After the Fall

by Kasey S. Pipes

  Echoing the famous “dictatorships and double standards” argument of a Georgetown professor named Jeane Kirkpatrick, he drew a sharp distinction between Communist countries and non-Communist ones. “Those are authoritarian states,” Nixon said of Iran and the Philippines, “but they don’t threaten their neighbors and they are our friends.”19

  Later, Nixon met with some other conservative journalists, including William Buckley, the founder of National Review. Buckley had long been ambivalent about Nixon and was known to be much closer to Reagan politically. Yet now he found Nixon to be moving toward the right in his international policy views. In the interview with Buckley, Nixon went out of his way to criticize Carter’s approach to the Cold War; he said there was no one at the State Department who could handle Leonid Brezhnev.

  “Nixon today gives the impression of being much more hard-line on relations with the Soviets than he was as president,” Buckley observed in his magazine. Buckley even added that Nixon’s comments seemed closer to “the kind of criticism being offered by the ‘New Right.’ ”20

  It was a shrewd observation. But Nixon didn’t see himself as moving to the right; he saw Carter moving the country to the left on foreign policy. And he feared that Carter's perceived weakness did not bode well for the U.S. in the ongoing Cold War standoff. Always the strategist, Nixon sensed that the late 1970s called for a tougher posture from the U.S. He was already beginning to think about what a Republican president in the 1980s might be able to do in confronting the Soviet Union.

  As the Nixons celebrated Christmas back home at La Casa Pacifica, for the first time in years there was much to celebrate. Nixon had enjoyed a successful 1978, relatively speaking. The Frost interviews had enjoyed massive ratings across the country, and Nixon had fared reasonably well in the exchange. His memoirs had been completed and released. And most importantly, Nixon had begun making public appearances again. The Humphrey funeral, as well as the trips to Kentucky and Mississippi, had all been very successful in the minds of the Nixon team. And Nixon had made a triumphant foray into Europe. He was even back to conducting interviews with reporters again.

  But every journey out of a place of despair includes reminders of what came before. That December, H. R. Haldeman was released from Lompoc Federal Prison after eighteen months in jail. Nixon had stayed in touch with his former top White House advisor and written to him and called him while he served his time. But the warm relationship had cooled. It wasn’t easy for Haldeman to go to prison. And he particularly resented the Frost interviews. While in prison, he had decided to get his revenge with a pen. He wrote a book called The Ends of Power. In it, he pretty much laid the responsibility for Watergate at Nixon’s feet. Later, he would express regret for the book and essentially blame his co-author for the Nixon allegations.

  When Haldeman left the prison, he drove to his home in Los Angeles. There, he received a surprising phone call.

  “Merry Christmas,” Nixon said, as Haldeman picked up the phone. “And welcome back.”21

  Chapter Eight

  The Move to New York

  “The fastest track in the world.”

  As the year 1979 dawned, Nixon devoted himself to writing his way back into public life. He not only excelled at writing, but he enjoyed the process, too. He loved to recline in his chair with his feet propped up on the ottoman, legal pads filled with his scribbling on the table beside him, a pipe in his hand, and his Irish Setter—King Timahoe—sitting at his feet. He would hold forth there with his team of writers surrounding him. He found that talking his way through the book helped him not only remember the past more clearly, but to see the future more clearly, as well.

  As Nixon saw it, his presidency had centered on one issue: foreign affairs. “Nixon didn’t care about domestic politics,” remembered Hugh Hewitt, a young staffer who joined his staff in 1978. “Foreign policy mattered most.” In Nixon’s mind, while history would judge him harshly on Watergate, it would inevitably have to deal with his achievements on the world stage. Here he felt that he had a strong case to make. He also believed that his administration’s foreign policy successes—whether opening the door to China, creating détente with the Soviets, or ending the Vietnam War—should not merely be stories for the history books, but also be lessons for the challenges America still faced as it approached the 1980s.1

  And Nixon’s mind was still a well-oiled machine on any subject related to foreign affairs. One day, Hugh Hewitt brought his parents to meet the boss. “What’s going to happen in China?” Hewitt’s mother asked, trying to make conversation. Two hours later, Nixon finished his answer.2

  On foreign policy, Nixon not only knew a lot, but also had a lot to say. The first book he began working on in early 1979 was The Real War, which would essentially serve as Nixon’s rebuttal to the Carter administration. Ironically, President Carter had tried to gain Nixon’s cooperation on foreign policy. In negotiating formal diplomatic relations with China—a leftover matter from Nixon’s 1972 trip—Carter found the Chinese difficult to work with. When Deputy Prime Minister Deng Xiaoping recommended that Nixon take part in the talks, Carter sent for the exiled president.

  Carter didn't want Nixon to be there. He was busy trying to secure Democratic votes in the Senate for the SALT II Treaty, and publicly inviting Nixon back to the White House was no way to curry favor with the Left. Still, Deng drove a hard bargain, even suggesting at one point that he might visit Nixon in San Clemente unless Carter invited him to the White House.

  That Carter begrudgingly did so indicates that Nixon’s comeback was, if anything, ahead of schedule. Less than five years after leaving office, here he was being invited to a state dinner at the White House by a Democratic president. It was one thing for Hubert Humphrey to invite him to the state funeral; it was quite another for the sitting Democratic president to invite him back to the White House.

  On January 29, 1979, Nixon’s car arrived at the White House gate and was quickly waved through. Once inside, the former president was taken to the second floor to the family residence. There he found President Carter waiting with Deng. He shook hands with the American president and then turned to greet Deng. He had never met the Chinese leader before.

  They departed later for the state dinner in the East Room. There were a few audible groans from the crowd when Nixon’s name was announced upon his entry into the room. But if it bothered him, he never let on. Nixon made his way to his table, where he was joined by National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, Ambassador to China Leonard Woodcock, and Chinese Minister for Science and Technology Fang Yi, among others.

  Nixon was in his element. Surrounded by members of the foreign policy intelligentsia and back in the White House, he felt perfectly at home. Still, a bit of melancholy filled the air.

  Nixon became nostalgic at the sounds of the Marine band playing as it had during his presidency. “You know they are playing the same songs, the songs they played when I was here,” he said.3

  His attempts at small talk during the dinner were sometimes awkward.

  “How did you meet your husband?” he asked Ambassador Woodcock's wife.

  “In a hospital,” she responded.

  “Is there something wrong with Ambassador Woodcock?” Nixon replied.

  “No, Mr. President,” the ambassador answered for his wife. “I’m perfectly fine.”

  Still, as the dinner went on, the fellow guests at Nixon’s table warmed to him. Brzezinski asked the former president to list the world leaders he most admired.

  “You won’t catch me naming them because each one is different,” he replied. He did, however, say that he was especially fond of de Gaulle, Mao, and the Shah. He then looked across the table at Fang Yi. Knowing that Fang would report everything Nixon said back to Deng, the former president added one more name to the list of foreign leaders he admired: “Chiang Kai-shek”—the nationalist Chinese leader who had fought the Communists for control of China.4

  Before the night ended, Nixon ha
d all the guests at his table sign a menu that he could take back to Pat. He seemed genuinely pleased with how everything had gone. He had been back at the White House, talked foreign policy with Carter’s top experts, and even had managed to get under the skin of the Chinese by praising their bête noire—Chiang Kai-shek.

  The next day, Nixon got the chance to speak directly with Deng. He met with Deng privately for two hours. At the end of the discussion, it was decided that Nixon would come and visit Peking.

  This was a somewhat more successful private negotiation than the one conducted by the Carter administration. In his first foray back into the world of Washington politics, Nixon had achieved more than he could have ever hoped for—he had entered the White House again, met with a foreign leader, and been accepted for the most part. He even had the chance while in Washington to reconnect with old D.C. friends—including the recently freed John Mitchell, who had served several years in prison for his role in Watergate.

  For his part, President Carter probably hoped that by extending an olive branch to Nixon he could win the former’s president's favor as negotiations with China went forward. But if Carter thought he had won Nixon over, he thought wrong. Nixon returned home and began working furiously on The Real War, his answer to Carter’s foreign policy. Nixon saw the book as his chance to shape the election of 1980 by highlighting the dangers the country faced on the world stage. And if anything, his visit to the Carter White House had left him even more convinced that a new president should be elected in 1980.

  “If the U.S. chooses a president who will not stop the president’s drift toward Soviet strategic superiority, [then] the Chinese—survival-minded above all—will move toward rapprochement with the Soviet Union,” he said to his old staffer, William Safire, now a columnist for the New York Times. Nixon viewed his opening to China as a masterstroke not because it allowed U.S. zoos to import pandas or because it made for good political photo-ops. He saw it as important because it had exploited a divide in the relationship between the Chinese and the Soviets. While many on the political Left applauded the opening to China as an idealistic gesture, Nixon himself always viewed it in realistic terms. It was about dividing enemies and protecting American national interests. He worried that this distinction had been lost on the Carter State Department.5

  As the writing of the book continued in California, Nixon started to think again about another tactic to get himself back into the public eye—a move back East. He was now four years short of his seventieth birthday, and he wanted to maximize what time he had left. The trip to D.C. had confirmed for him that the public was ready. And a recent Gallup survey had found that he was now one of the country’s most admired people.

  And there was no time to waste if Nixon was going to be a player in the 1980 election. Already candidates were lining up to run for the Republican nomination. Not surprisingly, Nixon thought his former treasury secretary, John Connally, was the best option. But he had met with several of the other candidates considering running. And he had been around politics long enough to recognize real talent when he saw it. One of those potential candidates, in particular, caught his attention.

  “Reagan is a good listener,” Nixon told Safire, “and not just for show.”6

  * * *

  On May 24, Nixon took a break from writing the book to announce that he was selling La Casa Pacifica and finally making the move to the “fastest track” he often spoke of—New York. Nixon had personal as well as political reasons for the move. Two months earlier on March 14, Tricia had given birth to his first grandson—Christopher Nixon Cox. Nixon had flown out to New York just days after the birth. He loved holding the little boy and talking to him. But after a few days, it was time to return to California. The pull of another grandchild added to his desire to move East.

  And so La Casa Pacifica was sold to a group of Nixon friends. Inevitably, the sale raised eyebrows in Washington. Democrats in the Senate soon pushed for and passed a “Sense of the Senate” resolution suggesting that the former president should pay the government back for items the government had installed at the house.

  If the Senate Democrats hoped to get Nixon’s attention, they succeeded. Outraged, he wrote a letter to the General Services Administration demanding that “all items in question be removed.” Nixon’s letter, which was released publicly by Colonel Brennan, argued that the installation of almost all the items had been insisted on by the Secret Service.

  If Democrats were going to play games, then Nixon would match them. He noted in his letter that it was true that he himself had installed a flag pole. But, he added, “I am forwarding my check in the amount of $2,300 to the United States Treasury by express mail today” to pay for it.

  Satisfied that he had gotten the best of the exchange with his enemies in Washington, Nixon turned his attention to where he would live in New York. After much deliberation, the Nixons chose East 65th Street, close to where their new grandchild lived. The three-story townhouse offered the Nixons a library where the former president could read and write, four bedrooms, and even a garden in the back.

  With his future in New York settled and his past in California winding down, Nixon could again focus on world affairs. And there was much on which to focus. He was worried about events in Iran and about the Carter administration’s handling of them. The Shah had been exiled, and Nixon decided to fly down and visit his old friend in Mexico.

  “You’ve got to keep fighting,” he told the deposed Iranian leader. “You could fade away, but that’s the easy way out.” Afterward, he spoke with the press and blasted the Carter administration’s handling of the situation.7

  “If the United States does not stand by its own friends,” he warned in a not very veiled shot at the White House, “we are going to end up with no friends.” At this point, Nixon still viewed the Islamic Revolution through the lens of the Cold War. He didn’t seem to foresee that the uprising could lead to trouble for Americans in Iran in just a few short months.8

  Back home from Mexico, he and Pat finished packing a lifetime of memories in boxes for the move. But before moving out, Nixon made sure to take advantage of the California home. That September, he held a reception in honor of his old friend John Mitchell, who had been recently released from prison. Nixon felt the time had come to honor the man who had done so much for the Nixon presidency and who had paid such a price for that service.9

  On September 3, 1979, a mariachi band performed while food from a favorite Mexican restaurant of Nixon's, El Adobe, was served to a reunion of Nixon staffers who came to honor John Mitchell—the mastermind of Watergate.

  It was a night filled with memories and flooded with emotions. Perhaps no one enjoyed the event more than Mitchell himself. After a while, the tapping of a spoon could be heard on a wine glass signaling to the crowd that it was time to listen. The two hundred and fifty guests—including Ray Price, Bill Safire and Ron Ziegler—grew quiet.

  Mitchell himself spoke to the crowd: “We who have served in the Nixon administration can be proud of some monumental accomplishments.” He then added a great understatement: “Although that’s not to say we didn’t run into a few skids along the way.”

  When Nixon spoke, he praised his attorney general and said, “John Mitchell has friends and he stands beside them.” Nixon respected Mitchell immensely. The two went back years, to when they were law partners in New York. Then Nixon had hired Mitchell to run his presidential campaign. Following that, he made him attorney general. While Mitchell served his time in prison, Nixon called every week to check on him. If Mitchell ever watched the Frost interviews and saw Nixon suggest that Watergate might not have happened had the attorney general done a better job minding the store, he didn’t let on. In fact, on this night, it seemed very much like the two men were again best friends.

  In his brief remarks, Nixon also told the crowd about the new book he was working on, promising that it would be devoted to discussing the foreign policy challenges America would face in the com
ing years.10

  The next day, the New York Times—one of Nixon’s least favorite publications—ran a story on the event headlined “The Ex-President’s Men Reunite at San Clemente.”11

  Nixon was riding high following the Mitchell event as he made plans for yet another trip to China. China was essential to Nixon because it was essential to his presidential legacy.

  He made a short trip with Ed Cox and Colonel Brennan. While there, Nixon met with Deng to continue the conversation they had begun in Washington. Nixon did visit an oil refinery while in China, but he had already refused the offers of American oil companies who wanted him to help get them into the Chinese oil business. At a banquet in Peking, Deng and others toasted the former president for all he had done for China. “When drinking the water, don’t forget those who dug the well,” said one official in his toast. Nixon got the message—he would never be forgotten in China.12

  By the end of 1979, Nixon was preparing to launch his new book and begin his new life on the East Coast. In San Clemente in late 1979, he reviewed the galleys of The Real War. He made a few edits and sent them off to his editor, Michael Korda, at Simon & Schuster in New York. The book was set for release the following May.

  As he finished editing the galleys, he saw the news of the American embassy workers being taken hostage in Iran. Shocked at the images from Iran, Nixon saw the embassy takeover as proof that the Iranians were “an irrational people” governed by “an irrational leader.” Still, he knew that the man who had ended the Shah’s reign should not be underestimated. The Ayatollah, he feared, was “crazy like a fox.”