Richard III, the Newest Nixon : One Constant Remains: His Amoral Use of Power

It had been a fine dinner, and during dessert the distinguished editor leaned back and talked about what a grand job Richard Nixon had done speaking to the American Society of Newspaper Editors. The editor hastened to explain that he had never been a fan of Nixon’s. “But I tell you,” he said, “I was impressed!”

“You can afford to be,” I responded. “You didn’t write editorials endorsing him in two presidential elections.” As a member of the small but select group that did, I have special reason to remember Richard Nixon. I cannot forget that he betrayed not only the confidence of the American people but that of my newspaper.

Richard Nixon did teach me a valuable lesson, one to keep in mind as the campaign of 1988 heats up: that there is no substitute for character in a President. Without character, no other qualities--statesmanship or showmanship, experience or youth, perseverance or imagination, intelligence or knowledge, labor or imagination--can make up for its absence. None. The danger to the country and the presidency may be only the greater if a chief executive’s other qualities are not placed in the service of virtue.

If such an observation is more 18th than 20th century, more classical than contemporary, that does not necessarily make it irrelevant. Marcus Tullius Cicero still has more to teach a republic than Richard Milhous Nixon does. And this is still technically a republic, despite all its obvious manifestations of mass democracy--including the increasingly successful return of R. Nixon from his own Elba.

Not even Bonaparte handled his return so patiently, so cleverly, so effectively. And not just newspaper editors are impressed. At another stop on his comeback trail, the Economic Club of Detroit, Nixon received a standing ovation and was besieged by autograph hounds. A local restaurateur watched the proceedings and concluded: “Richard Nixon is one of a kind.” Let us hope so. Even a republic as fortunate as this one may be able to afford only so many Nixons.

If there was any doubt about H.L. Mencken’s dictum that nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public, it should be removed by the successful self-rehabilitation of Richard Nixon. His return from obscurity is a great tribute not only to his own powers of manipulation but also to the brevity of the American memory.

How many comebacks has he made now? There was the old Nixon, the new Nixon, and now the newest Nixon. This model is being introduced in selected showrooms across the country, such as the Economic Club of Detroit. Whatever changes in the exterior styling, the savvy consumer will suspect that, underneath, it’s still the same old Nixon.

And just what, one wonders, is that? Behind all his different but equally wooden styles, the broken oath and blanket pardon, the old tricks and new evasions, there doesn’t seem to be a self at all. Is there anything that has remained constant in his public life other than the search for public approbation? Is there anything whole, unnegotiable, continuous and consistent in his record from the time the Fighting Quaker entered politics to the moment when he assured all that “I am not a crook” before accepting a pardon?

There is a familiar aura about the latest comeback of Richard Nixon. It’s not the usual reception accorded an ex-President. Who else excites so distinct a mixture of admiration and repugnance in the American psyche? Why, retired crime bosses, of course.

There is something about great power exercised illicitly that fascinates us. Gangster films were once a minor vice of American moviegoers, and now they’ve become an art form in “The Godfather” series. There is something in the American soul--maybe it is something universal--that is mesmerized by the amoral use of power. The Nixons of the world fascinate, whether they head a government or a mob. (The difference wasn’t always clear in the Nixon Administration.)

The unstated, and inaccurate, premise of such fascination is that a crook, or at least one on a sufficiently grand scale, cannot be a schnook, too. Never mind that Nixon, distinguished statesman that he is, managed to transform a third-rate burglary into a first-rate scandal by his management skills. No such drab fact is likely to interfere with one of the most cherished items of American folklore: that the clever must be crooked and the dumb honest.

Hence the common defense--common in more than one sense of the term--offered by Nixon’s admirers: “Other Presidents did the same thing.” That no other President resigned his office or had to in order to avoid impeachment has been reduced to a forgettable technicality. By absolving Nixon of guilt, his pardon left the impression that suborning perjury and obstructing justice are pardonable in a President. They aren’t--not without the kind of confession and punishment that Nixon has so artfully dodged.

The Nixon pardon has to be one of the great triumphs of cynicism in American political history. To leave justice undone is to lower the moral tone of all of society. Only after public opinion is desensitized is it possible to accept Nixon as conquering hero, elder statesman, foreign-policy expert, or whatever pose he chooses to strike next.

If Richard Nixon has become the most fascinating of American political figures of late, it is because he is the most inauthentic, the most genuinely fake. He is the master of the outward gesture; his presence is never so embarrassing as when he tries to sound personal, direct, intimate. His emptiness is so complete it fascinates. No wonder he has become the stuff not just of political commentary but of opera, too (“Nixon in China”).

If John Waters, that genius at exhibiting American kitsch, is looking for his next script after “Pink Flamingos” and “Hairspray,” he might consider filming the political history of Richard M. Nixon.