Make It a Real Gem : Nixon library will open a foreign policy think tank

When the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace opened in 1990, the former President urged the faithful gathered in Yorba Linda not to lose sight of America’s prominence in the world. Thursday, in a ceremony on the 25th anniversary of the first Nixon inaugural, that admonition took a more concrete shape with the announcement that a public policy think tank will be located at the library and in Washington.

The Center for Peace and Freedom, boosted by a hefty Annenberg Foundation challenge grant to fuel fund-raising, is to open in 1997. It will have eight endowed chairs--six in foreign policy and two focusing on domestic issues.

The foreign policy side will consider timely questions of the post-Cold War era: the fate of the former Soviet Union, relations with China, relations with Japan, change in Europe, the Mideast, the Muslim world. Domestic chairs will study “Representative Governance” and “Morality, Freedom and National Renewal.”

Perhaps there will be critics of Nixon who will catalogue the new institute among the efforts of recent years to rehabilitate the reputation of a fallen President. But whatever shadows remain from the Watergate era, the Nixon presidency is taking on a far more complex character as historians assess new international realities.

Moreover, a world in flux has plenty of room for pragmatism, which is supposed to be the operative style of the new center. It will be a welcome addition to the region if institute officials make it a resource for public understanding. Old grudges have subsided, and the institute’s stature can only rise if the widest possible access is offered to the scholarly and journalistic communities.