A Week After His Death, Nixon’s Critics Surface : Presidency: Those who kept a respectful silence are saying ‘enough already.’ Supporters say praise is long due.

Eulogizing his old boss here last week, even Henry A. Kissinger couldn’t help note the irony: Richard Nixon himself--the man who kept a list of “enemies” in the media--probably would have been overwhelmed by all the good press he’d been getting after his death.

The tributes for Nixon were unending, the tones reverent. Imagery of King Lear and Sophocles, of an indomitable warrior and an anguished soul, of reconciliation and forgiveness--all were dominant themes in the media for days.

But now, particularly in the days since Nixon’s burial, the tone of public debate seems to have shifted again, as many critics who had maintained a respectful silence have begun to demand a harsher assessment of a man who never gave up reinventing himself. For them, the plaudits had grown too loud, too quickly.

“Now we’re seeing the backlash the other way,” said Daniel Schorr, a commentator for National Public Radio, who earned a spot on Nixon’s “enemies list” in the early 1970s.

The protests of “enough already” have come from a variety of forums--from radio call-in shows to letters to the editor and television and newspaper commentaries.

Stanley Kutler, a University of Wisconsin historian who wrote a book on Watergate and has waged a years-long legal battle for access to more of Nixon’s records, says he is confident that the critical eye of history will largely erase the current wave of pro-Nixon nostalgia.

“I expected this kind of outpouring. Nixon spent 20 years working for it,” Kutler said. “But in the final analysis, whatever space he gets in the history books will begin with this sentence: ‘Richard Nixon, the first U. S. President to resign because of scandal . . . ‘ “

Said Tom Wicker, a New York Times columnist who wrote a widely cited biography of Nixon: “This outpouring of eulogies and great long lines (at the Yorba Linda viewing) show there was always a lot of support for Mr. Nixon among people who regretted he had to resign. . . . Out of a certain respect for the dead, (critics) haven’t had much to say lately. And only now are they coming around to say, ‘Wait a second, let’s look at reality.’ ”

Perhaps the most personal plea for more balance in the public’s ongoing farewells to Nixon has come from Jack Sirica, the son of the late federal judge who became famous because of Watergate.

A reporter for Newsday in Long Island, N.Y., Sirica said that colleagues had been urging him since Nixon’s death to write a column on his father and Nixon. He resisted for several days, he said, fearing his assessment would sound too harsh.

But Sirica said he changed his mind last week when he passed a school on his way to work and saw children playing around a flag at half-staff.

*

He had already read a story saying many children thought Nixon was a pretty good guy, and it was then, seeing that flag, that he decided to write a column. The piece recounted his father’s disillusionment in listening to the infamous Watergate tapes, and it ran the day after Nixon’s funeral under a headline that read: “My Dad Decided Nixon Was a Crook.”

“What concerned me more than anything was that the enormity of the crime seemed to have been getting lost,” Sirica, 41, said in an interview. “Watergate had become, if not a minor footnote, then at least something that could be quickly dispensed with in the historical record.”

But for many among the conservative supporters that Nixon liked to refer to as the Silent Majority, the adulation will continue unabated for the onetime hero of the GOP. They see this as a time of long-overdue recognition for a man who has been unfairly vilified because of a single event in an otherwise distinguished career of public service.

Even after a state funeral attended by dignitaries from around the world Wednesday, mourners continued to turn out by the thousands throughout the week to pay their respects to the freshly sodded grave at the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace in Yorba Linda.

Brian Hayes, 32, took two days off work as a substitute teacher to pay homage to Nixon, and he waited patiently in line for the library to reopen to the public Thursday.

“My interest in politics came about because of him. I consider him the greatest statesman we ever had,” the Long Beach man said. “Despite Watergate, there’s an outpouring of affection for the man, and I think he richly deserves it.”

Cheri Pepka, 24, of Rancho Santa Margarita, cooed softly to her four small children about Nixon’s accomplishments as they waited to sign a guest book at the library, and she told them about a scrapbook she had started to commemorate his life and death.

“One day you’ll understand all of this. You’ll understand what he meant to our country,” she promised the children.

Democrats and Republicans alike stressed similar themes in the days following Nixon’s death on April 22, pointing to the establishment of diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China, an arms control agreement with the former Soviet Union, an end to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, and other achievements in foreign affairs.

Indeed, praise came from what once would have seemed unlikely corners.

President Clinton--who came of political age in the 1960s while protesting Nixon’s policies in Vietnam--called for a national “day of mourning” and delivered an eloquent eulogy on Nixon’s legacy. And former Sen. George McGovern, who also attended the funeral, spoke in an interview after the service about “reconciling” with the man who helped derail McGovern’s own failed bid for the Presidency in 1972 through a campaign of “dirty tricks.”

“About Nixon, Leaders Stress Triumphs, Not Downfall,” trumpeted the New York Times on its April 24 front page, a refrain carried by other newspapers around the country.

The favorable media coverage that Kissinger noted at last week’s funeral reflects a combination of dynamics--some that are particular to Nixon himself, others that are inevitable in any attempt to gauge public opinion, media and political observers say.

*

In part, the positive reaction reflects the enormous efforts that Nixon made to rehabilitate his image, writing 10 books after his resignation and making frequent appearances on the world stage. As Schorr of NPR said: “He spent 20 years running for ex-President.”

In part, it reflects the overwhelming pomp and circumstance of the first state funeral for a President in more than two decades. And in part, it reflects the feeling that there is something unseemly about criticizing someone who has just died--no matter his scandals.

“It’s almost an America truism that you speak no ill of the dead,” said KABC radio talk-show host Michael Jackson. “I had one caller (on Nixon) who said: ‘My mother always told me if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. So goodby.’ ”

Yet Jackson said callers to his show resisted the general portrayal of Nixon in the media, openly criticizing the former President by about a 4:1 margin.

“They have been tough and blunt and to the point--that he’s been given a free ride,” Jackson said. “I was quite surprised. There were people who identified themselves as Republicans, and even they criticized him.”

Several scholars and media critics said they believe that Nixon’s treatment in the public eye after his death is an inevitable and, in some respects, appropriate phenomenon.

“When somebody dies, you try and look at the good things he did,” said Stephen Hess, a noted student of the media with the Brookings Institution in Washington.

“We were not there to write Richard Nixon’s place in history, but to bury him. What you saw (in media coverage) was in part good manners and in part tradition,” he said. “I don’t really think that’s the time to be looking for balance.”

But Dick O’Neill, a longtime Democratic activist in Orange County who headed the state party, said he was overwhelmed by the glowing coverage that Nixon received.

“I thought, ‘Jesus, this is really something. They’re burying a field marshal,’ ” he said. “It just blew my mind, considering the guy was almost impeached. To say, ‘It’s over with, let’s forget it,’ I think that’s the best way.

“But the people here in Orange County, they went bananas. . . . The young people especially--I don’t know what happened to them. They amazed me how shook up they were, as if some relative had died,” he mused.

The low point for him, O’Neill said, came when an aide working on a Democratic campaign--”a young, progressive Democrat, “ he stressed--volunteered to drive a car for the Nixon funeral last week to help transport dignitaries. “It was beyond me,” he said.

Kutler, the Wisconsin historian, isn’t worried, though. The Nixon biographer and critic says he figures that in three months, when the 20th anniversary of Nixon’s resignation is recounted around the country, the fickle currents of public opinion will find Nixon’s supporters on the defensive once more.

“Then everyone’s going to remember again, they’re going to remember the humiliation that this country went through, the national disgrace,” he said. “And they’ll get it all straight again.”

*

Times staff writer Lee Romney contributed to this report.