Nixon Oral History
Your interesting article and penetrating revelations about President Nixon’s responses to minorities, such as African Americans and Jews, per the H.R. Haldeman diaries, were in keeping with Americans in general, unfortunately (May 18). The ongoing ethnic gang killings make us wonder if the new generation has a different mind-set!
It would be well to remember President Clinton’s most pertinent advice to all Americans--let Richard Nixon be judged on the entirety of his record. How many, I wonder, realize that the young Nixon had an African American fraternity brother while at Whittier College? And brought him home to dinner to meet the family?
Such facts are on record in the Whittier College President Richard Nixon Oral History Project Tapes, which I had been authorized by the college to compile during the years 1971 to 1973. They would shed significant light on this most complex of complex personalities. Red tape has them stifled in the National Archives Annex at Laguna Niguel, disgracefully.
C. RICHARD ARENA, Ph.D.
Chino
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