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| Billy Graham | Henry Kissinger | Bill Clinton | Michael Beschloss |
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| Billy Graham | Henry Kissinger | Bill Clinton | Michael Beschloss |
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In an explicit attack on President Clinton and his liberal ‘tax-and-spend’ policies, Dole argues that middle America loved Richard Nixon because “Like him, they valued accomplishment more than ideology. They wanted their government to do the decent thing, but not to bankrupt them in the process.” Dole also claims that it was Nixon who “leapfrogged the conventional wisdom to propose revolutionary solutions to health care and welfare reform - anticipating by a full generation the debates now raging on Capitol Hill.” This statement conveniently coopts healthcare reform, one of Clinton’s most dearly held programs, as originally a Republican cause. Dole also uses his funeral oration to reinterpret his own role in Richard Nixon’s life. Although he was head of the Republican National Committee during Nixon’s 1972 reelection bid, and a key ‘surrogate’ campaigner for Nixon then and when Watergate allegations were first raised, Dole himself managed to remain free of the taint of the scandal.[1] Dole does not make the mistake of recalling the spectre now, instead referring to Nixon as ‘unafraid of controversy’, with much more emphasis in the eulogy on his early life and final years. It was Dole, also, that proved a crucial figure in Richard Nixon’s resignation. When Senator Dole announced he was in favour of convicting him, yet another important Republican in the ‘certain’ column of votes against the president, it confirmed Nixon’s presidency was over. In no uncertain terms, Dole announced in 1974 that “Everything Nixon touches seems to turn to ashes. But now the trauma is gone… The argument that the country can’t stand the strain is no longer a consideration. Fifty-eight to sixty votes are already pretty solid for conviction.” [2] In his memoirs, Nixon seems to harbour no ill feelings towards Dole, and in his eulogy Dole proudly remembers that in a speech in Washington in 1993 Nixon “rested in my office before leaving the Capitol.” But Dole’s peripheral, though no doubt important, role in Richard Nixon’s success as president, and subsequent defeat, remains covered up. [1] Richard Nixon, Memoirs of Richard Nixon, MacMillan,
Melbourne, 1978, 665; Stephen E. Ambrose, Nixon - Volume Two: The Triumph
of a Politician 1962-1972, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1989, 608
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| The New York Times | The Washington Post | The Wall Street Journal | Hunter S. Thompson | ||
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