A Eulogy That Mirrors His Own Career

Gov. Pete Wilson did not trumpet Richard Nixon’s counsel and friendship when Nixon was alive. Nor did any officeholder in the years after Watergate, including Presidents George Bush and Ronald Reagan.

This was Nixon’s wish and the politicians happily obliged. Nixon knew he was a political pariah and that if friends were tagged with guilt by association, he quickly would outwear his welcome.

“His goal was to stay involved and have people listen to him and value his judgment,” says Ken Khachigian, a Nixon speech writer who helped write his memoirs. “He knew there would be less of this if there was a penalty to pay. People would become gun-shy.”

Nixon, Khachigian adds, was a political pragmatist “who believed in the dictum, ‘I’ll campaign for you or against you, whichever helps you most.’ The old man would have been a great campaign manager.”

In fact, says political consultant Stu Spencer: “He’d been a better campaign manager than a candidate. He knew how to get from here to there. As a candidate, he was kind of a wooden guy.”

Spencer’s career began by helping to control the California Young Republicans for Nixon in the 1950s, protecting him from party rivals Sen. William F. Knowland and Gov. Goodwin J. Knight. Wilson’s career began by advancing campaign events for Nixon in his 1962 loss to Gov. Edmund G. (Pat) Brown.

Wilson, Spencer and Khachigian, who are close, “all came through the Nixon school of politics,” notes Spencer--meaning the sunny side, not the dark side.

Indeed, Wilson always has regarded Nixon as a mentor and role model of sorts. And Nixon clearly was proud of his pupil. He left instructions that Wilson be asked to deliver one of the eulogies at his funeral, which the governor did Wednesday in a strong voice.

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“I was just another young lawyer trying to find my way in the world; he was a former vice president preparing for a bid to the highest office in the land,” Wilson said in the eulogy, recalling the day in 1965 that Nixon offered him a top campaign job, then advised him to follow his instincts and run for the Legislature. “That day he was as concerned with my future as he was with his own.

“Time and again . . . he was always there willing to share his insight and experience. And no American in this century had more of either to share.”

Wilson noted that Nixon inspired “fierce loyalty” among his aides.

In many ways, Nixon’s traits are reflected in Wilson--the political pragmatism, the instinct for tactics, the wooden but tough campaigner, the deep love of politics, an ability to inspire loyalty; also, occasionally, an icy exterior while churning inside. The governor displayed this latter trait while eulogizing his friend.

Wilson could have been describing himself at times: “He learned the value of hard work. He learned that to make important change, you must take risks. . . .

“I will always remember another quality. It’s the quality the great fighters have. They call it heart. Heart is what let Richard Nixon climb back into the ring time and again. . . . It was his heart that taught us the great lesson of Richard Nixon’s life: Never, ever give up . . . a fighter of iron will.”

A fighter with an “iron butt” is how political pros have described both Nixon and Wilson.

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Of course, there also are dissimilarities. Wilson is feisty, but nobody ever called him tricky. And he is no more politically paranoid than most pols. He’s unlikely to ever have an enemy’s list or wire his office to record private conversations.

But the similarities--the tenacity, the energy, the spirit--are what have sustained Wilson in his own troubled times. In 1978, he finished a distant fourth in the gubernatorial primary, but four years later battled Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. to win a U.S. Senate seat. Early in 1993, after a disastrous two years as governor, he was so unpopular and far behind in the polls that most of us were writing his political obituary. But he fought back and now is regarded by many pros as an even bet for reelection.

In two long conversations with Nixon in recent months, Wilson says, “he was very encouraging and told me, ‘you’re doing all the right things. Stay with it.’ ”

Nixon also was telling other confidants that if Wilson is reelected, he automatically will become a front-runner for the 1996 presidential nomination, a race the governor has vowed to pass up.

Meanwhile, it would be ironic if Wilson’s reelection opponent next fall is Treasurer Kathleen Brown, the Democratic front-runner whose father humiliated the governor’s mentor. It would be a second generation sequel to the race that launched Wilson’s career, a career helped by many years of private tutoring from the man he helped bury Wednesday.