Dr. Eldon Hickman, 69; Vascular Surgeon Operated on Nixon

The patient was despised by many, revered by some and wanted on the witness stand. Was he malingering to avoid testifying?

The doctor ignored the swirling emotions and controversy of a nation roiled in Watergate and concentrated, as always, on treating the patient’s illness-- in this case potentially fatal phlebitis.

Dr. Eldon B. Hickman, the Long Beach vascular surgeon who headed the team that operated on Richard Nixon’s clotted vein shortly after he resigned the presidency in 1974, has died. He was 69.

Hickman died of cancer Saturday in Long Beach, a year after retiring as CareLine director for Long Beach Memorial Medical Center.

The surgeon was tapped to help his most famous patient by Nixon’s personal physician, Dr. John C. Lungren, a colleague of Hickman’s for many years.

After Watergate revelations forced Nixon to resign Aug. 8, 1974, he returned to his home in San Clemente, where he suffered highly publicized flare-ups of phlebitis.

On Oct. 28, complications sent him to Long Beach Memorial for tests that revealed a large blood clot in the iliac vein of Nixon’s left thigh. If the clot raced to the lungs, it could result in pulmonary embolism and almost instant death.

Hickman joined Lungren and UCLA surgery professor Dr. Wiley Barker to analyze the tests and then told Nixon he needed surgery quickly.

At 5:30 a.m. the next day, Hickman headed the five-man team, including Lungren and Barker, that performed the hourlong surgery.

Hickman, the vascular expert, placed a hairpin-like plastic Miles Clamp (named for its developer, Dr. Robert Miles) on the left iliac vein above the potentially fatal clot. The serrated, inch-long device, which would remain inside Nixon the rest of his life, squeezed the walls of the vein together and made five separate tiny passageways instead of the normal single large one. The small openings permitted blood to flow through but would catch the existing clot or any future ones, like leaves caught in a screen.

Later that day, Hickman helped bring Nixon through post-surgical vascular shock, also regarded as potentially fatal and probably brought on by blood-thinning medication. After Nixon left the hospital, Hickman supervised his recuperation.

At the time of the surgery, Nixon was due to testify before Judge John Sirica at the Watergate hearings in Washington, D.C. When lawyers delayed his appearance because of the illness, Sirica dispatched three surgeons to assess whether he needed the six weeks recuperation prior to travel that Hickman and his team recommended.

The court-appointed doctors not only agreed with Hickman but extended the travel ban another two weeks. Nixon never testified in court because in the interim he was pardoned by President Ford.

Thanks largely to Hickman’s efforts, Nixon, who had a premonition that if he entered the hospital for treatment of his phlebitis he would never come out, lived another 20 years. He died in 1994 at age 81.

“Eldon distinguished himself throughout his career with his dedication to medicine and to serving the people . . . who entrusted him with their care,” said Byron Schweigert, Long Beach Memorial’s chief executive and a personal friend of the doctor for 31 years.

Hickman, who spent his entire career in Long Beach, was born in Portland, Ind., earned his undergraduate degree from Ball State University in Muncie, Ind., and his medical degree from the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis.

He moved to California in 1957 to do his internship and residency at Los Angeles County Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance.

At Long Beach Memorial, Hickman served on the board of directors and board of trustees and chaired the hospital’s department of surgery and risk management committee.

He is survived by his wife of 24 years, Molly; a son, Robert of Long Beach; two daughters, Nancy Kazan of Long Beach and Suzanne Hickman of Minneapolis, Minn.; a brother, Ed, of Tennessee; and two grandchildren.

At the request of Hickman, a devoted yachtsman, his ashes will be scattered at sea. A public memorial service is planned at 10 a.m. Nov. 27 at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center.

The family has asked that contributions be made to the Eldon B. Hickman Memorial Fund in care of the Memorial Medical Center Foundation.