Frequently Asked Questions to President Nixon

President Nixon often receives similar questions and requests for comment. These interviews, conducted by Ronald Ziegler in Florida and New Jersey in 2014–16, should serve as a basis for discussion.

They will be expanded as the President’s schedule allows.

Updated September 12, 2016.

richardnixonoffice@gmail.com

Ronald Ziegler office: @wychstreet

“Secret Plans”

ZIEGLER: Mr. Trump’s reticence regarding his plan to defeat the Islamic State has led to comparisons with —

THE PRESIDENT: We never did anything like that.

ZIEGLER: Never?

THE PRESIDENT: Of course not. We never claimed, nor did we run on, a so-called “secret plan” in Vietnam.

ZIEGLER: In fact you wrote in the Los Angeles Times on March 5, 1968 that you had no “gimmicks or secret plans” for Vietnam.

THE PRESIDENT: I said similar in public. The whole dumb business comes from elaborating to newspaper editors off the record. Positions from which to negotiate, that sort of thing.

ZIEGLER: Which is normal political practice.

THE PRESIDENT: It is.

ZIEGLER: But at no time did you claim a “secret plan” or decline to elaborate on a plan.

THE PRESIDENT: I challenge you to find record of it.

The “Trump Letter”

ZIEGLER: The New York Times recently published a letter you wrote to Donald Trump in 1987 —

THE PRESIDENT: We write dozens of letters each week.

ZIEGLER: Yes.

THE PRESIDENT: If not hundreds. As you know.

ZIEGLER: Yes, sir. But you stated that Mr. Trump was “sure to be a winner” if he ran for office. This has been construed as an endorsement. Would you care to comment?

THE PRESIDENT: One, I was relating a personal observation from Mrs. Nixon, who’d seen him on television. We all agree he’s good at that. Two, Trump was a Democrat at the time. Three, he would have run from New York, and we all know what their politicians are like. And finally, that sort of courtesy is the bread and butter of politics.

ZIEGLER: So it is without merit.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

ZIEGLER: Do you know who leaked the letter?

THE PRESIDENT: I have an idea.

Trump & the “Silent Majority”

ZIEGLER: Donald Trump employs the phrase “silent majority” in his presidential campaign —

THE PRESIDENT: The letters we get. My God.

ZIEGLER: Since it is naturally associated with you —

THE PRESIDENT: We weren’t the first to use it.

ZIEGLER: I understand that.

THE PRESIDENT: But we used it well.

ZIEGLER: Certainly. Do you have a comment on its political effect?

THE PRESIDENT: Only that what Trump does is a complete misunderstanding, if not perversion, of our intent. I doubt Trump knows it. The press certainly does, but they don’t care.

ZIEGLER: That’s to be expected.

THE PRESIDENT: It is. We used the term to mean Joe Smith. The fellow next door, at the VFW Hall. He works. He pays his traffic tickets. He is not politically involved until October of an election year and he wants to be left alone. He isn’t the type to go to the border with his rifle and hunt. He likes his own kind, as we all do, but he’s not a bigot. He wants peace.

ZIEGLER: Is that not what attracts them to Trump?

THE PRESIDENT: It is, but you must consider whether the threat, in this case, if you want to call it that, is proportionate to the response. My God, forty years ago there was direct confrontation, burning the cities and blowing up campuses. Whereas the Mexican, most of the time, he follows the law and works the job the white man doesn’t want.

ZIEGLER: But you understand their anger.

THE PRESIDENT: It is no different than what the Irish got, the Germans, blacks. There is political benefit in it.

Plans for 2016

ZIEGLER: Have you considered running for president in 2016?

THE PRESIDENT: No.

ZIEGLER: There has been speculation that you could unify the party.

THE PRESIDENT: I do know some things.

ZIEGLER: And that you, uniquely, have the political skill to challenge Mrs. Clinton.

THE PRESIDENT: I was at the top for a long time. I don’t have to tell you what an honor it was. But at the top everything comes to you. The lira is down, a man in the Congress wants a hospital in his district and so forth. What I want to do now is work for peace. I’m sure I don’t have much time left so I’ve dedicated myself to building a lasting architecture of peace.

ZIEGLER: Through the relationships you have cultivated, your writing —

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

ZIEGLER: So you will not run?

THE PRESIDENT: No.

ZIEGLER: Not even if asked?

THE PRESIDENT: I will not run.

The Clinton E-mails

ZIEGLER: Comparisons are often made between Mrs. Clinton’s e-mails —

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

ZIEGLER : — and the tapes —

THE PRESIDENT: Of course I don’t know what’s in the e-mails.

ZIEGLER: I understand. Even so —

THE PRESIDENT: President Clinton is a friend of mine, and I have met Mrs. Clinton socially. No matter what I say the papers will have Nixon in the bag for one side or the other. But look, you should never put yourself in a position in politics where you don’t know what’s coming or how to stop it. Never. And be careful in your treatment of the intelligence services.

ZIEGLER: Do you feel their loyalties are divided?

THE PRESIDENT: They are not team players.

LGBT & Women’s Issues

ZIEGLER: Is it fair to say that your current opinions on homosexuality are at odds with your previous statements?

THE PRESIDENT: I don’t mind the homosexuality. I understand it.

ZIEGLER: Still, certain private statements that unfortunately became public record —

THE PRESIDENT: No one is more tolerant in this shop than me. That’s always been true. My God, go back forty-five years, don’t you bear the burden of what you said?

ZIEGLER: Indeed. But would you care to clarify for the record?

THE PRESIDENT: Look, so many people are gay or go both ways. I don’t care. It’s their business. Tolerance in this party is far too low. Fifty percent of families are single parent. Most women work. We can’t crap on them.

ZIEGLER: Does that extend to abortion?

THE PRESIDENT: I don’t want to hear about abortion. Again, that’s people’s own business. Stay off it. There was never a tremendous amount of votes in abortion and the number keeps going down. Stay the hell off it.

ZIEGLER: Do you credit anyone for helping to change your mind?

THE PRESIDENT: It didn’t change.

ZIEGLER: Pardon me.

THE PRESIDENT: But you get a new perspective on things. Jennie, as you know, is an actress. There are many gays in that line. We go to the plays and many of them are fine people. They’re happy to shake my hand.

ZIEGLER: Do you have related advice for Republican presidential candidates in 2016?

THE PRESIDENT: We have too much bashing of everyone in this party. It’s an embarrassment. It takes guts to speak out on private things and people respect that. Guts always come out on top. Having Carson doesn’t cover the tolerance issue, or Jenner. We’ve got to reach out and mean it.

ZIEGLER: Or face a difficult future.

THE PRESIDENT: If you want to win there’s no alternative. I think I know something about that.

The Hiss Case

ZIEGLER: The Hiss Case continues to be a matter for debate —

THE PRESIDENT: There is no debate. None.

ZIEGLER: — in some circles.

THE PRESIDENT: Call them what they are. Academics.

ZIEGLER: Yes, sir. Do you have anything to say to academics regarding Alger Hiss?

THE PRESIDENT: I have no apologies to the American people for my part in putting Hiss where he belonged. You’ll find that people in both parties, even academics, now agree that we were right and did what had to be done.

ZIEGLER: What ultimately doomed Hiss?

THE PRESIDENT: The truth.

ZIEGLER: But what in your work contributed most to the guilty verdict?

THE PRESIDENT: The press. We won the Hiss case in the papers. We did. I had to leak all over the place. It took 18 hours a day. It took devotion and dedication and loyalty and devilishness such as you’ve never seen. It doesn’t exist now. Except for us. Except for us. People get rich claiming they can play this game but who, I ask you, who looks beyond the nightly news? You try a man in the press. Destroy him in the press. Is that clear? It takes months and years and work harder than anyone else is willing to work.

Loyalty to President Eisenhower

ZIEGLER: How do you respond to those who charge President Eisenhower with undermining or underusing you as Vice President?

THE PRESIDENT: President Eisenhower was loyal, I must say. But he was a military man and he believed that people who are subordinates carry out what the chief wants. I’ll never forget the man that Eisenhower thought, along with many Europeans, was the greatest Chief of Staff in World War Two: Beetle Smith, General Beetle Smith. And Beetle Smith, this was afterwards, he was a neighbor of mine in Spring Valley, and he came in, we had a couple of drinks, and tears were coming down. He was not well at the time. He says, “You know, I was just Ike’s prat boy. Ike always had the prat boy. And that’s what you are.”

Well it didn’t bother me a bit. That was my job. A Vice President, a member of the cabinet, a Member of Congress who is a member of the president’s party, should always consider that he is dispensable and should do what the man wants. Because otherwise the man’s got to get down there in the ring. What happened to Richard Nixon when Eisenhower was President, it might be bad for me, but it wouldn’t matter that much maybe to the country. What happened to him could be disastrous.

The 1960 Election

ZIEGLER: Some historians doubt the outcome of the 1960 election.

THE PRESIDENT: Well it was close.

ZIEGLER: 112,000 votes, and you won the popular vote in 26 states. Did you consider contesting the results?

THE PRESIDENT: No, primarily because it would have hurt the country. We’ve seen what happens there. Even a reversal would have at the time made it difficult to govern. And if you want a political future you should reconsider going against the Cook County Democratic Organization, for example.

ZIEGLER: You bring them to your side.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, Daley was a brass-collared Democrat.

ZIEGLER: But he treated you well later.

THE PRESIDENT: He did.

The John F. Kennedy Assassination

ZIEGLER: Sir, weren’t you in Dallas on November 22, 1963?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Speaking to the Pepsi Cola people. I was their lawyer. My plane landed at LaGuardia at 12:56 p.m. and I got the news in a taxi.

ZIEGLER: President Kennedy was your great rival. How did you react to his death?

THE PRESIDENT: Nothing I could say could add to all the splendid tributes to Jack which have come for fifty years. But we were personal friends from the time we came to the Congress together in 1947. We attended his wedding.

ZIEGLER: Do you know anything further about President Kennedy’s assassination, sir?

THE PRESIDENT: I think the Warren Commission did its work to a satisfactory conclusion.

ZIEGLER: With all due respect, the question is do you know —

THE PRESIDENT: You don’t want to know.

The Kennedys

ZIEGLER: What is your opinion of Robert Kennedy?

THE PRESIDENT: He was the coldest man I ever met.

ZIEGLER: And you’ve said that quality would have made him a good president.

THE PRESIDENT: That’s correct. As Alice Longworth used to say, Bobby had the quality of a Jesuit in the seventeenth century. In many ways he should have been a priest; he was very passionate and intelligent, and he brooked no opposition.

ZIEGLER: And your opinion of Ted Kennedy?

THE PRESIDENT: Only that he is the best politician of the three brothers. That was true even while Jack and Bobby were alive. In the last fifteen or twenty years of his life he showed himself to be a strong man who fought his weaknesses and served the Senate and the country with distinction.

ZIEGLER: Members of the public are often surprised to hear you compliment Senator Kennedy. What would you say to them?

THE PRESIDENT: We didn’t get after him because he was stupid.

The Tapes

ZIEGLER: Why didn’t you burn the tapes?

THE PRESIDENT: I should have.

ZIEGLER: But you didn’t.

THE PRESIDENT: Well I requested — this is on the record — I requested that Bob [Haldeman] do so. To, to, keep what was necessary for my memoirs and destroy anything extraneous.

ZIEGLER: You gave him a direct order?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

ZIEGLER: Was he in the habit of defying you?

THE PRESIDENT: He was not. But Bob felt — I deduce this — he felt that if he burned the tapes he would be open to charges of obstruction of justice and so forth.

ZIEGLER: Though that was not your intention in giving the order.

THE PRESIDENT: It was not.

ZIEGLER: Do you wish you had done it yourself?

THE PRESIDENT: The President could not be seen to do that. Though they were my property. [Pause.] It was a mistake.

Great Politicians & Presidents

ZIEGLER: Who, in your opinion, are the greatest politicians of the twentieth century?

THE PRESIDENT: There is no question in my mind that the greatest politicians, active politicians, were Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson. Nobody else of the presidents were in their league as political operators.

ZIEGLER: Does this translate into being a good president?

THE PRESIDENT: I think it does. Listen, I don’t want a president who’s warm on the outside and warm on the inside too. I want one that’s warm on the outside but when the tough decision is made he’s cold, and tough, and will make the right decision without fear or favor.

ZIEGLER: You saw these qualities in Johnson first-hand.

THE PRESIDENT: Oh, sure. Sure. He was an animal. But he had to be, you understand? He had to be. [Pause.] He was a man.

ZIEGLER: Do you have anything to add regarding your predecessors?

THE PRESIDENT: Lincoln is probably the greatest president. He saved the union with a combination of toughness and practical compassion that will never be seen again. Few people in history, except perhaps Winston Churchill, have so understood words and using them as instruments of power. Then Woodrow Wilson tried to place the United States as the leader in the community of nations, an anchor for peace. He didn’t succeed and it killed him. But as my mother used to say about Wilson, “He was a good man. He believed deeply in peace.” That was his life’s work.

ZIEGLER: As it’s been for you.

THE PRESIDENT: That’s right.

Family

ZIEGLER: Do you have any comment on your grandson Christopher Cox’s marriage to and divorce from Andrea Catsamatidis?

THE PRESIDENT: We have four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren now and we love them all very much.