Nixon on Clinton
“So what did you think of him?” I asked Richard Nixon after his first meeting with Bill Clinton.
Originally published in the New York Times on April 28, 1994
“So what did you think of him?” I asked Richard Nixon after his first meeting with Bill Clinton.
“You know,” Mr. Nixon replied, “he came from dirt and I came from dirt. He lost a gubernatorial race and came back to win the Presidency, and I lost a gubernatorial race and came back to win the Presidency. He overcame a scandal in his first campaign for national office and I overcame a scandal in my first national campaign. We both just gutted it out. He was an outsider from the South and I was an outsider from the West.”
Thus the 37th President revealed the special kinship he felt with the 42d, despite their differences in party, philosophy and generation. And Mr. Nixon had a special reason to reach out: he was so deeply committed to the cause of increasing U.S. aid for the emerging republics of the former Soviet Union that he violated his own ironclad rule in dealing with successors -- to give advice only when asked.
He sent intermediaries -- Senator Bob Dole, former Ambassador Robert Strauss, the Arkansas political consultant Dick Morris, among others -- to urge Mr. Clinton to meet with him on foreign policy. Mr. Clinton is reported to have said “good idea” and asked for Mr. Nixon's phone number. But months went by with no call.
Mr. Nixon had dark suspicions that Hillary Rodham Clinton was blocking him; in 1974 she had served on the staff of the House committee that recommended impeaching him. More likely, the all-consuming confusion of a new Presidency was to blame. In any event, the call finally did come, and a few days later, on March 8, 1993, the two men met in the living room of the White House family quarters for a long private talk about aid to Russia.
It was a moment Mr. Nixon had foreseen. In 1992 he heard through the grapevine that President George Bush's strategists were weighing inviting him to the Republican National Convention. Mr. Nixon reviewed his options with me. “I could go to the convention and give a speech praising Bush,” he said, “but that would be boring, and the only thing worse in politics than being wrong is being boring. I could go to the convention and deliver a rip-snorting attack on Clinton. If I do that and Clinton is elected, it would be very hard for me to reach out to him on the situation in Russia.”
Although Mr. Nixon wanted badly to be accepted again at his party's convention, he issued a statement that afternoon that he would not attend and did not wish to be invited.
In the end, Mr. Nixon came to like Mr. Clinton and had enormous respect for his political talents. “You know that bit he does where he bites his lip and looks like he is pondering the question?” he asked me. “I think it's practiced, but let me tell you, it's great television.”
He thought the Whitewater affair could pose serious problems. When I pointed out that the poll numbers reflected no damage to Mr. Clinton's popularity, Mr. Nixon observed that Watergate had not hurt him either, until the televised Senate hearings. “The American people don't believe anything's real until they see it on television,” he said. “When Whitewater hearings are televised, it will be Clinton's turn in the bucket.”
Perhaps. But if Mr. Nixon's advice to his young successor provides for a surer American foreign policy and increases the chances of peace, then we all profited more than either of them.
My pastor does a great impersonation of Bill Clinton -Cornerstone Chapel -Gary Hammick.. great article Mr. stone
I met Bill Clinton when he was Governor of Arkansas and "exploring" running for POTUS at a meet/greet in the Pacific Palisades at a prominent Hollywood producer's home...all the women took notice of him (the Elvis factor) and I recognized him for the slime ball that he is...Hillary was still wearing her headband ,and was standing off in a corner...he made the rounds and eventually came up to me and did that phoney left hand on my shoulder shaking my hand with the right hand thing...ewwww....I find it hard to believe Nixon would have been taken in by BC's BS and phoney personality...they were not the same...Clinton was chosen by the PTB of Arkansas like Fulbright and given scholarships to Georgetown (CIA) University and to Oxford where he didn't "inhale" lol. He was very smart but he was cocky and a liar. Hillary on her part was also chosen, her from a mob-connected family in Chicago. They met at Yale Law School and went on from there. Hillary was the handler and they moved up the Dem Party food chain. When she was a lawyer on the Impeachment Committee, she was FIRED having stolen several files which rumour has it she still has. I never liked Nixon, he was clearly set-up with the whole Watergate thing because he wouldn't go "all the way" with the Deep State imo...I think he only attended the Bohemian Grove once and was put off by what was going on there...so he wouldn't play ball doing disgusting perverted stuff and also he knew who killed JFK, etc. He knew where the bodies were buried. Clinton on the other hand, was a bold faced liar, cheated on Hillary multiple times as we know from all the lawsuits, and possibly rape with the help of the Arkansas State Police (Anita Broderick). The Clintons should be in GITMO and hanged. Clinton won in the first place because of Perot and no one really like George H W Bush.