Countywide : Library Observes Nixon’s Birthday

A standing-room-only crowd heard a contingent of speakers praise the late President Richard Nixon during his 83rd birthday celebration Tuesday at the Yorba Linda library and birthplace.

Keynote speaker Dmitri Simes, who was Nixon’s advisor on the Soviet Union, told more than 400 people that the former president was as complex as “a Shakespearean character” and “one of the most unusual, courageous and heroic human beings.”

Simes, the president of the Washington-based Nixon Center for Peace and Freedom, said he was “willing to forgive, and is prepared to forget,” perceived detractors such as filmmaker Oliver Stone, but “apologizing . . . no more, being defensive . . . no more.”

Nixon, he said, “is never going to be left alone. . . .To those who come up with new and more imaginative attacks . . . my response is, ‘Make my day.’ ”

Following Simes’ speech, a member of the audience, in a choked voice, expressed his gratitude to Nixon for U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.

“I am the child President Nixon saved,” said Lihn Duy Vo, 39, of Downey, who arrived in the United States as a refugee 20 years ago.

Brenda Lee, 45, of Fullerton said she was a Democrat who had come “to hear some of the good things about Nixon. . . . I’m not a politician, but I can see his peace efforts were beneficial.”

At the ceremony, Donald W. Murphy, director of the state’s parks and recreation department, dedicated a state historical marker. The plaque, placed between Nixon’s birthplace and his grave, “stands as a symbol of a great life, a light that shined briefly but powerfully on this great planet,” Murphy said.