Nixon Daughters Urged to Settle Library Dispute

A judge in Miami said Thursday that the daughters of the late President Richard M. Nixon have a duty to settle a legal dispute over how $20 million donated to Nixon’s presidential library in Yorba Linda is spent.

Charles “Bebe” Rebozo, Nixon’s longtime friend, left the money to the library foundation when he died in 1998. But Rebozo set up a committee made up of the two sisters and another longtime Nixon associate to determine exactly how the money is spent. Since then, the sisters have been at odds on how the money should be controlled.

In January, the library foundation filed lawsuits in Florida and California in an attempt to gain control of the $20 million.

Any court decisions on the Florida suit would be binding only if Tricia Nixon Cox and Julie Nixon Eisenhower participate in the lawsuit, Probate Judge Maria Korvick said Thursday.

Korvick suggested that she could let a California judge decide how the bequest should be spent.