The Richard Nixon Experience

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In this special edition we will examine the recently declassified letter written by former President Richard Nixon to President Bill Clinton just after his two week trip to Russia and Europe. In the letter Richard Nixon gives the young President a thorough examination of what he thinks is happening in Russia, Ukraine and in Europe. In it he stresses the importance in helping Russia preserve its new found freedoms and helping it get on its feet economically and he discusses the dire consequences that could happen if we fail. 

It reads as though a psychic wrote it. It is a powerful letter and it was appreciated at the time by President Clinton and it is even more appreciated today. It really puts on display the brilliance of our former President and a man who ranks among our greatest American leaders in the history of the Republic. Here is a fine example, bold, strategic, insightful and full of visionary advice, as to why that latter statement is true. 

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After President Nixon announced he would cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail and take military action in Cambodia, college campuses across the nation exploded. Riots and demonstrations shut down several colleges and led to a nightmare scenario at Kent State in Ohio. 

It was there that four young people would lose their lives when National Guardsman, themselves very young, fired on protesters at a demonstration against the actions in Cambodia and in opposition to the war in Vietnam. The country looked to be coming apart at the seems. At first President Nixon was defiant and in frustration called several  of the demonstrators "Bums", which only added to the already enflamed situation. 

As all of the tension built the tension began to show on Richard Nixon. He was struggling at how to get control of this war before it ended up being his war. As his advisor Patrick Moynihan said, years later, "If we stayed Lyndon Johnson's war would become Richard Nixon's war and by the time the year was through half the people seemed to think he started it."  Richard Nixon began to struggle to find sleep and his advisors began to report erratic behavior.

It was then that Richard Nixon decided to reach out to the young college age demonstrators that had descended on Washington D.C.  Late in the middle of the night, or better described early morning hours, of May 09, 1970, Richard Nixon went nearly alone except for his valet, Manolo Sanchez, to the Lincoln Memorial. It was a visit that has been heavily maligned by Nixon haters for years. It was called weird, crazy, and mocked, but in reality it was a genuine attempt to hear from his constituents, to understand their feelings and to convey to them that he really cared for their futures. 

It was a truly remarkable moment. 

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This episode opens at the dawn of the environmental movement in America. It may come as a surprise to you that Richard Nixon is considered second only to Theodore Roosevelt as the greenest of all our Presidents. Several historians consider Nixon's environmental record his second biggest achievement.

Nixon's secret to success was pretty simple.

He found good people and then let them run the ball down the field. As they have often noted he had little interest in the issue, and was not an expert in it, so he found those who were experts in it and then he supported their efforts. He founded the Environmental Protection Agency, the Endangered Species Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, The Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the list goes on and on. Richard Nixon  really set a high bar for commonsense approaches to environmental issues. Something we could all learn from today. 

Richard Nixon also had an enormously rare opportunity to appoint four Supreme Court Justices including picking the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Here you will hear him discuss this enormous opportunity to shape the laws of our land he was given and the two other appointments he made that ended in failure too.  It was a fascinating look at a rare opportunity for any President. 

Finally, Richard Nixon makes some very difficult decisions about how to deal with North Vietnamese supply chains running through neighboring neutral Cambodia.  Nixon finally decides to go after the Ho Chi Minh Trail and cut those supply routes in what was arguably the most controversial decision of the Vietnam War. He would cross the border and order military operations in Cambodia. It would be one of the most effective decisions of the war but lead to upheaval here at home. 

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On November 3, 1969, President Richard Nixon asked to address the nation to talk about Vietnam. 

He then laid out his strategy for bringing the War to an end. He also asked for the great silent majority of Americans to support his efforts. They did in record numbers. 

To piggyback on our episode on the Silent Majority speech which has a featurette with former Nixon aid Dwight Chapin, I thought I would include the Silent Majority speech alone for those of you who have never heard the speech. 

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This episode opens as the Apollo 11 Astronauts have returned from their mission to the moon. It was a moment in which the United States had finally found something to rally around as one united country. But that sense of national unity won't last, not because of events in the heavens, but due to a war here on Earth. 

In this look at the final 6 months of Richard Nixon's first year, we will listen to him answer questions about his thoughts on the war he inherited and why he thought it important that we hold the line in South East Asia.  Then we switch gears and discuss his hopes to restructure our Federal Government and make it more efficient for solving our domestic problems here at home. 

You will listen in as Richard Nixon addresses the nation on reforming Welfare and moving away from a policy that destroyed families and ran fathers out of the home. He will discuss spinning off power from the Federal Government and returning it to the State Government and to the people. He would foresee many of our national issues of today, a full half century ahead of his time.

Finally, he will rally the country on how to address the war in Vietnam and ask for the help of the great Silent Majority of Americans that he knew supported stopping the high water mark of communism before it would have a chance to take root in South East Asia and possibly spread throughout the world. 

His address that November night would be one of his most effective.

Finally, we will listen in on the first Christmas for the Nixon family in the White House and take a full view of the many traditions that our new first Lady Pat Nixon began in that first Christmas in the White House. 

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On January 20, 1969, Richard Millhouse Nixon was Inaugurated the 37th President of the United States. He faced a country and a World in upheaval. It was as historian Jim Prado points out "A more complicated set of circumstances than had faced any of his predecessors, at least in the modern era." That is in my opinion an understatement. Our country was divided and under siege here at home, at war abroad, and involved in a dangerous dance with the other super power, the Soviet Union, all over the Globe. 

Richard Nixon would also face inequality at home, an environment in peril, an economy sputtering, a government that had tried to do to much in to many different directions, and an electorate that was tired of it all. Richard Nixon had to look out at the crowd that January day and wonder if he could actually get our nation out of the hole he inherited, could he save this Union?

In this look at his first six months in office you will see him planting the seeds for many of the accomplishments to come. In Civil Rights, the Environment, the Federal Court System, and overseas in Europe, in China, in dealing with the Soviets and most importantly in dealing with the 550,000 American troops then stationed in Vietnam. Here the journey to a generation of peace begins.

Finally, in July of 1969, an event happens that will, for just a moment, bring the country, and the World, together and it features a moment when Richard Nixon is actually able to pick up a phone and reach for the Moon. 

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The second episode of a two part look back at the Vietnam War on the 50th Anniversary of its end. In this episode you will hear from private soldiers,  to the tapes of the two Commander and Chiefs, as we hear the struggles of the two Presidents who had to preside over the war, and the troops who fought the war. and several of the Prisoners of War. 

The audio for these two episodes came from the ceremonies sponsored by the Military Appreciation Committee of the City of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, as the Memorial Day events centered this year on the Travelling Vietnam War Memorial, the 50th Anniversary of the release of the Prisoners of War reunion  sponsored by the Richard Nixon Foundation, and held in Yorba Linda, California, the audio tape recordings of both Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, and the audio from the original POW Dinner at the White House in May of 1973. 

It certainly will show you that Freedom is not free. 

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The first episode of a two part look back at the Vietnam War on the 50th anniversary of its end. In this episode you will hear from military front line privates, to the tapes of the two Commander and Chiefs, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon,  as we listen in on the struggles of the two Presidents who had to preside over the war ,  the troops who fought the war, and several of the Prisoners of War too. 

The audio for these two episodes came from the ceremonies sponsored by the Military Appreciation Committee of the City of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, as the Memorial Day events centered this year on the Travelling Vietnam War Memorial, the 50th Anniversary of the release of the Prisoners of War reunion  sponsored by the Richard Nixon Foundation and held in Yorba Linda, California, the audio tape recordings of both Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, and the audio from the original POW Dinner at the White House in May of 1973. 

It certainly will show you that freedom is not free. 

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Our ad for the Richard Nixon Experience. We hope you will tune in over the next two years to learn the real story of the years of Richard Nixon. 

It will change everything you thought you knew about President Richard Nixon!!