On this month’s 50th anniversary of Richard Nixon resigning the presidency, forgive some reflections of a personal rather than third-party nature.
For the past half century, all sorts of people have put forth all sorts of takes about whether the resignation was a tonic for American politics (“it showed the constitutional system worked”) or rather a catalyst for further disillusionment, cynicism and permanent hardball recriminations. The truth is probably a mix of aspects of all of that and more. Those debates will continue to reverberate no matter what this column says.
Instead, look at the resignation, preceded as it was by lots of evidence of Nixonworld’s perfidy of various sorts, through the eyes of the 10-year-old that I was at the time.
Unusual for most children that age, I grew up in a very political household, with two parents who were erstwhile Republican activists and my father hip-deep in the idealistic origins of the broader conservative movement. In Louisiana, there was no doubt in my mind that the Republicans were the “good guys,” with the standard-bearer of the then-tiny state party being the earnest, honest, honorable Dave Treen, later to be the state’s governor. The Democratic Party was home to rapscallions (Edwin Edwards), racists (Leander Perez) and left-authoritarian demagogues (Huey Long).
Quin Hillyer
Naturally, 10-year-old Quin disbelieved that Republican President Nixon could be anything like the corrupt person Democrats and the media portrayed. I even watched several days (or evenings) of the House Watergate hearings and cheered the intelligent, dedicated Nixon defender from New Jersey, Charles Sandman, who clearly believed with all his heart that Nixon wasn’t guilty. Poor Sandman would lose his reelection bid that year because of it.
Then, though, came the “smoking gun” audiotape, and despite knowledgeable friends to this day saying it was misinterpreted, it still looks to me to be terribly damning. And when Republican leaders Barry Goldwater (a living icon in my house), Hugh Scott and John Rhodes met with Nixon to tell him the jig was up, I assumed straight-shooting Goldwater must be right.
What emerged, in my young mind, was a lasting lesson: Even on one’s own “side,” one should keep ever vigilant for error or corruption, and the only way to avoid disaster is to self-police. And, because I naturally believe (as do most people) that my side has the answers that are best for the nation’s greater good, a disaster for my side is a bad thing for the nation’s greater interests because it means the wrong policies — harmful policies — will be implemented.
Watching Nixon fall was a hard lesson that neither side has a monopoly on virtue or an immunity from vice. But watching Goldwater and other Republicans, including Sandman, stand up for integrity when the evidence was in — or, in retrospect, knowing that New York Sen. James Buckley had recognized the truth even sooner and called for Nixon’s resignation months earlier — gave me reassurance and hope of a different sort.
To see good men say that the truth supersedes the “team” was to be inspired by a higher calling than mere partisanship.
At age 10, of course, I couldn’t have put all this into words. But I do distinctly remember my dad saying we all should be proud of Goldwater that day. Amid the muddled emotions of watching a sweating and diminished Nixon ramble sweetly but strangely about how his “mother was a saint,” what stuck with me was that, for both good and bad, character counts.
In our current politics, in both parties, we should relearn that essential truth.