BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : AUGUST 28, 2000 ISSUE
INTERNATIONAL -- LETTER FROM YORBA LINDA A Rehab Center Called the Nixon Library (int'l edition) The flyer in my office mailbox bore a curious return address: the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace, Yorba Linda, Calif. It got curiouser and curiouser, as they say, once I opened it and began to read. Here was the august memorial to one of our former Chief Execs announcing a summer day camp--the library's first. Campers would learn about the Berlin Wall and the Vietnam War. They would make tie-dyed T-shirts and a Presidential puppet. There were going to be ''stimulating learning experiences focused on the life of America's 37th President.'' I began to conjure. I pictured reenactments from the Watergate days. I heard echoes of ''I am not a crook'' and ''This is a great wall.'' I had to go. Yorba Linda, located an hour's drive southeast of Los Angeles, is a cookie-cutter California suburb. The blur of chain stores, video rental shops, and fast-food joints was so relentless that I almost drove past the library itself, a low-rise structure, Mediterranean in style, tucked behind a grassy hill. It was a beautiful Southern California morning, and the roses around the building were in bloom. I parked in the shade of a palm and watched as parents dropped off their kids--34 in all--for the last day of a five-day session. Once inside, I corralled a group of 11- and 12-year-olds, all in matching blue Nixon Library T-shirts, and asked them what they had learned about Nixon during their week at the library. It struck me as not a bad way to begin an assessment of just how history might be transmitted in a place whose central figure--whose raison d'etre--was as controversial as Nixon had been. Nixon's career was not without its high points, certainly. But the lows were many, too. TEEN ANGEL. ''He made it so 18-year-olds could vote,'' a young lady named Michelle Witt said. Fair enough, I figured: Nixon did drop the voting age. Lindsay Conley, a perky lass, went straight to the scandal that ended the Nixon Presidency--but with an unexpected twist. ''When I first heard about Watergate, I said 'What a bad guy,''' Lindsay told me with deadpan seriousness. ''But when I realized he had to deal with Vietnam and the prisoners of war, I thought it was amazing he didn't go insane.'' Pretty loose connection there, I thought, though Lindsay was positively Cartesian in her logic compared with Elizabeth DeRose, who had become an unqualified Nixon fan. ''I would have liked to have met him,'' she said. ''He seemed cool. He had a dog.'' Could it be that through the library that honors him Nixon may one day achieve the kind of popularity that eluded him in life? Since it opened 10 years ago this July, the facility has attracted more than 1.8 million visitors. Last year's attendance, at 141,000, was on a par with the John F. Kennedy Library & Museum in Boston, and the Nixon establishment bettered those devoted to FDR, Truman, and Eisenhower. Measured by the numbers, in any case, Nixon has been doing O.K. in the collective memory. You can even argue that the folks who run the Nixon Library had less to work with--and you could apply that notion in more ways than one. Since Congress passed the Presidential Libraries Act in 1955, all the Presidents' libraries have operated under the same formula. Private donations build the structures, and the National Archives maintains them from there. Nixon's library is the exception. Fearing that he might destroy evidence, Congress seized Nixon's papers and tape collection immediately after he left office. Nixon naturally enough figured that federal money for his library would be a long time coming. So he tapped his circle of wealthy friends. He asked them to cover not only the $26 million building cost but also requested that they create an endowment to maintain the facility thereafter. The city of Yorba Linda kicked in $1.5 million to buy the land. A long-running courtroom battle for Nixon's papers finally ended in June: The library is to receive about $6 million in compensation after legal fees and taxes. That won't go far in covering the $4.7 million operating budget required to manage the library and its programs. With no federal funding, the administrators here have had to take the entrepreneurial route. Exhibits tend to have a decidedly populist spin. A salute to President and First Lady relationships, for instance, featured love letters from Abraham Lincoln, honeymoon photos of the Kennedys, Pat Nixon's engagement ring, and Nancy Reagan's wedding bouquet--the last preserved as dried flowers. A few years ago, the library featured an exhibit on rock 'n' roll at the White House. And here, the Nixon folk walked straight across party lines: This program opened with Roger Clinton, our current President's brother, and his band, which he calls Politics. The library is now showing a collection of Barbie dolls dressed as First Ladies. There are plenty of one-offs here, too. Speeches and book signings, featuring everyone from Henry Kissinger to Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura, are generally sellouts. And there are more than 120 other events on these manicured grounds: proms, bar mitzvahs, weddings. Happy couples can tie the knot in the very same gazebo used when Tricia Nixon married Edward Cox in the Rose Garden. A topiary of Nixon's dog Checkers stands guard. ''President Nixon wanted us to be an upbeat and fun place,'' says John H. Taylor, a post-Presidential Nixon aide who has directed the library almost since its opening. MAIL-ORDER HOUSE. While the day-camp kids learned songs and dance steps, I took a brief tour of the library and museum. They are built on the land where Nixon's parents, transplanted Midwesterners, tried to make a go of citrus farming. The 850-square-foot house Frank Nixon assembled from a mail-order catalog in 1912 is still here. A guide explains that Richard Milhouse was born on the coldest night in California history. Not far from the house, Nixon and Pat are buried--two unpretentious black tombstones marking their graves. The main museum covers Nixon's career from its start to its ignoble end. The exhibits begin with the 1945 letter from a local business exec who asked Nixon, then a young naval officer, if he would be interested in running for Congress. A handwritten postscript asks: ''Are you registered to vote in California?'' Would the world be different, you have to wonder, if he had not been? It gradually occurred to me that the library stands as a monument to what we might call The Other Side of the Story. As you walk through the exhibitions, Nixon's view of events begins to bear down on you. It's as if the man himself is giving you a tour--and taking jabs at his detractors with every step. There's a recreated living room, circa 1960, where you can watch the Nixon-Kennedy debates on a small TV. A wall text suggests that fraud in California, Texas, and Illinois may have given Kennedy the election. Is it me, or is that a somewhat weird proposition for a Presidential library to advance? There's lots more in this line, though. The Vietnam War exhibit asserts that Nixon never claimed that he had a ''secret plan'' to end the war. The My Lai massacre is compared with gory North Vietnamese atrocities, and Ramsey Clark and Jane Fonda, two prominent antiwar activists, get a drubbing. A wall text concludes that Nixon's incursion into Cambodia drove Hanoi to the bargaining table and ended the war. Nobody is shy of Watergate, either: It's the largest exhibit. A text allows that Nixon admitted to ''inexcusable misjudgments,'' but then this line of reasoning peters out. Better to point out that Sam Ervin, head of the Senate investigating committee, opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Or that Washington Post reporters Woodward and Bernstein were out to sell books. The exhibit notes that a liberal historian--never named--accused the two of bribery and other crimes. Strangely enough, one of the tape recorders taken from the White House during the Watergate mess is on display. You can even listen to a segment of the legendary ''smoking gun'' tape--the part where Nixon approves of John Dean's plan to tell the CIA to pressure the FBI to quash its Watergate investigation on national security grounds. Then a wall text explains that Nixon stopped that plan two weeks later. So, Watergate was a minor mistake distorted by Nixon's enemies. ''GREAT GUY.'' There's a lighter side to all this. I saw the Colt .45 that Elvis gave Nixon when he dropped by the White House, and a medallion from Sammy Davis Jr. that reads ''Peace and Love, Sammy.'' Trivia enthusiasts take note: Nixon appeared on 54 Time magazine covers--a record. They're all on display. On the way out, I went back to see the campers. They were making scrapbooks with pictures from their week at camp. I got to chatting with a nine-year-old named Amy Cote, and I put to her the question I had asked the others. ''Nixon was a great guy,'' Amy said. ''He brought peace to the world and ended the Vietnam War.'' A few steps away, I thought, R.N. must be smiling. By CHRISTOPHER PALMERI Senior Correspondent Palmeri has now visited seven of the eleven Presidential libraries. EDITED BY PATRICK SMITH _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP					RELATED ITEMS A Rehab Center Called the Nixon Library (int'l edition) MAP: Yorba Linda, Calif. 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