FORGIVING THE FALLEN ANGEL

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100440017-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 8, 2012
• Sequence Number: 17
• Publication Date: May 21, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/08 :CIA-RDP90-009658000100440017-8
.~RNOLD BEICFIMAN
' ?,
;JASHINGTON TI,~iES
21 .-~av 1986
? .
or vin t e a
~ en an
ge
he 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 sto sa s
Mr. Nixon was uilt of "coveru
eriut'v destruction of p.,, e..,.,.
cal dirty tricks and use of IRS the
CIA_ and the FRi to hnttnri their n..
- emtPC Wtthoui 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 afashion -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 S20 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 instrategic 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 :~Ir. Nixon as a practitioner
of "right-wing liberalism."
Two years earlier, the same bulle-
tin had attacked :~Ir. 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-
chantedwith Mr Nixon that, accord-
ing to the :Nov 8, 1971, .Newsweek,
~b'illiam Buckley and "a dozen Zbry
ideologues" were then exploring a
1972 primary challenge against
President Nixon. Given such a his-
tory, ~'Ir. 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 ;Vir. 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 -tiixon left a
legacy of solid achievement, espe-
cially in foreign affairs:' The mag-
azine tells us that "tiixon 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 Lashington
Post, somebody's got a rein on dir.
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 :'
Bui there is every reason to con-
sider ;VIr. 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 .9~
fairs article, "Superpower Sum-
mitry," and his book, No ,More Viet-
nams should persuade an informed
reader that iVir. 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 tio. ?. ~l'hat else
??as tiisonian "detente"? Did it
really differ much from the Carter-
4'ance-Shulman dealings with the
Soviet Union? .tilr. tiixon 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 ~o in and knock off the Sandin-
istas: Pell, 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- I
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/08 :CIA-RDP90-009658000100440017-8