Friends, Foes Have Only Kind Words

Former President Nixon was remembered Friday with kind words from old friends and foes alike.

“Past differences are now history. I wish him God’s care and peace,” said Connecticut Gov. Lowell Weicker, who as a Republican member of the Senate Watergate Committee often took sides against the GOP President.

Former President Ronald Reagan said: “Today the world mourns the loss of a great champion of democratic ideals who dedicated his life to the cause of world peace. For millions, Richard Nixon was truly one of the finest statesman this world has ever seen.”

“I was deeply grateful to President Nixon for his wise counsel on many occasions” over the past year, President Clinton said from the Rose Garden. “He went out of his way to give me his best advice.”

Former Michigan Gov. George Romney, who campaigned against Nixon in the 1968 GOP nomination contest, then served as Nixon’s secretary of health, education and welfare, called Nixon “the ablest man to hold the presidency since World War II.”

And former Sen. Howard Baker (R-Tenn.), who was ranking minority member of the Senate Watergate Committee, said: “His contribution to the ending years of the Cold War and the pursuit of peace will be recognized and remarked on for generations to come.

“I think I admire most his strength of character that permitted him to recover from his resignation from the presidency and to become a respected senior statesman,” Baker said. “That was truly remarkable.”

Sen. Robert Dole (R-Kan.) was one of many people who said Nixon’s other achievements would eventually outshine the Watergate scandal that clouded his image during his lifetime.

“All in all, people are going to look back and say Watergate, the resignation, a lot of these things were bad and shouldn’t have happened,” Dole said. “I think history will, with a few exceptions, say that this man made a difference. You add all that up and he comes out ahead.”

Earl Butz, agriculture secretary under Nixon and Gerald R. Ford, remembered Nixon as a man who prized loyalty and returned it.

“Some of these days when Watergate becomes a footnote in history . . . and when the Nixon haters in the press are all gone . . . Richard Nixon will go down as one of the great presidents in history,” said Butz, dean emeritus of agriculture at Purdue University in Lafayette, Ind.

Judy Agnew, wife of Nixon’s vice president Spiro T. Agnew, expressed sympathy for Nixon’s family but said her husband had no immediate comment.

Carl Albert (D-Okla.), who was U.S. House speaker during Nixon’s presidency, had these thoughts:

“He was sort of weird but to me he was a friendly sort of person,” Albert said from McAlester, Okla. “I never had any trouble with him.”