Ziegler Again Fields Questions About Nixon : Library: The former press secretary praised the facility to be dedicated Thursday as ‘a balanced mosaic’ of a career.

More than 18 years after the break-in, former presidential press secretary Ron Ziegler on Sunday once again found himself answering reporters’ questions about Richard M. Nixon and Watergate.

But gone was the combative, evasive style that was his trademark at the White House. In fact, Ziegler was much at ease Sunday at small news conference following a private 90-minute tour of the new Richard M. Nixon Library and Birthplace, smiling and shaking hands with reporters.

Ziegler was the first high-ranking member of the Nixon White House to visit the library, which will be dedicated on Thursday and open to the public on Friday. He described the tour a a “moving” experience that evoked memories of his White House years.

Ziegler, 51, praised the library as “a balanced mosaic of Richard Nixon’s career.” He said the Watergate exhibit provides a complete record of the scandal that drove Nixon out of office in 1974.

He said one display in the Watergate exhibit especially grabbed his attention. It highlighted his famous description of the Watergate break-in.

“The thing that caught my eye was of course the quote that I’m often credited with (which) was, ‘This is a third-rate burglary that has no place in the political system,’ ” said Ziegler. “I noticed it immediately when I walked into the room.”

Ziegler served as Nixon’s press secretary from 1969 to 1975, leaving one year after Nixon resigned and went into self-imposed political exile in San Clemente. Ziegler has since gone into private business and is now president of the National Assn. of Chain Drugstores in Washington.

He said his favorite exhibit was one devoted to 1968, the year Nixon was elected to the presidency.

“We had social turmoil, we were confused about involvement in Vietnam, the young people were lacking in trust of their leaders,” he said. “We had tremendous desegregation, civil unrest and of course we were at war. This is the situation that Richard Nixon found when he became President of the United States. . . . Those were complex, difficult years.”

Ziegler said he was impressed with a number of exhibits in the museum, including Nixon’s written correspondence with world leaders and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., and materials from his first campaign for Congress.

“The Watergate exhibit was still not quite finished as far as I could see,” he said. “We were sort of stepping over material that was going into the exhibit. But it’s all there.”