Students, faculty remember Nixon

Former President Richard Nixon will be buried today in his hometown of Yorba Linda, Calif. He died last Friday at age 81 after suffering a stroke which sent him into a coma from which he never awoke. President Clinton signed an executive order last week, declaring a national day of mourning today. Federal offices will be closed and mail will not be delivered as a tribute to Nixon. To many, both around the country and at the University, Nixon was a symbol of political courage and accomplishment. College senior Dana Lynch, former two-term chairperson of College Republicans, said Nixon was "the best foreign policy president we had." "He was very resilient as a politician -- he always bounced back from adversity," Lynch said. He added that Nixon's resignation saved the American presidency. "If we would have stayed, he would have been impeached, and the respect and power placed on the American presidency would have dissolved," he said. Engineering sophomore James Ingraham disagreed, saying that Nixon's death is "no great loss." Reacting to President Clinton's executive order, which essentially shuts down the federal government today, College freshman Andy McBrien asked the question, "Why are we celebrating his death [when] we almost impeached [him]?" College sophomore Eric Tienou, the Undergraduate Assembly's communications director, disagreed. While praising Clinton's Executive Order, Tienou said he is upset that Nixon's body will not lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington D.C. Although many students and History professors said Nixon will be remembered most for the Watergate scandal, many agreed that his importance in the modern political era is much more far-reaching. History Professor Thomas Sugrue said Nixon was "a man who has lived through and influenced everything in American politics, good and bad." Along with having been a major spokesperson for McCarthyism, Nixon also served as a bridge between the old Republicans and the new right wing of the party, Sugrue said. He added that Nixon was a fascinating president because he "combines in one political career so many of the competing currents of American politics." While Sugrue said Nixon was a critic of civil rights, he added that the president was a primary architect of Affirmative Action. Students viewed Nixon in the context of recent U.S. presidents. "The most recent Republican presidents we have had are so awful that Nixon appears quite favorable in comparison," said History graduate student Sebastian Frede. Compared to the "criminally unintelligent" former President Ronald Reagan and the "blue-stocking aristocrat" former President George Bush, Nixon appeared to be much more competent, Frede said. He added that Nixon was "an intelligent man, just not a very honest man." College freshman Olexa Horbashevki said Nixon's claim to fame is that he is the first and only president to resign. He said Nixon's foreign policy accomplishments with China and the former Soviet Union are only a "footnote." Lynch said Nixon's death will bring about a rethinking of his achievements in the Oval Office. "Now that President Nixon is dead, historians will look at him in a different fashion," he said. "I think historians will go against the trend to just put a label of Watergate on his head."