did not give it sufficient attention, partly because I was preoccupied with my China and Soviet initiatives and with my efforts to end the war in Vietnam and partly because I feared that some of my colleagues might be somehow involved. Some have said that my major mistake was to protect my subordinates. They may be partly right. In any organization, loyalty must run down, as well as up. I knew those who were involved acted not for personal gain but out of their deep belief in our cause. That knowledge may have contributed to my hesitation in tackling the question. I should have focused on the issue immediately, dug out the truth, fired everyone involved and taken the political heat. But what we remember as the Watergate period was also a concerted political vendetta by my opponents. Anyone who knows the workings of hardball politics knows that the smoke screen of false accusations--the myths of Watergate--was not at all accidental. In this respect, Watergate was not a morality play but rather a political struggle. The baseless and highly sensationalistic charges, the blatant double standards, the party-line votes in congressional investigating committees and the unwillingness of my adversaries and the media to look into parallel wrongdoing within Democratic campaigns, all should tip off even the casual observer that the opposition was pursuing not only justice but also political advantage. The Final Comeback? On Nov. 30, 1978, as I walked into the hall where I was to address the Oxford Union, the crowd greeted me with a standing ovation. I had received a very different reception outside. Several hundred demonstrators, many of them American students attending Oxford, surrounded my car as we entered the grounds. It was an ugly crowd. We could hear them chanting "Nixon go home!" as the president of the Union introduced me. I could see he was somewhat embarrassed, but I put him at ease when I opened my remarks by observing that the demonstrators made me feel very much at home. The students particularly liked the question-and-answer session. They were respectful, but they pulled no punches. The most intriguing question was what my plans were for a role in politics or foreign affairs. I responded that my political career was over but that while I had retired from politics, I had not retired from life. "So long as I have a breath in my body," I said, "I am going to talk about the great issues that affect the world. I am not going to keep my mouth shut. I am going to speak out for peace and freedom." The question was unexpected, but the off-the-cuff answer set forth exactly the guidelines I was to follow in the years ahead through meetings with leaders around the world, writing books and articles, and giving speeches and off-the-record backgrounders for journalists. What positive effect, if any, all this activity has had I do not know. I do know that it had one negative fallout. My critics saw what they considered to be a sinister purpose--that I was "orchestrating yet another comeback." If this is so, my "orchestra" is really a one-man band, because I do not have any control over what anyone else thinks, says or writes. Besides, as I said on Meet the Press in 1988, if I am trying to make a comeback, "what am I going to come back to? We already have a very good mayor in Saddle River, and we have a very good Governor in the state of New Jersey. It isn't a comeback. It isn't to be well thought of. The purpose is to get a message across, and then let history judge." When John Chancellor asked me how history would remember me, I predicted, "History will treat me fairly. Historians probably won't, because most historians are on the left." I shall continue to speak up for the policies that will lead to peace and freedom as long as I live. If people are interested in what I have to say, they can tune in. If they aren't, they do not have to. I intend to continue to speak out on the important issues for those who do want to hear my views. Searching for Recreation People sometimes ask what a 77-year-old former President does for exercise and recreation. Unfortunately, I do not set a very good example. I have never gone hunting, and fishing just isn't my bag. I tried deep-sea fishing once as a teenager and gave it up because I used to get seasick. In 1952 Eisenhower tried to teach me how to cast for trout. It was a disaster. After hooking a limb the first three times, I caught his shirt on my fourth try. The lesson ended abruptly. I don't ski or play tennis. People often ask me whether I play chess. I don't, but my grandson Christopher, 11, plays well enough already to give his father a run for his money. The only time I played gin rummy was in 1944, on a twelve-hour flight from Guadalcanal to Hawaii in the belly of a C-54 transport. The learning process was so expensive that I decided to stick to poker, which I still play once a year with Ambassador Walter Annenberg and other members of the Benevolent Marching and Philosophical Society of Philadelphia. I go to an occasional baseball, football or basketball game. My most vivid memory of a sports event was seeing my first major league baseball game on July 4, 1936. The Yankees crushed the Senators in a doubleheader. A rookie outfielder for New York, Joe DiMaggio, hit a home run into the sun bleachers at Griffith Stadium where I was sitting. The next time I saw the Yankees play on the Fourth of July was on a blisteringly hot Monday afternoon in New York 47 years later. Dave Righetti threw a no-hitter against the Boston Red Sox--his first, and mine as well. I shall never forget when he struck out Wade Boggs, the best hitter in baseball, with a high inside fastball for the final out. I quit golf ten years ago, though I enjoyed the game. There were two reasons. One day in late 1978, I broke 80. It was on a relatively easy course in San Clemente, but for me it was like climbing Mount Everest. I knew I could never get better, and so the competitive challenge was gone. Breaking 80 was an even greater thrill than getting a hole in one. I did get a hole in one once, but I don't remember much about it, except that it was on the third hole at Bel Air on Labor Day 1961, I used a MacGregor six-iron and a Spalding Dot ball, and my partner Randolph Scott birdied the hole. The other reason I quit golf was the decisive one. I had to meet a deadline for my third book, The Real War. I simply could not do it and also find four hours a day to play golf. This time, however, I found a substitute. In 1969 I asked President de Gaulle what he did for exercise. He told me that he believed that walking was the best thing a leader could do for his mental, physical and emotional health. I now follow his advice and walk four miles a day. While I miss the competition and fellowship, I get three times as much exercise as I would playing a round of golf and riding between holes in a cart. The Press and Privacy Although I had always had a lively interest in public affairs, I was not aware until after his death that Franklin D. Roosevelt was crippled by polio. I vividly recall seeing newsreels that showed him in Washington and abroad. They never showed a wheelchair or crutches, nor did newspaper accounts mention his disability. The media actively kept the secret for him. Some may disagree, but I believe the press deserve great credit for not disclosing his condition. Today they could not do so because of the television cameras that follow a President everywhere. More to the point, they would not want to do so. You don't have to point to the Gary Hart expose to find examples where investigative reporters have made public figures, and their families and friends, fair game for disclosure of every detail of their private lives. Highly qualified people are becoming increasingly reluctant to take Government positions in Washington because they don't want to expose their families to this merciless scrutiny. We can't go back to the pre-television standards of the F.D.R. days, but the media, in the interest of fairness and responsibility, might well consider reappraising some of their practices and eliminating some of the abuses. Based on 44 years of dealing with members of the media on the national level, I can say they are above average in intelligence. Most are liberal politically. Virtually all are ambitious, not so much for money as for status. A Pulitzer Prize means far more to them than a six-figure salary. They are proud of their profession and sometimes find it difficult to hide their contempt for the less well-educated politicians and businessmen they cover. Many, in my view justifiably, believe they are underpaid compared with the lobbyists and p.r. flacks who rip off their employers so shamefully. Finally, most are interesting people. An off-the-record session with a group of top-notch reporters can be far more stimulating and informative than a meeting with a group of Senators or Congressmen. I have some other observations that will probably be more controversial. Reporters from the print press, generally, although not always, are more intelligent and thoughtful than TV reporters. Photographers tend to be more sympathetic to conservatives than reporters, possibly because there appears to be an adversarial relationship between these two groups of journalists. A politician will get a better shake from reporters outside of Washington than in Washington. Publishers have become virtual political eunuchs: they still sign the checks, but the day is long gone when they had much control over reporters. Often a candidate is endorsed on the editorial page and cut up in the news stories, which gives many newspapers a schizophrenic quality. Even the paper I read most regularly, the Wall Street Journal, suffers from that syndrome. This is not necessarily bad, but those who deal with the press should know what they are up against. Another observation, which I admit may result only from my own experience, is that members of the press hate to be proved wrong. I was warned about this after the Alger Hiss case. Most reporters covering the case had thought Whittaker Chambers was lying and Hiss was telling the truth, and they did not appreciate being shown that they had been wrong. There was an understandable tendency among some in the months and years afterward to try to justify their original position, at my expense. Superficial observers are wrong when they attribute all of my problems with the media to Watergate. They overlook the seminal issue of Vietnam. The war changed Lyndon Johnson's press from highly positive to overwhelmingly negative, and poisoned my own relations with the press throughout my presidency. I respected the right of press people as well as politicians to disagree with me about the morality of our cause in Vietnam, our conduct of the war and my efforts to win an honorable peace. But again, the events that followed our withdrawal from Vietnam, including the plight of the boat people and the more than 1 million slaughtered by the new communist rulers of Cambodia, showed that media critics who said we were on the wrong side were mistaken. The press and the politicians they cover are frequently at odds, but they have one thing in common: a very low rating in the public opinion polls. Most people believe that the press is biased toward liberal causes, and I would agree. But charges that the press is generally inaccurate in its reporting are frequently unfair. Generally, I have been impressed by how accurately reporters who reach the national level cover their stories. The contention that reporters have bad manners is also usually a bad rap. While reporters are always persistent, they are usually courteous. The antics of a few oddballs who stamp their feet and holler like children to get attention should not be held against the entire group. Here are my rules for dealing with the press: -- Don't play favorites. Doing so gives a short-term advantage but does more harm than good in the long run. I often asked Henry Kissinger to give interviews not just to the select elite in the Washington press corps but to some of the fine reporters from the less well-known papers around the country. If for some reason you are deserted by your tiny circle of Beltway bigwigs, you might wish you had cultivated some friends in the hinterlands. -- Don't cancel a subscription, but don't be afraid to cancel an unfriendly reporter's ticket on some plum presidential trip. There is no law that says if a reporter has a habit of giving you the shaft, you have to continue to give him privileged treatment. -- Wining and dining the press should generally be avoided except on an arm's-length basis. The best reporters resent being wooed in such a superficial way, and no reporter will sit on a negative story because you gave him brunch last week. -- One tactic that should be used only sparingly is for a public official who has been attacked by the press to counterattack. He may win in the short run. But in the long run the press has the last word, and they will never forgive him for taking them on. This does not mean that he should take their barbs lying down or that he should go crawling after them to try to win their support. It does mean that he should give as good as he receives, but in a manner that will not expose him to the charge that he is taking on the press to divert attention from his own vulnerabilities. -- A President's ultimate weapon is to go over the heads of the press to the country, as I did in the so-called "Checkers Speech" in 1952 and the "Silent Majority" address in 1969 to mobilize public opinion. But you cannot go to the well too often. Only on a major issue of universal concern should a President try to reach the people directly to avoid having his views filtered through the press. Into the Twilight As I look back to the time I made the decision to enter politics more than 40 years ago, three goals motivated me: peace abroad, a better life for people at home and the victory of freedom over tyranny throughout the world. I have taken some great risks and have fought many battles in attempting to serve those goals. By exposing Alger Hiss, I earned the undying enmity of many powerful people who might otherwise have at worst taken a neutral view of me. I do not regret losing these people's support. But by going to China, I lost the support of many fellow conservatives who believed we should not have normal relations with any communist power, even if it was unfriendly toward the Soviet Union. By refusing to accept any but the most honorable and equitable peace in Vietnam, I lost the support of many liberals, conservatives and moderates who felt that supporting me was just too risky politically. These are examples of the perils of purpose. While it has been a rough game, it has been worth it. I might not want to do it again, but I would not have missed it. I know I have lived for a purpose, and I have at least in part achieved it. You must live your life for something more important than your life alone. One who has never lost himself in a cause bigger than himself has missed one of life's mountaintop experiences. Only by losing yourself in this way can you really find yourself. My most vivid memory of the dark days after my resignation is a conversation with Walter Annenberg shortly after I returned to San Clemente. He knew I was discouraged. He tried to buck up my spirits. He said, "Whether you have been knocked down or are on the ropes, always remember that life is 99 rounds." Today, the battle I started to wage in 1946 when I first ran for Congress is not over. I still have a few rounds to go. Two thousand years ago, Sophocles wrote, "One must wait until the evening to see how splendid the day has been." There is still some time before the sun goes down, but even now, I can look back and say that the day has indeed been splendid. In view of the ordeals I have endured, this may strike some as an incredible conclusion. I believe, however, that the richness of life is measured by its breadth, its height and its depth. It has been my good fortune to have lived a very long and a very full life, one in which I have been at the heights but also at the depths. I shall always remember my first visit to the Grand Canyon 65 years ago. I did not believe any view could be more spectacular than the one from the heights of the South Rim until I hiked seven miles down to the river below and looked back up. Only then did I fully appreciate the true majesty of one of nature's seven wonders of the world. Only when you have been in the depths can you truly appreciate the heights. </body> </article> </text>