Healing Richard Nixon: a Doctor's Memoir

University of Kentucky UKnowledge Political History History 2003 Healing Richard Nixon: A Doctor's Memoir John C. Lungren John C. Lungren Jr. Click here to let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Thanks to the University of Kentucky Libraries and the University Press of Kentucky, this book is freely available to current faculty, students, and staff at the University of Kentucky. Find other University of Kentucky Books at uknowledge.uky.edu/upk. For more information, please contact UKnowledge at [email protected]. Recommended Citation Lungren, John C. and Lungren, John C. Jr., "Healing Richard Nixon: A Doctor's Memoir" (2003). Political History. 24. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_political_history/24 Healing Richard Nixon THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON August 1, 1974 Dear Jack: It is typical of you to always do the right thing at the right time, and I deeply appre- ciate your thoughtful telegram of July 26. Your words of friendship and concern mean more than I can say, and they are a source of strength and encoviragement for me at this difficult time. Pat joins me in sending our warmest good wishes to Lorain and you. Sincerely, Dr. John C. Lungren 4180 Chestnut Avenue Long Beach, California HEALING RICHARD NIXON A DOCTOR'S MEMOIR John C. Lungren, M.D. and John C. Lungren Jr. With a Foreword by Rick Perlstein THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY Publication of this volume was made possible in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Copyright © 2003 by The University Press of Kentucky Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth, serving Bellarmine University, Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, The Filson Historical Society, Georgetown College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University. All rights reserved. Editorial and Saks Offices: The University Press of Kentucky 663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008 07 06 05 04 03 5 4 3 2 1 Frontispiece: A letter to the author, sent by President Nixon just days before his resignation. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lungren,John C, 1916-2000. Healing Richard Nixon : a doctor's memoir /John C. Lungren and John C. Lungren, Jr. p. cm. ISBN 0-8131-2274-0 (Cloth : alk. paper) 1. Nixon, Richard M. (Richard Milhous), 1913—Health. 2. Nixon, Richard M. (Richard Milhous), 1913-3. Presidents—United States—Biography. 4. Lungren, John C, 1916-2000. 5. Nixon, Richard M. (Richard Milhous), 1913—Friends and associates. 6. Physicians—United States—Biography. I. Lungren, John C. II. Title. E856.L86 2003 973.924'092—dc21 2003005312 Members of the Association of American University Presses Dedication of John C. Lungren, M.D. For My Loving Wife Lorain Kathleen Lungren. In Memory of Jack Drown Helene Drown. Dedication of John C. Lungren Jr. For My Wife, Mentor, and Inspiration Nancy Jean Lungren. Contents Foreword ix Prefaces by John C. Lungren Jr. and John C. Lungren, M.D. xvii Acknowledgments xxv 1. The Cease of Majesty 1 2. From Pharaohs to Phlebitis 9 3. Dread Unconcealed 21 4. The Plot Thickens 29 5. On the Campaign Trail I 41 6. On the Campaign Trail II 61 7. The Haldeman Enigma 75 8. Defeating Death 83 9. Judge Sirica's Medical Panel 93 10. Nixon, Sinatra, Dreyfus 113 11. Habeas Corpus: Nixon on Watergate and Vietnam 119 12. Nixon and the Jews 127 13. Nixon and Kissinger 131 14. Regimen for Recovery 137 15. Dreadful Summoners 145 16. Nixon in China 151 17. Pat Nixon and The Final Days 159 18. New Glory 167 Appendix 183 Notes 191 Bibliography 197 Index 203 Photos follow page 100 Foreword Rick Perlstein DR. JOHN C. LUNGREN BEGINS HIS BOOK with an epi- graph from his subject. "But I have found that leaders are subject to all the human frailties," Richard Nixon wrote in his 1962 book Six Crises. It is a good choice, for the sen- tence suggests that Nixon once believed, remarkably, that somehow he could render himself invulnerable and that, well into his adulthood, he had to learn to live with the fact that he could not. This quote also helps explain why Dr. John C. Lungren—not a biographer, not a historian, not a professional writer, certainly not an unbiased observer—is impor- tant for understanding Richard Nixon. This issue of vulnerability—repressing it, belatedly acknowledging it, fighting it, hiding it, probing it, exploiting it in others, and even, in strategic moments, exploiting it in himself—was central to Richard Nixon's life. As Richard Nixon's personal physician, John Lungren was on the campaign trails of the 1950s and 1960s, and he was with him after his resignation during the crisis of August 1974. Lungren was the one with the best access to Richard Nixon at those moments of exis- tential crisis and physical vulnerability. It was Lungren who Foreword saw Nixon "alabaster white, incoherent, and slipping into unconsciousness" and who saw him being slapped back into consciousness by a nurse crying "Richard! Richard!"—the name no one but his dead mother had called him. Through him we see Nixon conveying information about his physical condition in humiliated whispers. There were no doubts at these moments about the great leader's equal vulnerability to human frailty. "Even the President of the United States," Bob Dylan sang, "sometimes must have to stand naked." John C. Lungren was a California physician trained at the University of Notre Dame and the University of Penn- sylvania, comfortably settled as a specialist in internal medicine and based at the Memorial Medical Center in Long Beach when he met Richard Nixon on his 1952 campaign train. He was soon asked to share duties as campaign physician. The two men were, in many ways, of a piece, which is to say, of a generation. They were men who had joined the effort to defeat Hitler and Tojo when already well into their professional practices in law and medicine. They returned after the war to a nation, America, and a region, southern California, where they were poised to inherit the world. Richard Nixon's ability to both embody and appeal to the new, ambitious leaders, in their Republican incarnation at least, defined much of the appeal that brought him to Con- gress as a representative of Orange County in 1946. In paint- ing this portrait of the fall and recovery of a complex Nixon, Lungren has also provided a valuable self-portrait of a quint- essential Nixon Man, a species that would, to the great con- sternation of liberals, come to define so much of American society by the last quarter of the twentieth century: conser- vatives, in a word. It is instructive to hop back on the campaign train with Foreword xi Nixon in 1952, 1954, 1956, 1958, 1960, and 1968. Some of the Lungrens' vignettes are familiar. ("Maybe this should be my last campaign," he tells his doctor—this time in 1954; but this was a lament that became semiannually familiar to many of his other intimates.) Other vignettes will be read by longtime Nixon-watchers with knowing smiles (or gri- maces)—evidence of Nixon's skill at satisfying his under- lings' sense of the boss's good intentions regarding decisions that were, in fact, considerably more complex. ("Jack," Nixon tells Lungren after sounding him out for information aboutjohn F. Kennedy's medical condition in 1960, "This is a personal subject and we will not use it in this campaign.") Many of the anecdotes are fresh and will satisfy those sympathetic to Nixon on the lookout for evidence of the sometimes less-than-pure intentions of the media regarding their treatment of their longtime bete noire—like the time Theodore White in 1960 was spotted wearing a JFK button on the Nixon campaign train and explained defensively that he was sticking with the winner, even though White was reporting to the public at the same time that it was Nixon, in fact, who was ahead at that point. But the heart of the book is anguish. In the summer of 1974, the Watergate hearings were grinding inexorably to- wards impeachment, and Lungren, the friend and confi- dante, sent a telegram of support to his former charge. He received a surprising response five days later. A pain in his left leg, present in his last two presidential trips overseas, had grown worse. Nixon told Lungren it was his first illness since contracting childhood brucelosis because of his father's fetish for raw milk. He asked Lungren to take over the treatment. The invitation was an appeal of wounded vulnerability: "I want you to take care of me because I trust you," Nixon xii Foreword said, "and I know you wouldn't want anything from me." After the rough-and-tumble of a political lifetime, there were few people left he could trust. And what he said next, with "evident fear and anguish," showed more vulnerability still. "Jack, I will understand if you can't do it"—can't do it, that is, because of the ignominy and risk of public association with a disgraced and hated man. "As I knew Nixon," Lungren then observes, "he was always able to cover up his inner feelings with energy and resilience. Nevertheless, this time I found Nixon very sub- dued." His "fear of dying was tangible and real, yet it was completely uncharacteristic of Nixon as I knew him." Hope dying, Nixon was bereft. Lungren was " truly worried about whether Nixon would recover." Nixon's phlebitis grew worse.

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