The Mystery of Richard Nixon

• The President welcomed the Nixons back from their harrowing South American "good will- tour last May. The Mystery of Richard Nixon A Post editor's penetrating examination of one of the most disputed figures in America— the man who at the moment probably has the best chance of becoming the next U. S. President. By STEWART ALSOP Reception committee at Caracas. Even Nixon's enemies admitted that he faced the mobs courageously. 11111 There is at least one point about that much disputed figure, Richard Milhous Nixon, which no sensible person can now dispute. De- spite a surface blandness which sometimes makes him seem quite ordinary, Vice Presi- dent Nixon is a most extraordinary man. Con- sider one measure of just how extraordinary he is. Since 1836, when Martin Van Buren in- herited the crown from crusty old Andrew Jackson, no Vice President has been nomi- nated as his party's Presidential candidate. Yet already, two years in advance, Vice President Nixon has the 1960 Republican Presidential nomination sewed up in a nearly puncture- proof bag. And even allowing for the current low state of Republican fortunes, he unques- tionably has a better chance than any other 2g After one of the most successful RICHARD years the college has ever witnessed, NIXON we stop to reminisce, and come to the PRESIDENT realization that much of the success A. S. W. C. was due to the efforts of this very gentleman. Always progressive, and with a liberal attitude, he has led us through the year with flying colors. J The young Nixon (right) with his parents, and brothers Harold (left) and Nixon became student-body president of Whittier College by advocating on-campus dances. Donald. Their father lived to be 77. Harold died of tuberculosis in his youth. He personally disliked dancing but, as a good politician, knew how to pick a winning issue. man to be the next President of these United about whom no one can pretend to be wholly nesses —Nixon has handled himself brilliantly. States. objective. Until rather recently, I inclined Reporters who have covered him on his trips Yet to the vast majority of Americans, this more to the view of the old lady in Whittier abroad, some of whom started as strong anti- extraordinary man remains a cardboard than to Nixon worship. Nixon seemed a Nixonites, have come back praising him for his figure, oddly inhuman and impersonal. To his shrewd, tough, ambitious politician, and not deft sense of personal diplomacy; and, after enemies—and he has, probably, more ene- very much more. But especially in the second his trip to South America, for plain physical mies than any other American—he is a card- Eisenhower Administration, like many other courage in the face of that most terrifying of board devil, utterly without scruple or con- Washington reporters, I found myself, almost phenomena, a mob gone wild. viction. To his admirers—and they also num- in spite of myself, increasingly impressed by What is more important, Nixon has re- ber in the many millions—he is a cardboard Nixon. peatedly displayed a knack—useful in a poten- saint, whose strength is as the strength of ten In certain almost impossibly difficult situa- tial President —for being right. In the pre- because his heart is pure. tions—notably President Eisenhower's ill- Sputnik era (Continued on Page 54) Sometimes the dislike of Nixon is pure bile, undiluted by rational content, as in the case of the elderly lady in Whittier, Nixon's home town in California, who telephoned this re- porter to say: "I know it's against religion to hate anybody, but I just can't help hating that Nixon." The worship of Nixon can be equally irrational, for a case against Nixon—in some respects a strong case—can certainly be made. The purpose of this report is not to please the old lady from Whittier, who will certainly go on hating Nixon to the end of her days. Nor is its purpose to please those to whom any criticism of the Vice President is tainted with treason. What follows is, instead, an attempt—doomed to partial failure, since a part of any man always remains hidden—to see through the cardboard figure to the human being underneath. The maker of such an attempt should give his credentials at the start, since Nixon is one of those men—like Franklin D. Roosevelt— Nixon wept on Senator Knowland's shoulder during the 1952 Nixon remains loyal to Murray Chotiner campaign-fund crisis, after Ike said, "Dick, you're my boy." (right), his controversial ex-manager. THE SATURDAY EVENING POST :)4 The Mystery of Richard Nixon (Continued from Page 29) last summer, Nixon's was almost the which men do not change. The psycholo- only voice in Administration raised gists have proved that a boy's intelligence against the policy of defense cutback and quotient at the age of nine will be about slowdown. He instantly recognized and the same when he is forty-five. A born publicly acknowledged the real meaning fool or a born coward will almost always of the first Soviet satellite, when other so remain. As the Bible warns, a man Administration spokesmen were smugly cannot "by taking thought . add one attempting to laugh it off with weak cubit unto his stature." jokes. He was the first to recognize that Yet time and experience do change a the recession was a serious matter, de- man, not in his inner nature, but rather manding a serious Government policy as saline deposits change the outer size to deal with it. And it has been difficult and shape of a barnacle exposed to the for even the most cynical of the anti- sea. It is silly to suppose that a man of Nixonites to detect a political motivation Nixon's intelligence and capacity to learn in some of the positions Nixon has taken, has been in no way affected by the ex- like his strong advocacy of the politically traordinary experiences through which he unpopular foreign-aid program. has passed. The following attempt to I also discovered something else—that understand how Nixon has changed and Nixon is a most interesting man to talk how he has not, takes the form of a to. Unlike so many denizens of the Wash- drama in three acts. ington zoo, he never wraps himself in the American flag or recites his latest In Act One we examine the original speeches verbatim to a restless audience barnacle—the boy who was father of the of one. He talks politics sensibly and man. In Act Two we consider Nixon in well. Indeed, where the subjects of poli- midpassage, in the greatest crisis of his tics and government are concerned, life, when charges in the 1952 campaign Nixon is something of an intellectual, as that he was the beneficiary of a "secret the excerpts from my notebook which ac- millionaires' fund" all but destroyed him. company this article suggest. He has In Act Three we consider Nixon today, read a great deal, and he has thought a with six years of the Vice Presidency be- great deal about what he has read. hind him, standing within a long arm's Nixon also has another quality which reach of the nation's highest office. is hardly characteristic of most poli- Start, then, with the bare bones of ticians—he listens. An interviewer is apt Nixon's early life, before trying to clothe to find himself suddenly transformed them in a little flesh. He was born in 1913 into interviewee, with Nixon taking notes in a hard-working, impecunious Quaker on a large yellow pad. State Department family, and he was brought up in the officials who have briefed him before his pleasant, sunlit Quaker town of Whittier, trips abroad, accustomed as they are to just outside Los Angeles. His school and the glazed eyes and unstifled yawns of college records have a Horatio Alger con- junketing politicians forced briefly to sistency. In Whittier High School, he was listen to the facts, have been amazed by first in his class scholastically, president Nixon's incisive questions, his intense of the student body and a champion de- "Borden's Buttermilk determination to master the essentials. bater. In Whittier College, he was second Nixon, in short, is certainly far more in his class, president of the student than just another tough, shrewd, am- body, a champion debater and a very bad is naturally cooling!" bitious politician. But then, what kind football player. At Duke University Law • of man is he? The best way to try to an- School in North Carolina—he went there swer that question is to consider the kind on a scholarship and was graduated in says Elsie, the Borden Cow of man, and the kind of boy, he has been, 1937—he was third in his class, the and then to try to understand the ways equivalent of president of the student Borden's country-fresh buttermilk is low in calories—cools in which he has changed, and the ways body and on the law review. you off without worrying your waistline! in which he has not changed. Even these bare bones tell something Among Nixon's critics and rivals, it is about the young Nixon. He was intelli- Healthful, too ... this tangy, refreshing drink contains all fashionable to scoff at the notion that gent—his scholastic record proves it. He the vital proteins, B-vitamins, and minerals of milk plus an Nixon has changed at all. And in one was popular—an unpopular boy is not sense they are right.

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