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Ever since I was a small kid, I was a Richard Nixon fan. In fact, I used to tell people I was born 25 hours after his resignation on August 9, 1974 (my birthday is coming up, please feel free to send gifts, LOL) and that I probably came out crying because I was born during the Ford administration. I don’t even think my dad knew why it was such a fan, although he never discouraged my pro-Nixon views, he looked at everything in terms of economics, so the economy was better under Nixon than it was under Ford or Carter, so that was probably why he liked him.

Anyway, I was reading a recent e-mail from the Nixon Library about the controversy that still swirls around his presidency and legacy. In the letter, they are discussing the attempt to ensure all the records from the presidency are preserved and archived, and a big part of this is that the library is now a part of the National Archives. Up until now it had been an all private foundation supporting and running it, lest that evil Nixon use the US Treasury anymore by spewing his propaganda, so his opponents said. As the letter rightly points out, most two-term presidents since Eisenhower have some ignominious distinction in their eight-years and they haven’t exactly been totally neutral in their presentation even though they are taxpayer funded libraries.

Honestly, I haven’t been to any library but Nixon’s, although I would love to go to LBJ’s, Clinton’s and Reagan’s; but, it is a fascinating insight into the continuing academic consternation over what to do with our only president who ever resigned.