Nixon: The Man, President, and My Friend
E-Book, Englisch
ISBN: 978-1-63006-202-6
Verlag: Humanix Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)
“I don’t think any president has been more wrongly persecuted than Nixon, ever. I just think he was a saint.” – Ben Stein
From Ben Stein, New York Times bestselling author, humorist and former speech writer for both Nixon and Ford administrations – a powerful (and humorous) thinker on economics, politics, education and history and motivation – a personal memoir of his friend Richard Nixon: The man, patriot, president, peacemaker and visionary.
The Richard Nixon Stein remembers and lovingly describes has almost nothing to do with the Richard Nixon as portrayed in most media. In Stein’s view, Richard Nixon was a born peacemaker, a saint. Stein believes Nixon was tortured, abused, beat up by the Beautiful People, but through it all, above all, he was a peacemaker, a trait he inherited from his Quaker mother.
Nixon’s goal, as he often explained to Stein and others on his staff, was to create “a generation of peace.” And Stein argues he did it; Nixon gave the United States the longest sustained period of peace since World War II. In Stein’s view, if we no longer have to fear Russian ICBMs screaming out of hell to start nuclear war, we can thank the shade of Richard Nixon.
Why did the media hate him so much? Stein argues it was because Nixon was vulnerable and showed it when attacked. He did not have the tough hide of a Reagan or an Obama. Like the schoolyard bullies they are, the media went after Nixon for his vulnerability.
An insider’s account of Nixon the man, president and peacemaker, The Peacemaker: Nixon: The Man, President and My Friend will make you reconsider the life and legacy of 37th President of the United States.
Autoren/Hrsg.
Weitere Infos & Material
TABLE OF CONTENTS to THE PEACEMAKER: Nixon: The Man, President and My Friend by Ben Stein
Foreword: Ben Stein and Richard Nixon: History’s Oddest Couple by Aram Bakshian Jr. xi
Prologue by John R. Coyne Jr. xv
Introduction: Blessed Are the Peacemakers 1
Chapter One: An Ordinary, Solid Citizen American: My First “Meeting” with Nixon 7
Chapter Two: America in the 1950s: A Non boring Decade of Peace, Progress, and Prosperity . . .but We Were Scared 17
Chapter Three: The Real Nixon: He Could Get Things Done, and He Did Not Stop Working until Things Got Done 41
Chapter Four: The Man inside the Nixon Mask 57
Chapter Five: California Part 1:A Big Change in My Life 75
Chapter Six: Plenty to Fear: Media Lynch Mob and the Man Who Saved the Children of Israel 83
Chapter Seven: Lawyer, Politician, Performer 119
Chapter Eight: Guilty First, Trial Second: It Matters a Lot Who Your Lawyer Is 127
Chapter Nine: Au Revoir: A Media Coup d’Etat and the Worst Day Ever in American History 145
Chapter Ten: California Part 2: A Dream Job 163
Chapter Eleven: A Memorable Birthday Party at the Western White House 177
Chapter Twelve: In Charge of Freedom Itself 189
Chapter Thirteen: A Shonda—a Disgrace 203
Chapter Fourteen: The Most Capable People on Earth 213
Chapter Fifteen: An Ordinary Man Wearing a Nixon Mask 221
Epilogue 225
Index 229
About the Author 237
INTRODUCTION to THE PEACEMAKER: Nixon: The Man, President and My Friend by Ben Stein
April 27, 1974
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called The Children of God.”
This phrase keeps running through my mind. I am sitting at the funeral of Richard Milhous Nixon, 37th President of the United States at The Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace in Yorba Linda, about forty miles from Los Angeles. It’s a cool, cloudy, drizzling day. Very uncharacteristic of our beloved Southland.
My wife and I are sitting two rows directly behind Julie and David Eisenhower and a few seats away from my parents, Herbert and Mildred Stein.
I recognize dozens of men and women in the immense group of mourners. Some are from the news on TV and in newspapers. Some are family friends. Some are people I worked for and within the Nixon White House, where I was a speech writer in 1973 and 1974. Many from The White House Mess, where I frequently ate lunch and sometimes dinner with my father. He was a member and then Chairman of The Council of Economic Advisers ( sic–NOT Advisors ), which entitled him to admission to first The White House Mess and then some higher level of The White House Mess. Only Cabinet level persons could eat at that mess. I, as a speech writer, was allowed in what was called The Executive Mess.
It was a far more modest eatery in the Old Executive Office Building ( now called The Eisenhower Executive Office Building). But at the top level mess, which my father brought me to frequently ( I had the best father there has ever been. I was eating with him when he mentioned to me that Elvis Presley was sitting a foot behind me at the Mess. That was December 20, 1971. That’s another story.)
Back to the funeral. There were several speeches by high pooh-bahs including Henry Kissinger, Billy Graham, Bob Dole, Governor Pete Wilson, all much maligned men who were far finer human beings than history had adjudged them at that time.
I saw Tricia and Ed Cox sitting off to my right. Tricia, like Julie, was sitting up straight and I could see tears running down her cheek.
As I was settling into the low mood doldrums, I was startled into alertness by the roaring scream of jet engines. Four Air Force Jet fighters were right overhead and one had just peeled off to make the always mournful “Missing Man Formation”. That is the signal that a highly regarded military officer has died either in combat or in some other way.
I explained this to my wife, who comes from a military family. She smiled grimly and said, “For him, it was always combat.”
How true, how true, I said to her. But as I did, I realized that even so, this combatant was probably the greatest peacemaker The Oval Office had ever seen.
Anything at all about Nixon had always made me cry, and so I cried just a little bit more.
When the ceremony was over, I hugged and kissed my parents. Bill Clinton, then President, and also a eulogist, had very kindly arranged for three large government jets to fly Nixon loyalists, staff and friends to the funeral. Hilary had objected, so I heard tell, but Mr. Clinton sent the planes anyway for the Washington mourners. My parents were among them. I hugged Julie Eisenhower. She looked beautiful, as always, but her face told a story of unmixed grief.
One of Nixon’s many enemies had long ago written that any man who had daughters like Julie and Tricia could not be all bad.
Several buses were waiting to drive the Washington, DC guests back to their planes. Before my mother and father got on their bus, my mother handed me a bag of groceries from The Safeway at The Watergate. Obviously, I could have bought any or all of them in L.A. But I felt very lucky to have a living mother giving me the grapes. Almost exactly three years later we were burying her. She was the most intense fan Richard Nixon had ever had.
I take after my parents in many ways.
