Nixon Dedicates Library to Cheers of Massive Crowd : Tribute: Yorba Linda’s native son is applauded by his three Republican successors and thousands of onlookers. Watergate is mentioned only briefly, by President Bush.

Richard M. Nixon dedicated his presidential library Thursday to the ringing applause of his three Republican successors and tens of thousands of spectators, proclaiming his belief in the American Dream but not mentioning the Watergate scandal that drove him from office 16 years ago.

Three brass bands played, red-suited trumpeters heralded the arrival of the Presidents, and organizers sent red, white and blue balloons aloft into the smoggy sky at the end of the 2 1/2-hour ceremony.

People began arriving at 4 a.m. for the dedication. Brea police, who handle Yorba Linda’s law enforcement duties, said the line of people trying to get into the event at one point stretched for two miles.

As the temperatures climbed to 90, the Red Cross said it treated 100 people and took two to the hospital for treatment of heat exhaustion.

Protesters against government policy on Central America, the homeless, AIDS research and the environment briefly interrupted President Bush’s speech, but police reported no arrests.

At a Thursday evening dinner honoring Nixon at the Century Plaza Hotel in Century City, a crowd estimated by Los Angeles police at nearly 500 protested the same causes, as well as the spraying of malathion in the anti-Medfly campaign.

Los Angeles Police Department spokesman Fred Nixon--no relation to the former President--said that 14 people were arrested on charges of blocking the street outside the hotel or trespassing. The officer said they included Ted Hayes, a prominent advocate for the homeless in Los Angeles, adding that the protesters were peaceful.

But the main themes of the Yorba Linda festivities were history and nostalgia, and the main body of the crowd, estimated by police at 40,000 inside the library grounds and 10,000 outside on nearby streets, was happy to be there. The gathering on the open-air, air-conditioned stage marked the first conclave of four Presidents in nine years and the first time ever that four American Presidents attended a public event.

Bush and Nixon were joined by Gerald R. Ford, Nixon’s successor, and Ronald Reagan, Bush’s predecessor. Each man was accompanied by his wife. Only Democrat Jimmy Carter did not attend, citing a prior commitment.

Seated in the sweltering audience were a Who’s Who of the Nixon years and later Republican Administrations, including four ex-secretaries of state--Henry A. Kissinger, William Rogers, George P. Shultz and Alexander M. Haig. The four drew hordes of autograph seekers and photographers as they sat nearly shoulder to shoulder.

Also mixing with former colleagues in the special VIP section were H.R. Haldeman, chief of staff in the Nixon White House, and Maurice Stans, former secretary of commerce. Haldeman was convicted of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and perjury related to the Watergate break-in and cover-up. Stans pleaded guilty to violating election laws covering contributions to Nixon’s reelection campaign in 1972, the last political campaign he ever waged.

Each President spoke, but Bush was the only one to mention the W word--Watergate.

Bush said that museum-goers “will hear of Horatio Alger and Alger Hiss. Of the (Nixon) book ‘Six Crises,’ and the seventh crisis, Watergate.”

Bush was among those who broke with Nixon’s defenders on the last day of the Nixon presidency. After the revelation of the final “smoking-gun” tape showing that Nixon had tried to use the CIA to block the FBI’s investigation of Watergate, Bush hand-delivered a letter to the White House saying: “I would now ill-serve a President, whose massive accomplishments I will always respect, and whose family I love, if I did not give you my judgment . . . resignation is best for this country, best for this President.”

It was the same tape that virtually assured that the House of Representatives would vote for impeachment. Two days later, Nixon became the first President to resign.

On Feb. 29, 1974, Nixon was named an unindicted co-conspirator in a sealed indictment returned by the special Watergate grand jury. The news did not become public until June of that year.

Thursday’s library dedication was widely viewed as a milestone in his political rehabilitation.

The $21-million presidential library, the first to be built in California, is next door to the simple wooden farmhouse that his father built from a kit several years before Nixon was born in 1913. Bush hailed Nixon as “the quintessence of Middle America,” a man who spoke loudly and eloquently for the “silent majority from Dallas to Davenport, Syracuse to Siler City.”

Bush recalled the highlights of Nixon’s presidency, citing his trip to China, ending more than two decades of U.S.-China bitterness, and his peace efforts in the Middle East. He added: “Who can forget how in Moscow, Richard Nixon signed the first agreement to limit strategic nuclear arms--giving new hope to the world for a lasting peace?”

“Finally and most importantly, I would say to visitors: Richard Nixon helped change the course not only of America but of the entire world,” Bush declared.

Nixon was the last speaker of the day, following Ford, then Reagan and Bush. Standing stiffly and waving only briefly, Nixon said the dedication is the most special moment that he and his wife, Pat, have enjoyed.

“Nothing we have ever seen matches this moment--to be welcomed home again,” he said.

As he did in his latest book, “In the Arena,” Nixon spoke about the theme of struggle and the role it has played in his life from his childhood in Yorba Linda to his political victories and tragedies.

“I believe in the American Dream because I have seen it come true in my own life,” he said. “You will suffer disappointments in your life and sometimes you will be discouraged.

“It is sad to lose,” he continued. “But the greatest sadness is to travel through life without knowing either victory or defeat.”

Reagan joked about Nixon’s rocky relationship with the media: “Much has been written and said about Richard Nixon; some of it has even been true,” he said.

“It will come as no surprise to anyone here that there will always be a good deal of debate about Richard Nixon,” Reagan said. “Generally speaking, people in public life who take bold steps, who make tough decisions and who show great courage generate controversy.

“Richard Nixon is a man who understands the world,” Reagan said, “a man whose foreign policy was universally acknowledged as brilliant. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say the world is a better place--a safer place--because of Richard Nixon.”

Ford recalled going to Congress for the first time in 1949 and meeting Nixon, who had been elected two years earlier to the lower house but was “already renowned as the nemesis of Alger Hiss,” the alleged State Department spy for the Soviet Union who was convicted of perjury.

The Hiss case started Nixon’s quick rise to power, which saw him become a U.S. senator in 1950 and vice president in 1952.

Ford also got laughs and applause when he referred to his gaffe in the 1976 presidential debates with Jimmy Carter that “Poland was not and would never be under the domination of the Soviet Union.” But referring to recent changes in Poland, he continued: “As you all know, I took quite a bit of heat. But I said it, and I’m glad.”

William E. Simon, Nixon’s former treasury secretary and president of the library foundation, spoke most bluntly about Nixon’s decades-long battles with the news media. Simon said Nixon’s accomplishments came “despite . . . the unrelenting hostility of the national media.”

The four Presidents briefly toured the house where Nixon was born, and which has been restored to nearly new condition. It contains the piano he played and the bed in which he was born.

The four also toured the museum, the only presidential museum financed and operated entirely by private funds.

Dozens of spectators camped out overnight near the library to ensure a place near the front of the line.

Thousands more began arriving as early as 4 a.m., many of them wearing “Nixon’s No. 1” T-shirts. Others wore hats shaped like elephants--the Republican Party symbol--carted video cameras and waved American flags.

One in the crowd was Visubhai Patel, 60, who said he came to Southern California from India just to catch a glimpse of Nixon. He clutched a photo of himself taken with the Nixon family in 1962 while Patel was president of a Rotary Club branch and a student at USC.

“I was attracted to him because he came from a poor farm background like I did,” said Patel, who attended the ceremonies as a representative from the Chamber of Commerce in Gujarat, India. “I am happy to see this monument finally come into existence.”

As the temperature climbed, tempers flared among onlookers waiting to get into the festivities; a few shouting matches broke out among people charging one another with cutting in the line. Security guards had to break up a few potential fights.

When Tustin businessman Ron Kobayashi began shouting anti-Nixon slogans through a bullhorn from across the library, he was met with a chorus of boos from onlookers. “Be tough on crime, jail Nixon,” Kobayashi shouted.

Inside, the heat was getting to celebrants as well, as dozens left the dedication early.

Paul Bostwick of Anaheim had waited for more than an hour to get into the dedication, but he left midway though Gerald Ford’s talk.

“It’s hot and there’s no place to stand and you can’t see,” Bostwick complained. “I’ll get a better view watching it at home on TV.”

Outside Thursday evening’s Century City dinner, most protesters gathered on the sidewalk along Avenue of the Stars across from the Century Plaza Hotel, not on hotel property. As the stretch limousines pulled up and formally dressed men and women emerged, protesters yelled, “Shame, Shame” and “your grandchildren are going to hate you for this.”

Dave Clennon, the actor who portrays Miles Drentell on the television show “thirtysomething,” said he protested against Nixon in the Vietnam War years and was arrested several times.

“This crowd is unruly, it’s noisy, and it’s what we need out here. . . . I don’t know if they’re listening, but I hope that they’re aware of us. I think it’s important not to let them hold their function without disruption.”

Reaction among the 1,500 guests arriving for the dinner was mixed.

George Tassios, a Los Angeles engineer, expressed anger, saying the protesters should be sprayed with water cannons filled with indelible ink. But Buck Johns, a prominent Orange County developer and important Republican Party fund-raiser, was more sanguine. “That’s fun,” Johns said. “It’s America.”

Staff writers David Lauter, Tony Marcano, Maria Newman, Eric Lichtblau, Ralph Frammolino, Ted Johnson, Tammerlin Drummond, Marla Cone, David Reyes, Matt Lait, Jim Newton, Bill Billiter, Ann Conway, Eric Bailey, Jeffrey A. Perlman, Lanie Jones, and Sonni Efron, and correspondents Laura Michaelis, Jon Nalick and Shannon Sands contributed to this story.

PRESIDENTS’ LUNCH: The four First Families form an exclusive dining club. A28

PROTESTS IN L.A.: Demonstrators bar entrance to Nixon gala at hotel. A30