The Joys of Hypocrisy
Margaret MacMillan’s new book Nixon and Mao brought back pleasant memories. It was February 1972, and I’d just returned to Saigon from Phu Bai and Hue in the north, where I was reporting for National Review. I was eager to get back to civilisation and some skiing in Gstaad, when president Nixon’s trip to Beijing took us all by surprise. Not Bill Buckley, however, my nominal boss at NR, who had accompanied Richard Nixon to the land Imperial England had permanently turned on with its opium. MacMillan writes that Nixon, a lifelong anti-communist and cold warrior par excellence, was moved when Mao took his hand and would not let go. The handholding did not impress Buckley, however. Alone among the accompanying journalists, Bill complained that it was “as if the prosecutors at Nuremberg had suddenly embraced the defendants begging them to join the in the making of a better world.”
Writing for NR back then was like being employed by one’s uncle in the local family newspaper. When I suggested a trip to Albania-- Greece had established an embassy in Tirana sometime during the late Sixties, and I could see the headlines, “Taki reports from the land that time forgot,”—Pat Buckley had vetoed it as being too dangerous. Pat had nothing to do with the magazine except for being the founding editor’s wife, but her opinions counted. When the great North Vietnamese offensive was expected sometime after the fall of Quang Tri in May of 72, Pat again tried to block my going but the story was too big, even for her. I returned to Vietnam in time to cover the attack that never came. In fact, the only raid I covered was Willy Shawcross’s (the famous English historian) assault on American salty peanuts in the Saigon PX. (Shawcross was a critic of the war, and I a great supporter, hence I thought it unfair that Willy was allowed to use the American PX in order to satisfy his peanut craving.)
But back to Nixon. I was and continue to be a great fan. Call it what you will, but his trips to Beijing and Moscow changed the world without a shot fired. To the West’s advantage. Nixon was hated by the liberals and distrusted by conservatives. But he was intelligent enough to know what he was doing all along. He made conscious use of the conservatives, and unlike Ayn Rand, who spoke the truth as she saw it, and was expelled from the NR family for it, did not lose conservative support until the Watergate coup d’etat—which is what it was—did him in.
Nixon was demonised by the press from day one. He was ill at ease in public, and did not possess the Kennedy blarney which so endeared that flawed Irish clan to the chattering classes. He was not cool, as my son would say, but so what? After all, is style superior to substance, especially where politics are concerned? Nixon inherited Vietnam, realised the war was unwinnable, got out with honour, and gained China by his and Kissinger’s diplomacy. Now that’s what I call a statesman. His presidency was crippled by a media feeding frenzy against a man they didn’t like on purely aesthetic grounds. His hounding of Alger Hiss, much derided by the soft-on-communism Beltway insiders, turned out to be spot on. Hiss was a traitor, but being an upper class traitor, like his English counterparts, he had support within the establishment. The messenger, Nixon, got the shaft instead.
Such are the joys of hypocrisy. There is no point in talking about a politician’s principles. They don’t have any, but Nixon had more than those who helped bring him down. I dined with him couple of times after his fall, and, to paraphrase a JFK quip, it was like dining alone with Thomas Jefferson. His brain power and understanding of the world were extraordinary, and I also found him to be a tortured man who bore no grudges and had a very gentle side to him. He wrote me the most encouraging letter when I got into a spot of trouble 25 years ago, when he had absolutely no reason to do so. We corresponded until the end. One thing is for sure. His two daughters and his wife Pat have put every other presidential child and wife to shame, although I must say the present Mrs Bush is as perfect a first lady as we’ve had since Pat Nixon. (Just think of Hillary and scream your head off).
Margaret MacMillan’s previous book Paris 1919, which covered the Versailles conference with vivid portrayals of the big shots involved, was unputdownable. As is this one. Nixon and Kissinger seemed to be giving away the shop to the brutal Mao regime, but they knew what they were doing. Moscow had had enough with a madman like Mao by 1969, a madman armed with thousands of nuclear weapons which he might unleash at any time against anyone he didn’t fancy. The Russkies were contemplating launching a preventive nuclear strike against him. The unthinkable was a real possibility. In stepped Nixon, and in one short visit housebroke the Chinese dragon for good. I’ve said it before, Nixon was the greatest statesman of the cold war, and those midgets who brought him down will never be even a footnote in history.
Comments
Very interesting, Taki, and thank you. On a related matter, I was impressed with the online publication The National Interest, put out by a Fellow or Fellows at the Nixon Center. This is one of the few publications, online or otherwise, emanating from Washington, D.C. where I feel I am in the presence of grown-ups who actually know how to think. Your article also reinforces my conviction that Nixon has been unfairly maligned. Compared to what we have now, Nixon seems like a towering intellect as well as a genuine patriot.
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I too have always been a great Nixon fan. Sure, he wasn’t the pure conservative we would have liked, but he had cojones the size of melons and wasn’t afraid to stand up to those he considered America’s enemies. Like you say, Taki, the pipsqueaks who brought him down aren’t even worthy to lick his shoes. I will always consider Nixon’s farewell speech one of the greatest, if not the greatest, state speeches ever delivered. I can’t watch it without tearing up, because here we saw the true measure of the man, with all the bull**** stripped away...and for all his faults and weaknesses, Richard Nixon was a real man. I miss him.
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Nixon’s trip to China was very bold and incredibly important—probably more significant than anything Reagan did in truly ending the cold war. We need someone similar today who will have the courage to approach Iran for a diplomatic solution that would be a win-win solution for both countries; such an opportunity is clearly available for anyone who will defy the Israel lobby and seize it.
With that said, Nixon’s bombing of Cambodia was very destructive and unnecessary, and it took him some 7 years to finally get us out of Vietnam—too long.
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Yes, we got the EPA and the 55 mile per hour national speed limit. And he lost the ability to impound funds.
Style v.s. Substance? The next two were Ford and Carter, neither of whom were stylish, then Reagan, who was - and substantial.
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Nixon’s China gambit may have been a brilliant Cold War move (I’m still skeptical) but the Chinese have been taking us to the cleaners ever since. When the Chinese dragon gets around to biting our behinds we may not look back so fondly on the ping pong diplomacy!
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Taki wrote:
“In stepped Nixon, and in one short visit housebroke the Chinese dragon for good.”
Well. Taki, I agree with a lot of what you wrote here, and I agree that Nixon has been unfairly maligned beyond the malignancies which he so richly deserves. (Nixon has been unfairly maligned, yes; however, there really was a lot to malign in Nixon.) However, Taki, if you believe that China has been “housebroken”, then I think that particular phrase of yours was inspired by pink elephants. You are not the first, and you will not be the last American who has fallen prey to the over 200 year old American illusion of China as a “Great Power”, or the ancillary American illusion of any hope for China to become “housebroken” at all. Personally, although I agree with George Kennan (who was the TRULY greatest American statesman of the Cold War) that the wisest policy of America and Britain and Europe toward China would be just to keep the peace and mostly leave China alone - still, a part of me thinks that it might have been better for the world if Russia HAD nuked China in 1969 and brought China to heel just like America did to Japan. ....China is NOT “housebroken” at all, and furthermore, Nixon did relatively little to open China up to the world, because by 1972, China had no choice except to open up more or else perish suicidally, and the people around the then senile Mao all knew it at the time. However, all that said, thank you, Taki, for an overdue
reminder of the authentic virtues of Richard Nixon, who, although he was a criminal and a vulgarian, stood head and shoulders above all US Presidents who came after him.
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I’m not a fan of Nixon. He did a lot to promote affirmative action and the environmentalist hysteria. His wage and price controls briefly gave Americans a taste of what it must have been like to live in the Soviet Union. I well remember hour long waits at the gas pump and the disconcerting experience of confronting row after row of empty shelves in the grocery store. I do give him credit for belatedly ending the Vietnam War and abolishing the draft, thus defusing what was becoming a dangerous pre-revolutionary situation in the US itself. As for the openning to China, that has yet to fully play out.
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Nixon’s enemies have taken over the
store. As it turns out, Tricky Dick
was a true blue American.
God rest his soul.
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What on earth does the phrase “gain China” mean? What arrogant illusions does it harbor? Note too the typical American--of the too prevalent loutish type--stupidity and brutality of a reader above who cheerfully states that “a part of me thinks that it might have been better for the world if Russia HAD nuked China in 1969 and brought China to heel just like America did to Japan.”
Monstrous crimes are apparently of no account, so long as “the nation” commits them.
And does no one care that Kissinger--surely one of the most despicable men ever to serve in the US government--and Nixon cheerfully overlooked the monstrous crimes committed by the Chinese communists?
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Lisa Ming wrote:
“What on earth does the phrase “gain China” mean? What arrogant illusions does it harbor?”
Certainly not any illusions of mine. If you read my above comment carefully, you’ll see that I agree with George Kennan that the West ought to just “keep the peace” and leave China alone, for the most part.
And then she wrote:
“Note too the typical American--of the too prevalent loutish type--stupidity and brutality of a reader above who cheerfully states that “a part of me thinks that it might have been better for the world if Russia HAD nuked China in 1969 and brought China to heel just like America did to Japan.””
In response:
1. The idea that nuking Chairman Mao’s China might have been a good idea, is not “typically American” at all.
2. I said only a “part of me” thinks it might have been a good idea, because
3. A part of me thinks nuking Japan in 1945 might have been a good idea after all. Certainly most people in today’s Communist China think it was a good idea to nuke Japan....Miss Ming....
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Postscript to my above comment:
...and many people in today’s China think it might be a good idea to nuke Japan in the future.
So, Miss Ming, step back and think a bit more before you lash out at my suggestion it might have been better for the world to bring Mao’s China to heel by any means necessary, lest China use those same means to inflict chaos upon the world in even more ruthless ways. And the Chinese are extremely adept at creating chaos.
Personally I hope for total worldwide nuclear disarmament. Nuclear weapons should not exist. But the fact that a psychotic state like China has them, does make me wonder if it might have been better for the world if Russia had strangled China’s nuclear-armed monster in its cradle.
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Taki and my leftist Democratic buddy from Viet-Nam are in complete agreement about Tricky Dicky. I understand my buddy’s position as the Dickster was left on economics,left on social issues. and thuggish left on the rule of law. He and Mao made a good pair. Even Bill Clinton has pimped for Nixon and why not? This was a test, right Taki?
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