"THIS YEAR I'M GOING TO VOTE FOR DICK NIXON"

This statement was made in my old apartment at Yorkshire Towers on the Upper East Side in October, 1968. My wife was expecting our first child, Gregory, who was actually born on January 9, 1969. We didn't go out much on weekends, so my family and my wife's family came to keep company. They used to come up on Sunday for cake and coffee. They were what I was told were old-fashioned Democrats, some of whom, even in 1968, believed that Franklin Roosevelt was still President.

Suddenly my father-in-law firmly, quietly stated, "This year I'm going to vote for Dick Nixon. He looks after the little guy." This almost created a family revolution. Brothers, sisters considered a crime not to vote for Franklin Roosevelt's party. But 1968 was not an ordinary year, and 1968 was not an ordinary election. We had Vietnam, the same as in the year 2006 we have Iraq.

If we were to reconstruct the same family party, the same atmosphere, I would say the major difference is that nobody could say that I'm going to vote for Dick somebody, because he would make the difference. Pat Buchanan, an old student of Richard Nixon, said that 2006 is the only year he never had a candidate for the presidency.

In 1968, the many be little guys (later named the silent majority) voted for Dick Nixon. There was a hope. He was a hope that he would create order and get our country out of the morass. He stated in his acceptance speech in Miami that when a nation which is know for its tradition of law and order cannot have its cities burned down, that when the President of the United States cannot go overseas or to a major city because of fear of molestation, there is a time for a change.

In the 2004 election, I read that Theodore Sorensen said, "American needs another John F. Kennedy". I say in 2006, America needs a Bismarck. We have a total collapse of our respect in world diplomacy. We are no longer the preeminent nation, and we don't have many simple people who would quietly and firmly say, "This year I'm voting for Dick Nixon".

Thirty-eight years ago, America was saved and my family sailed forth. In 1974, my second son Justin was born and became a famous writer. Gregory was born on January 9, 1969, the birthday of President Nixon. When I had become acquainted with the President and I visited him on a few occasions, he even sent birthday cards and pictures to Gregory, celebrating their common birthday. Well, Gregory has grown up and he even went for six months to Leningrad about fifteen years after Nixon visited Brezhnev in the Kremlin. The family has changed and I would say that we have much more in the last thirty-eight years than we ever had. In 1968, I was less than five years in the United States. However, I felt that my father-in-law was right. I have to vote for Dick Nixon.

It's a tremendous tragedy that the day before the election I cannot walk down to the polls with a conviction that, yes, if I vote for a Dick somebody, life could change, that our world would be safer and better, that Americans would be prouder than ever. I am going to vote, and I am Republican and I'm going to vote for Republicans, but I don't know that I will not find in the ballot box the name of either Dick Nixon or Dick somebody, a person whom we so badly need.

During my friendship with President Nixon, he sometimes let himself go and talked about Watergate. He very rarely talked about his successes. He always talked about the problems the country was facing. On one occasion in the evening when he returned again to the subject that later he quite correctly named. Watergate in five years will stop being a topic, and in ten years will disappear from history.

He sometimes talked about one of his nine books he wrote after 1974, "No more Vietnams." The the press never mentions No More Vietnams.

Nixon was delivered to the little guy in 1968. He gave us guidance in his books, and I am particularly happy that one day I could deliver him an opinion of the American people. In 1980 before the election, I met in the Beverly Wiltshire Hotel a client of mine who was a great Democratic supporter of President Nixon, the late Mr. Gene Klein. Gene Klein hit the table. He said, Andrew, you are not an American. What does the world think about us? What we do with our country, our leaders, our heritage? And as I was silent, he said something which was also missing from our political thinking. Mr. Klein said about his old friend, "If there was an election in the free world, Nixon would win by a landslide."

If members of Congress and the Cabinet in 2002 would have read No More Vietnams, Woodward could not get a second printing for his Betrayal lullaby.

When I told this story to the President, he called up Mr. Klein and invited Mr. and Mrs. Klein two days later for dinner in New York.

And now I have a message to many Americans, including my father-in-law, that we shouldn't give up. There is not one person among us whom the free world or the non-free world would elect by a landslide. There is no Dick Nixon among us. We have to rely on ourselves because the old master perhaps today would deliver a lecture either, probably at Oxford University, saying, "It's not over. You are not defeated when you are beaten. You are defeated only when you give up."

   Andrew Racz

(Article 41 - posted November 7, 2006)

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