FORGIVING THE FALLEN ANGEL

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000404580001-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 19, 2010
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: May 21, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/19: CIA-RDP90-00552R000404580001-1
AMNU
WASHINGTON TI;'iES
21 '1av 1986
_ARNOLD BEICHMAN
Forgiving the fallen angel
The rehabilitation of Richard
M. Nixon will not be com-
plete until he is invited to
deliver the keynote address
at the next convention of Americans
for Democratic Action.
That such an epiphany is not the
impossible dream can be seen in the
recent Newsweek cover of a hand-
some, smiling Mr. Nixon with the
headline: "He's Back: The Rehabili-
tation of Richard Nixon, An Exclu-
sive Interview" Marvelous woman,
Kay Graham - first her daily Wash-
ington Post crucified him as Beelze-
bub, prince of the devils, and 13
years later, her news magazine has
resurrected him as a fallen angel. 'Ib
forgive is divine.
The Newsweek cover story says
Mr. Nixon was It of "coveru
Izerriurv destruction of evidence,
hush move bu m tax evasion,
campaign-financing ab ses. Doliti-
cal dirty tricks, and use of IRS the
CIA. and the FRI to hrnmd their en
.mien Without Gerald Ford's par-
don, Nixon might well have gone to
jail." The concluding sentence of the
story says: "The nation he betrayed
will never really understand him."
Venial sins all, for which, if you
know how the wind blows, there are
indulgences, dispensations, and par-
dons. The magazine says, "The new-
est Richard Nixon has rehabilitated
himself, after a fashion - and he is
expanding his influence in the White
House and the Republican Party."
What is, obviously, cheerful news
for the anti-Reagan Washington
Post-Newsweek and its allies should
be frightening news for con-
servatives, neo-conservatives, and
the American voting majority. For
one thing, Mr. Nixon is not a conser-
vative. He's a Republican, but, then,
so is Connecticut Senator Lowell
Weicker. Mr. Nixon's probably in-
creased influence with President
Reagan and the White House staff
may account for his newly found
popularity with the liberal-left.
Let us recall that during his six
years in office, President Nixon pre-
sented the electorate with:
? Federal wage and price controls
for the first time in the nation's
peacetime history.
? Fiscal and monetary policies
which drove the inflation rate to its
highest peacetime level.
? Proposals for a $20 billion guar-
anteed income welfare plan and a
$30 billion national health insurance
plan.
? An agreement to expel National-
ist China from the United Nations
followed by a concomitant accord
with Communist China.
? Under Salt I, acceptance of infe-
riority in strategic arms vis-a-vis the
U.S.S.R. and agreement to an illu-
sory detente which disintegrated
while he was still in office.
It was the bulletin of the National
Review (April 19, 1974), which said
that "Richard Nixon is himself not a
conservative in any reflective or
committed sense" It was a piquant
irony, said William Buckley's publi-
cation, that many American con-
servatives had harnessed them-
selves "into tandem with one who is
not and has never been a conserva-
tive in either theory or practice."
And on the other end of the political
spectrum, so stalwart a defender of
Stalinism as Professor Eugene
Genovese, the Marxist historian, de-
scribed Mr. Nixon as a practitioner
of "right-wing liberalism:'
Two years earlier, the same bulle-
tin had attacked Mr. Nixon because
under his presidency "[the United
States] has become a markedly less
free society. In both procedure and
substance, the New Economic
Policy is authoritarian, regimenting,
autarchic. With respect to the NEP,
Richard Nixon is ruling by decree,
not by law. Not in present fact, but in
direction and tendency, the NEP is
national socialist."
Conservatives were so disen-
chanted with Mr. Nixon that, accord-
ing to the Nov 8, 1971, Newsweek,
William Buckley and "a dozen 'Ibry
ideologues" were then exploring a
1972 primary challenge against
President Nixon. Given such a his-
tory, NIr. Nixon is an obvious can-
didate as an ADA keynoter, espe-
cially now that he has achieved the
ultimate accolade, a Newsweek
cover.
Why shouldn't Kay Graham res-
urrect President Nixon? If only he
were five years younger, the 73-year-
old Mr. Nixon might even be a candi-
date for president, despite the 22nd
"anti-third term" amendment. After
all, as Newsweek points out, "The
premise of his rehabilitation is that
- Watergate aside - Nixon left a
legacy of solid achievement, espe-
cially in foreign affairs" The mag-
azine tells us that "Nixon has care-
fully staked out a slightly more
moderate position than Reagan's on
detente and terrorism.
"Slightly more moderate"? That
code phrase will not be lost on ADA
talent scouts. (Thank God, they must
be thinking down at The Washington
Post, somebody's got a rein on Mr.
Reagan.) Mr. Nixon concedes that
some people may not think he's anti-
Communist but that's not so: "I hap-
pen to be anti-Communist, perhaps
in a somewhat more sophisticated
way than most of the current hawks
... and therefore considered by
some of them to be a closet dove."
But there is every reason to con-
sider Mr. Nixon a "closet dove," so-
phisticated or not, one whose ideas
on foreign policy, if implemented,
would injure U.S. security. A careful
reading of his fall 1985 Foreign Af-
fairs article, "Superpower Sum-
mitry," and his book, No More Viet-
nams should persuade an informed
reader that Mr. Nixon is writing
about a world that no longer exists,
the world in which the Nixon-
Kissinger-Sonnenfeldt combine per-
suaded itself that by being nice to
Leonid Brezhnev and by exchanging
bear hugs we could establish peace
in our time and not worry that in
military preparedness the United
States had become No. 2. What else
was Nixonian "detente"? Did it
really differ much from the Carter-
Vance-Shulman dealings with the
Soviet Union? Mr. Nixon may claim
he is not a closet dove, but how
should we interpret his views on
Nicaragua:
"Some of the hawks are saying,
'Let's go in and knock off the Sandin-
istas: Well, we could do that, but ...
what are you going to do with it when
you conquer it? That's the problem
with Nicaragua; who's going to run
the damned place? Therefore the
military option is not one that is very
useful. That is why you have to have
it done by Nicaraguans [the 'con-
tras']."
Now that's really encouraging
anti-Communist resistance. First,
you create a fiction called "some of
the hawks;' then you present phony
alternatives - invasion and occupa-
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c_
lion. Last, you present a reductio ad
absurcaim issue: "Who's going to run
the dan ned place?" - when the real
issue is who's not going to run the
damned place. The issue for Mr.
Nixon is aot Soviet imperialism and
Communist Cuba, oh, no; it's "some
of the hawks." And that's known as
"a slightly Wore moderate position."
It is no %onder that Kay Graham
and her mer-y band think that Nixon
deserves a Vewsweek cover story.
It's the least they could do for Mr.
Nixon, now that he has been so suc-
cessfully rehi.bilitated that he is
adviser-in-chie' to President Reagan
on foreign polity and Nevada Sen.
Paul Laxalt, incredibly, has anointed
him as the Repi.blican Party's one
and only "elder statesman:'
The resurrection of Richard Mil-
hous Nixon and a possible Nixon-
Graham alliance rniy well require
the resurrection of 'Deep Throat."
Messrs. Woodward and Bernstein,
please note on Page 30 cf the Nixon
cover story the oh-se-infectious
laughter and gaiety a: President
Nixon and Mrs. Graham ;rip hands.
Ts-ts-ts-ts. Was it all br naught?
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