The Richard Nixon Experience

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In this special edition of The Richard Nixon Experience, we let you tune back in to that final day at the White House for President Nixon. You will hear excerpts from his resignation speech, his speech to his staff and reminiscences from several different people about those events including President Nixon and President Ford. 

All of this leading up to an extraordinary 3 minutes of footage just released by the Richard Nixon foundation that includes President nixon's brief impromptu remarks at the El Torro Marine Base when he arrived back home in California. Until this year that footage had not been released. So, other than the network news casts we had not been able to hear any of the audio from that extraordinary moment when a President, leaving office in disgrace, was greeted like a hero by the people he had led. Not at all the story you have been told. 

Then we have invited a guest to speak on this episode. Robert M. Bostock, was an aid to President Nixon in retirement and he has been a great friend to podcast. He recently wrote an op-ed for the Washington Times and in it he asked a question that I hope many of you will ask. What if President Nixon had been allowed to finish his second term? 

It is a question worth listening to the answer too and we asked Mr. Bostock to read his op-ed for our show and we will let you listen to it at the end of this broadcast. 
I agree with Mr. Bostock, the world would have been a much different and much better place had Richard Nixon completed his term of office. 

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We are not done yet with the life and career of Richard Nixon, so in this episode we are going to give you a roadmap on where our podcast will go from here for the rest of 2024 

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This episode is one of final thoughts on Richard Nixon. 

They range from subjects like the shameful treatment he received from the national news media and how they have actively worked to keep the public in the dark on the  facts of Watergate. This was a problem both when it occurred and even today as an enormous amount of easily verifiable documentation has come to light that has exposed misconduct across the board by just about every entity involved in the Watergate story. 

We will look at the current status of the prosecutorial misconduct complaint that was received last year at the United States Justice Department and continue to encourage you to weigh in on the case so it is not swept under the rug. 

We also examine, as best we could, the one lingering question that we felt we never fully resolved from our 144 episode examination of this historic period of American History. Why did a man as revered as John Doar, Chief Counsel to the House Judiciary Committee,  decide not to investigate on his own the material provided to him by the Watergate Special Prosecutor's Office?  It appears to be an elusive question if you believe as I do that people do not suddenly become dishonest. There is no history of John Doar being anything other than an honorable man. So we asked six experts on Watergate, who either lived through it, or studied it extensively as historians: 

Bob Bostock, writer of much of the exhibits located at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library, 
Dwight Chapin, President Richard Nixon's right hand man and appointments Secretary during most of his Presidency, 
Geoff Shepard, the author of three outstanding books on Watergate and widely recognized as the World's leading expert on it,
 
and three historians 
Michael Kroncwiez , of NYU and author of "They Said No to Nixon"
Kevin Kruse, of Princeton University currently working on a biography of John Doar,
Tim Naftali,  the former Director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and a CNN Contributor.

All six of them were gracious enough to  either answer me directly or pointed me to material that would be of assistance.

Then we move on to open ended mysteries, like the involvement of the intelligence agencies in the overall story of Watergate, and the exculpatory nature of the actual tapes that are now far more readily available to the public in places like Nixontapes.org run by historian Luke Nichter or his two outstanding books on the subject matter.  ( The Nixon Tapes 1971 - 1972 and The Nixon Tapes 1973  http://lukenichter.com ) 

Finally we will look back on this greatest of World Leaders who so fundamentally changed the world we live in today. As we recount his many achievements including the most important one. An effort, that has probably touched the lives of everyone on Earth in one way or the other.  For it was Richard Nixon, 37th President of the United States, that poured billions of dollars into Cancer Research that has changed the diagnosis of this deadly set of diseases from a death sentence into a chance for life. 

It is here at the end of this epic five  season podcast documentary, that we make our final case that Richard Nixon belongs among the pantheon of our greatest leaders alongside  George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. 

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This is the finale of our look at Richard Nixon, and our 145 episode look back at the most divisive era in American history other than the American Civil War,  the Vietnam war and Watergate. 

It all began with the assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem, the President of South Vietnam , followed three weeks later by the assassination of President John F. Kennedy (episode 29) and ends with this look back at the passing of President Richard Nixon. It encompasses three of the biggest traumas ever experienced by our nation, the assassination of a President, the war in Vietnam, and the removal of a President in a scandal. A scandal whose origins came as an outgrowth of a President trying to figure a way out of a war that was destroying the bonds of affection that held our nation together. 

Richard Nixon left office in disgrace. His enemies in the Democratic Party and National Media still firmly in place and who have tried to make sure his legacy is held in contempt by the American people. But that failed during President Nixon's lifetime because the American people are a lot smarter than they are given credit, and they are also an understanding and forgiving people. As time marched on, the wisdom of the policies Richard Nixon championed became clearer as did the benefits of his extraordinary accomplishments. 

Richard Nixon was one of us, a biographer once wrote, he did not come from privilege, or wealth,  he came from the small town of Yorba Linda, California and he brought with him the hard work ethic of a depression era hardscrabble childhood followed up by the agonies of fighting a World War. He championed the values of America's common people, generous in spirit, but tempering their generosity with common sense. They understood Richard Nixon and when he fell they were still there to catch him and open the door back. When he passed away in April of 1994, they came by the the tens of thousands to pay their respects, as Bob Dole said "No longer silent in their grief" 

This is that story. As we close the door to our epic look at Richard Nixon it is important for those among us who have only faint memories of this giant in the history of the World. That they see him as his contemporaries did and not as his enemies have tried to portray him .  He was simply the largest figure of his age, the Age of Nixon. 

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In this episode,   we listen to Richard Nixon's thoughts on the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union may be gone but the nation that succeeded it, Russia, is now under the leadership of an old KGB Agent, Vladimir Putin. A Russian strongman, leading a resurgence of Russian Nationalism and Russian despotism just as President Nixon had predicted way back in the early 1990s.  So President Nixon's thoughts on the subject are just as relevant now as they were at the end of the Cold War. 

Richard Nixon also developed a strange relationship near the end of his life with a brand new President. A man from the other party, married to a woman who served on the House Judiciary Committee staff that had voted to impeach him nearly two decades before. But in Bill Clinton he found a willing student of unparalleled intellectual capability and the two men became friends.  In this episode we will learn that story and much, much more in part two of our listen to the Wisdom of Richard Nixon. 

This episode also has several points made by author Kasey Pipes throughout,  Mr. Pipes  wrote the book "After the Fall"  about Richard Nixon's post Presidency. We highly recommend that book and provide you a link here. 

https://a.co/d/cygMZIN

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In this episode   we listen to Richard Nixon's thoughts on a wide variety of issues that still exist today, plus his advice at how to deal with problems in our lives that apply to everyone. He tells stories from his time in public office as a Congressman,  Senator, Vice-President and President. You will hear some of the legendary journalists he was interviewed by in his later career as well, from Barbara Walters, Hugh Sidey and Larry King. 

There is a lot to learn and a lot we can all be thankful he shared with us through his writings and interviews.  This is part one of Richard Nixon unfiltered, with little commentary, in his own words. 

It was a remarkable  life, extraordinarily well lived. 

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This was an extraordinary moment. It marks the beginning of Richard Nixon's long, and remarkable journey to the status of beloved elder statesman.  Richard Nixon walked into the room a hated, disgraced, much maligned, but still historic figure, and he walked out having won the respect of everyone who witnessed his performance. 

As he stood an answered questions on every subject imaginable he had to endure the verbal abuse of a huge throng of protesters chanting "No more Nixon" so loudly it is audible in the background of this video. Yet, Richard Nixon was unflappable, thoughtfully answering question after question about world affairs, American domestic affairs, the relationship between the United States and Europe and even questions about Watergate itself. 

He answered them all. 

It is an extraordinary performance. In which  Richard Nixon  offered a rare moment of acknowledgement that he had not handled Watergate as it should have been handled, saying  "They were right I screwed it up and I paid the price."  

That simple statement, in a lot of ways to a lot of people around the world, closed one era in the history of the life of Richard Nixon and opened what would eventually be seen as arguably the greatest and happiest era in the life and career of Richard Nixon.  

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Finally the end of the Vietnam War. Richard Nixon had negotiated an honorable peace with the assurances that we would continue to help the South Vietnamese  to be able to defend themselves from any aggression from the North.  When that aggression came President Gerald Ford did all he could to honor that pledge but the Congress cut off all funding and disallowed our President to even provide arial support for the South Vietnamese. 

On April, 30, 1975, the North Vietnamese Communist troops rolled into Saigon and the American Embassy was evacuated.  The military did all they could to get our friends out of the country, for 14 hours it airlifted thousands of Vietnamese to safety out of the country before our Ambassador flew out on a helicopter. The Marines then locked the place up and left the American Embassy to the communist forces that from the air could be seen in the streets of Saigon. It was finally over, and the peace Richard Nixon had worked so hard to attain, that Lyndon Johnson had sacrificed his career to attain, and more importantly, over 58,000 Americans had died for, was lost. 

It was a shameful hour in American history. Though I believe that we bought the time for the rest of Southeast Asia to gather the strength to fend off Communism's high tide. A belief shared with former First Lady Lady Bird Johnson. 

Then the episode move on to the next chapter in the life of Richard Nixon. He re-emerges in 1978 with a 28 hour interview with TV Host David Frost. It would be the one and only time Richard Nixon would be cross examined about his time in office and his role in Watergate. It was an extraordinary set of interviews in which the President held his own. He was asked tough questions and explained himself just fine. He also gave the American People his own apology for the way he dealt with the scandal. It is an amazing set of interviews and I invite you all to tune in for yourselves, many are available on YOUTUBE for viewing, or you can buy the DVD box set here:

https://www.amazon.com/Frost-Nixon-Watergate-Interviews-Remastered/dp/B001GZ6Q1K

Finally we take you to the tiny town of Hyden, Kentucky, where a community from the heartland of America decided to honor the President that was "One of Us" , not an elitist, not a Washington Insider, but a man who as a national leader had championed the forgotten Americans, the non shouters, the non demonstrators, the great silent majority of Americans that , as President,  Richard Nixon had never forgotten and always looked out to protect, and now it was they who were opening the door for him to return to the national stage again. 

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This episode opens with the new President Gerald R. Ford addressing a joint session of Congress. He is there laying out his agenda for his new administration. The problems that he felt needed immediate addressing and where he intended to continue the policies of the man he had just replaced as President. Unfortunately for Ford every question he got in his first press conference had to do with Richard Nixon. He was spending a disproportionate amount of his time dealing with the problems of his predecessor. 

So Gerald Ford decided to put an end to the issues once and for all. He granted a full an absolute pardon on to Richard Nixon thusly clearing the deck and allowing the country to move forward and leave Watergate behind. It would however, stir up a hornets nest among the rabid Nixon haters, and much of the country who had no idea of the alleged massive misconduct of the Watergate Special Prosecution force. 

Here in this episode we will hear from Representative Elizabeth Holtzman who would get a chance to question President Ford during his historic testimony in front of the House Judiciary Committee. You will hear President Ford in an interview with NBC "Later" host Bob Costas discuss the decision to grant the Nixon pardon. 
You will also hear about his visit with President Nixon when he was near death in California during the month of October 1974. 

Then we switch gears to the attempt by the 
Special Prosecutor's to get Grand Jury testimony from the former President despite his weakened condition. In hopes, many thought, of entrapping the former President in a perjury wrap, which would not have been covered by the Presidential Pardon. However, they never laid a glove on the former leader of the free world. 

In this episode we cover these days during the time Richard Nixon was at his lowest. 

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This episode is a preview of our final series on Richard Nixon. Here we begin with Gerald Ford becoming President of the United States and former President Richard Nixon heading off into exile and most likely into oblivion. It appeared he was to be sidelined and treated as a failure. 

 With Richard Nixon gone South Vietnam was cast aside and collapsed into a Communist hell. The Watergate Defendants were convicted and Nixon himself was saved from prison by a pardon. It appeared the Special Prosecutor's and the Nixon haters had won, proving their point that Nixon was little more than a criminal and horrible failure as President. 

As we have shown, time has not been kind to that storyline of the Watergate Scandal. But long before that fact became as clear as it is today, the grateful American people of the era were ready to forgive Richard Nixon for his perceived crimes, his efforts on our nation's behalf  became more and more appreciated, and he was welcomed back to the national scene in the final 17 years of his life.  His image even received an ovation at the 1992 Republican National Convention.

By the time of Richard Nixon's death in April of 1994, he bore the distinction of being seen by the American people as a beloved elder statesman whose opinions about the world were sought out everywhere.  This is that story as we share with you those moments that changed people's opinion of President Richard Nixon, from a blockbuster interview, to the welcome of a small town in Kentucky, to the Oxford Student Union, to being welcome wherever in the world he chose to go.  It was yet another remarkable rise from the ashes for a President who deserves to be ranked as one of the greatest to ever hold the office.