Officials to Pay Tribute at Nixon Library Event

A long list of local celebrities, Republican party leaders and members of the Nixon Administration will honor the former President at a ground breaking today in Yorba Linda for the Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library.

Nixon’s older daughter, Tricia Nixon Cox, 42, was scheduled to attend, but canceled at the last minute Thursday after being stricken with flu symptoms at her home in the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

“She feels terrible that she cannot come,” said John Taylor, an aide to the former President. “She left the final decision until (Thursday) but decided that she was just feeling too poorly.”

However the former President’s youngest daughter, Julie Nixon Eisenhower, 40, was staying at the Rolling Hills home of family friends Helene and Jack Drown on Thursday and is expected to attend today’s events.

Library officials expect a turnout of more than 1,500 people when festivities open at 2 p.m. with a half-hour concert by the 1st Marine Corps Division Band.

Traffic along Yorba Linda Boulevard will be rerouted between Eureka Avenue and Imperial Highway from noon to 5 p.m. to make room for parking.

At 2:30, Julie Eisenhower will signal a bulldozer to break ground in front of the original Nixon farmhouse where the former President was born in 1913.

The $25-million library, funded privately, will house memorabilia from Nixon’s youth and offical papers from his service as a congressman and vice president.

Official materials from his presidency, however, remain under federal control in a Virginia warehouse. Nixon resigned his office in 1974. And in the wake of the Watergate scandal, Congress passed a law turning over his presidential tapes and papers to the National Archives.

But the library will feature exhibits highlighting Nixon’s accomplishments as President and include materials about Watergate, library officials said.

Following the ground-breaking ceremonies, a private reception for major contributors to the library will be held at the Anaheim Hilton Hotel. Henry Kissinger will speak at a 7 p.m. dinner at the hotel.

Other former Nixon Administration officials expected to attend the dinner include Maurice H. Stans, secretary of Commerce; H.R. Haldeman, White House chief of staff, and Robert Finch, secretary of Health Education and Welfare.

In remarks prerecorded on videotape, Nixon will address the 700 dinner guests and talk about his library.

Nixon’s view of his library’s function. Life, Page 3.