Nixon Proves He Can Go Home Again

Richard M. Nixon blended past and present Wednesday, viewing the simple wooden house where he was born and strolling through the next-door presidential library to be dedicated today at a triumphal gathering of Presidents, friends and family.

It was a day marked by an evening party of Nixon Administration alumni and a lunch for library contributors, a reunion of men and women like Nixon friend Bebe Rebozo and presidential secretary Rose Mary Woods; former Treasury Secretary William E. Simon and the Rev. Billy Graham; former Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig and former press secretary Ron Ziegler.

Nixon peeked into the home his father built from a kit, and then proceeded with his wife, Pat, daughter Julie and her husband, David Eisenhower, to the $21-million, Spanish-style building that will be opened to the public Friday. There they entered the library auditorium and he spoke to more than 300 people who had converged from across the country to salute him.

Many in the standing-room-only audience were former White House workers and members of the February Group, an organization of Nixon Administration alumni that formed months after their leader was forced by the Watergate break-in and cover-up to resign the presidency on Aug. 9, 1974. Others were library volunteers.

After an eight-minute standing ovation, Nixon started to talk, only to be interrupted by a shout of “Welcome Home, Mr. President!”

The meeting was closed to the press, but those inside said Nixon told them, “You are very special, very special.” He said he and Pat knew in 1946, during his first political campaign for Congress, that the volunteers working for him were vital and that to see so many people from the old days made him feel like he was looking at his roots.

He said his library “belongs to all Americans” regardless of ideology or politics, and that he hoped it would inspire young people with the lesson that they can rise from humble beginnings to the highest office in the land.

Nixon reminisced about his campaigns of 40 years ago, when after being a congressman from Whittier he won a U.S. Senate seat and then became Dwight D. Eisenhower’s vice president.

He told the crowd that Julie and David Eisenhower’s children were at Disneyland and his other daughter, Tricia, her husband and their son flew to California with President Bush.

Bush flew into El Toro Marine Corps Air Station on Wednesday afternoon, saying he was “very pleased to be going to this dedication of this library.” After spending the night at the Anaheim Hilton, this morning he is scheduled to host a California Republican Party fund-raising breakfast before presiding at the open-air dedication.

Bush and Nixon will join the other two living Republican ex-Presidents, Gerald R. Ford and Ronald Reagan, for the ceremony and later for lunch.

The occasion will mark the first gathering of four former Presidents since the 1981 White House gathering of Reagan, Ford, Nixon and Jimmy Carter en route to the funeral of slain Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. Carter declined an invitation to attend the library opening.

Today’s ceremonies are open to the public, and police said a crowd of about 20,000 is expected for the dedication of the nation’s 10th presidential library, the first one in California and the first to be built and operated entirely with private money. The next library will be Reagan’s, which is scheduled to open in 1991 in Simi Valley. Tonight Nixon will be honored at a dinner at the Century Plaza Hotel in Century City.

As the Nixons emerged from their car Wednesday to the cheers of about 50 people, the only man to resign the presidency waved to the crowd and mouthed the word “tomorrow” at people shouting questions at him from a roped-off area for spectators.

Pat Nixon, 78 years old and appearing frail in a white and black silk dress, accepted a bouquet of yellow roses from three Brownie Scouts and kissed each one on the forehead. Her husband, 77, in a dark suit and white shirt, bent over and shook hands with them before entering the building.

For Pat Nixon, today’s dedication will be a rare public appearance. While her husband has spent much of the last decade removing the tarnish from his reputation, writing books, visiting foreign countries and meeting world leaders, Pat has spent her time in private. Friends say she is devoted to her children and grandchildren and indulges her love for gardening.

Helene Drown of Rolling Hills Estates, who has known Thelma (Pat) Nixon since they were both schoolteachers in Whittier, said her longtime friend is “just thrilled to pieces about” the library dedication, viewing it as “a great tribute to her husband.”

On Tuesday, Nixon met for an hour in Century City with Reagan, who later said in an interview that historians should rethink their view of Nixon and place greater emphasis on the former President’s foreign policy record. Much criticism of Nixon, Reagan said, “was based on nothing at all.”

But Henry A. Kissinger, Nixon’s secretary of state at the time of his resignation, disputed that statement Wednesday, saying that while his former boss deserves enormous credit for his Administration’s foreign policy successes, Nixon and his staff also blundered badly in handling the Watergate scandal.

“I think there were definite, huge errors,” Kissinger said during a 40-minute interview at a Beverly Hills hotel. “I have always believed that he was punished much too severely . . . but I think there were huge mistakes made.”

With some scholars questioning the Nixon library’s value as a research institution, Kissinger also called on the former President to compile a complete set of presidential papers and administer them according to National Archives access policies.

Nixon library Executive Director Hugh Hewitt had said that certain people would likely be excluded from the library--a statement he later retracted--and Kissinger suggested that Nixon issue a statement announcing his intention to have the library administered identically to other presidential libraries.

While the museum, with its exhibits on Nixon’s career, opens Friday, the library portion, of more interest to scholars, is not expected to open until next year. Hewitt said the Watergate exhibits in the museum still were not ready and might not be finished Friday.

The Postal Service set up a booth outside the building for a special library postmark. Across the street, facing the building, was a hand-lettered sign: “Watch out, George. He’s tan, rested and ready. Nixon 1992.”

Hours before the Nixons visited the library, Simon, who served as treasury secretary under Nixon and one of the main money-raisers for the facility, hosted a luncheon at the building for about 50 longtime Nixon supporters.

Among the guests were Rebozo, one of Nixon’s closest friends; Max Fisher, an oil magnate and Nixon pal; and Carl Karcher, founder of Orange County-based Carl’s Jr. fast-food chain.

“I think this is going to be a great tribute to the Nixon family, and it will be a great asset for Orange County,” Karcher said as he entered the luncheon. “I think as time goes on Nixon will go down as one of the outstanding Presidents in history.”

Before the gathering of the February Group, former Nixon speechwriter Patrick J. Buchanan said the meeting “will probably be the real first and last conclave of those who have been associated with Richard Nixon . . . since his second inaugural” in 1973, 19 months before he resigned.

The library entrance was the scene of some reunions Wednesday, with Haig striding across the lawn when he spotted Simon and greeting him, “Hello, Uncle Bill.”

Speaking to reporters about the library, Haig said young people will especially benefit from studying Nixon, who he said has a “steel-like character that has carried him through recovery after recovery, whether it’s his physical health or his political health.”

Simon, who was one of the first to be called by Nixon in 1984 to help resume the library project, described his first tour of the facility Wednesday as “breathtaking.”

“I didn’t see anybody who was with Nixon in the White House who didn’t come out without tears in his eyes after looking at some of the pictures and the memorabilia,” he said. “It’s incredible, it’s a very warm, wonderful affair.”

Ken Khachigian of San Clemente, who started his presidential speech-writing career in Nixon’s White House, said the former President was “very jovial and upbeat” when he saw him Tuesday and Wednesday.

Khachigian said Nixon was interested in the latest assessments of the California governor’s race, noting that the Republican candidate, U.S. Sen. Pete Wilson, worked on Nixon’s campaign for California governor in 1962.

“The Nixon campaigns were a training ground for thousands of operatives who made their way up the ladder like Pete Wilson,” Khachigian said. As a result, he said, the reunion of Nixon supporters and staff prompted by the library dedication was extraordinarily large and included American political leaders reaching back nearly half a century.

“They say (Vice President) Dan Quayle is young; Nixon was 39 when he was vice president,” Khachigian noted.

“There are people here who haven’t seen each other for . . . years all greeting each other with great warmth,” he said. “Politics uniquely brings people together but his time was even more unique because we went through so much together.

“He was the glue that held us all together.”

Leonard Garment, White House personal counsel to Nixon, called Watergate a “kidney stone” that “worked its way out of everybody’s system a long time ago. . . . You won’t find this group wallowing in Watergate.”

Woods, longtime personal secretary to Nixon, said, “There’s so much else to talk about, so many great accomplishments--why dwell on it?”

Graham, a longtime friend and frequent golfing buddy of Nixon’s, said the library dedication at which he will give the invocation will be the “pinnacle” of Nixon’s career. The clergyman said it will symbolize the American public’s forgiveness.

Staff writers Ralph Frammolino, Jim Newton, Lanie Jones, Maria Newman, Eric Lichtblau, Ted Johnson and correspondent Shannon Sands contributed to this report.

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