General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The Nixon Tapes: 1971-1972 [View all]hifiguy
(33,688 posts)Coincidentally, in the last six weeks I re-read Fawn Brodie's book, Rick Perlstein's Nixonland - which is a tremendous read - and Tom Wicker's inexplicable, bend-over-backwards apologia for Nixon, "One of Us."
Maybe it's because Watergate was the biggest thing in the news when I, too, became truly interested in politics, but Nixon has always fascinated me. His inner nature had to be incredibly petty and twisted for him to have done the things he did from the time of his first campaign against Jerry Voorhis in 1948 right up through the end of his political career, but a part of him was clearly intelligent enough to know the difference between right and wrong, the difference between truth and a baldfaced lie. Unlike Reagan and Chimpoleon - who were both "amiable" cretins who served as useful front men/liars/propagandists for the plutocratic takeover of America - Nixon was no fool, but he was utterly amoral. The only thing that ever mattered to him was self-glorification. So any means which achieved that end was in his mind permissible. To put it far too simply, I do not think Richard Nixon had a conscience.
He remains sphinx-like in that the common thread one reads from those closest to him is that "nobody really knew" Nixon. Enigmas, even rotten ones, exert a particular fascination on those who seek to understand history.