In Hindsight Richard M. Nixon Was Not So Sick

I grew up in the 1970’s and 1980’s and was raised to believe that Richard Nixon had been a very ill man who was deceptive, could not tell the truth, and was therefore forced to resign as President in 1974.

I was in Romania last week. While there I learned that Nixon has always been very well-respected there. And, the respect is not misplaced. After Nicolae Ceausescu condemned the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, conventional wisdom was that the Soviets might invade Romania. Nixon got on an airplane and went to Bucharest to visit Ceausescu, sending a message to the Russians that the U.S. might not stand by idly.

I was somewhat intrigued by what I learned, enough so that when I got back to the US, I found myself watching videos of Nixon’s trip to Romania - the most interesting one of which is here:

I then went on to look at some of the videos of Watergate.

I realized that compared with what the US now faces, Nixon was a leader and a patriot. He was a man who put his country first and wasn’t driven by his own interests or that of his family. Most importantly, he wasn't so sick and dangerous. Nixon just doesn’t look so bad anymore.