The Times, They Have a-Changed: Clinton and Nixon Talk Shop

During the 1972 presidential campaign, 26-year-old Bill Clinton labored in Texas--vainly, it turned out--to defeat Richard Nixon. Two years later, Hillary Rodham, Clinton’s future wife, was a junior lawyer who worked on Nixon’s impeachment proceedings.

And Monday, Nixon came to visit them at the White House.

The image was arresting: a private meeting between Clinton and the 80-year-old Republican ex-President whom young Democrats of Clinton’s generation grew up hating.

“Irony is too weak a word for what’s going on these days,” said Ellis Woodward, a former official in the Jimmy Carter Administration. “But let’s face it, Nixon has something to offer.”

George Stephanopoulos, the White House communications director, told reporters the meeting was designed to follow up on a 40-minute telephone call between Clinton and Nixon last week, which Clinton initiated.

The meeting was billed as “private” and was held in the family quarters with no press coverage permitted.

Stephanopoulos said Clinton “wanted to find out” more about Nixon’s observations of the situation in Russia as a prelude to Clinton’s summit meeting with Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin April 3-4 in Vancouver, Canada.