Mrs. Nixon: A Novelist Imagines a Life (25 page)

What if he
had
said that he hadn’t kept a close enough watch, and that some people (he was certainly willing to sacrifice them) had acted badly, and that he apologized, and there would be no more of it? What if he had never made the fatal mistake of tape-recording his conversations in the White House, ostensibly for posterity, but more likely to be used as blackmail, and as a running ledger of who owed him? The White House had been bugged before, but RN was so incautious as to forget to deactivate a switch those times he would have benefited by something being off the record. Paranoia can be contagious. In the Nixon White House, everyone was listening in on everyone else. The panting on the extension phones must have been palpable, as Kissinger’s people listened in on calls with Nixon, and his people’s people listened in on yet others. Everything was highly monitored: only Alexander Butterfield might truly have been naïve enough to assume that all the listening in was in the service of the President’s eventually writing his memoirs.

We have to wonder if Mrs. Nixon’s phone was also tapped. It’s difficult to believe it wasn’t, just as a precaution, just for the hell of it. Though she was ignored as much as possible by Haldeman and Ehrlichman, nothing could be
lost
listening in on her calls. When she died, her tombstone bore the epitaph “Even when people can’t speak your language, they can tell if you have love in your heart.” Tapping her phone might have revealed just how much love.

The idea of love in one’s heart is intriguing, though. It was what the activists and protesters believed, what the sixties believed: that
if you were the right kind of person, language wouldn’t define you—your
karma
would. You were either the right sort of person or the wrong sort. Mr. Nixon believed that what people said was one thing, but what he felt they believed was another. For example, whatever they said, they were suspect if they were Jews. If they’d been educated in an Ivy League school, ditto. Mr. Nixon did not come down firmly in favor of people being defined by their statements. After all, why would a man who never felt bound by the true value of words believe others? Of course, it would help if they had positive thoughts about Republicans and about his presidency, but that wouldn’t be enough. Really, nothing was ever enough. Mrs. Nixon, however, believed that people should have good hearts and do good deeds. She was sincere, helpful, aware that she was a figurehead whose imprimatur could help various good causes, various good people. Nothing suggests that she thought herself inherently special, with a quality that would draw people to her. She was accustomed to reaching out, whereas her husband was accustomed to finding a way to draw people close. If Mrs. Nixon was Little Red Riding Hood (admittedly, a bit long of tooth), then Mr. Nixon was the wolf, disguised as Grandma, asking all the necessary questions, ready to pounce.

The authors of
The Final Days
present Mr. Nixon’s mulling over of Watergate to an audience well within the fold: “Don’t you think it’s interesting, though, to run through this?” he asked. “Really, the goddamn record is not bad, is it?”

“Makes me feel very good,” Ziegler answered.

“To the President, that was overstating it a bit. ‘It’s not comfortable for me, because I was sitting there like a dumb turkey.’” (See: Agnew, Spiro; also, the presidential pardon of the Thanksgiving turkey.)

“Ziegler had an answer. ‘It’s a
Rashomon
theory,’ he offered.

“‘Hm?’ the President asked.”

Here, the writer has to pause to appreciate what’s about to follow. A likely interpretation of “Hm?” is that Richard Nixon had never heard of
Rashomon
. For one thing, it wasn’t American, and foreign = other = not to be trusted. It was tied in to contemporary culture in a way he was not and had no intention of being. But Kurosawa’s film had crept into our lexicon, as had the idea that there was no definitive story, but instead an amalgam of what people thought they saw and believed they’d heard, the way the frighteningly dismissive “whatever” has intruded into the language, giving carte blanche to signal boredom and indifference and to ask others to draw no conclusions at all.

“It’s a
Rashomon
theory,” Ziegler tried again. “Five men sit in a room, and what occurs in that room or what is said in that room means something different to each man, based upon his perceptions of the events that preceded it. And that is exactly what this is. Exactly what it [Watergate] is.

“The President grasped the point: Dean perceived that the President was involved in the cover-up based on his own, not Nixon’s, special knowledge of what had gone before. It seemed to the President to be a pretty good theory. Perhaps it would hold up.”

If Mrs. Nixon could have put a word in his vocabulary, it might have been
Rashomon
. It had a quality she understood: it’s a complex situation, I don’t know everything, no one knows everything. The movie had established itself as part of the culture: the part the President didn’t trust, though he still might appropriate it in his own defense. For a man who thought he knew exactly what had happened, and exactly what right and wrong were, it was a timely concept—one that could excuse him, if he could use it to generate enough uncertainty and confusion.
Rashomon
hadn’t already permeated
his consciousness as a radical reappraisal of how to look at reality, but it was worth a try, the same way a superabsorbent dish towel might be used to mop up.
Rashomon
, one of those fancy concepts, probably out of the academy. Out of the movies, worse still. Not to dismiss movies altogether; he watched
Patton
over and over. (Now, there was a man who would have had nothing to do with
Rashomon
.) And true, he hired his staff from the academy. Kissinger came from Harvard, others from Yale, where probably unknown to Nixon, the pointy-heads—French pointy-heads!—were deconstructing the very idea of agreed-on truth.
Rashomon
with theory!

“Hm?” the President had said, having little idea of the way the concept had permeated the culture, defining it and reflecting it. He wasn’t out at the movies, opening himself up to some foreign notion that could be insidious. There was already a lot of confusion, protest marches that were nothing but confusion, and unbelievable as it was, some people wanted to sink even deeper. He liked to play the game of engaging a new notion every time the mirrored ball flashed, only to decide against it as it twirled away—or maybe his deciding otherwise
made the ball
rotate. Then the next shining notion would send a spark of light into your eye and clarify something else, for a spotlit second. If you were paranoid, though, you’d think the mirrored ball was there to entrap you: something glitzy and pretty and mesmerizing, but surfaces could be only so informative. You would want to be the person who controlled the ball, not the person who danced beneath it.

Some dialogue, found on the Internet, from
Rashomon
:

Commoner: Well, men are only men. That’s why they lie. They can’t tell the truth, even to themselves.

Priest: That may be true. Because men are weak, they lie to deceive themselves.

Commoner: Not another sermon! I don’t mind a lie if it’s interesting.

Having recently seen
Rashomon
again, I find that this dialogue was not in the movie.

M
r. Nixon liked a fire in the fireplace, even during summer, when he would have a fire lit and turn on the air-conditioning. He wanted a fire at Camp David, the White House, San Clemente—and also at Julie Nixon and David Eisenhower’s, those times the Nixons brought dinner from the White House kitchen. RN, himself, is said to have lit the fire. It may well be—but this is the man who, in frustration, tried to bite off a pill bottle’s tamper-proof lid. But let’s say that he lit it. They arrived at the Eisenhowers’, RN lit the fire, and
they did not talk about Watergate
because no fire would be consoling and comfy if that—forgive the pun—hot topic was brought up. “My father first lit the fire,” Julie Eisenhower writes. “While we sat in front of it, Mother would try to divert him by pointing out what was coming into bloom.” Mrs. Nixon must have noticed flowers on the ride over, or when looking out the Eisenhowers’ window. Since it was unlikely RN would refute her, or really even
hear
her, buds opening seemed like a safe subject. We all know what that’s like: trying to find something diverting to talk about, so as not to upset someone who is already unhappy.

David Eisenhower’s thoughts: My wife has decided the food needs reheating. It’s also her excuse to get her mother into the kitchen so she can find out how things are going. But Mrs. Nixon’s not responding the way Julie hoped; I can see the disappointment in Julie’s eyes. When do I not, lately? My mother-in-law likes to linger by the fire, letting Julie reheat the food. If she isn’t paying attention to what Julie wants, it usually means she’s depressed. She feels comfortable here, that’s good, obviously good for them to get out of the White House. They’re so glad Julie and I still live nearby. I’d like to be in the kitchen, but I should stay with my in-laws—if nothing else, to fill what might otherwise be an awkward silence. There doesn’t seem to be much easy communication between them. Wonder what the kitchen’s sent over. I hope something good. Awful flap, that criticism of Heinz Bender—a great pastry chef, and some journalist got the recipe for Julie’s wedding cake way in advance, baked it, and said it was terrible. Might be funny, if it didn’t involve family. Not much seems funny these days, and also, the Coxes get to live in New York. Mrs. Nixon is saying something about flowers. Pay attention, David. Yes—given a garden plot, as a girl on the family farm; she’d grown flowers she loved to cut for bouquets. Daisies, in particular, because they lasted longest. I should remember that: a good future present. She’s always seemed grateful for small pleasures. Her mother died when she was thirteen, her father not long after. Her brothers were good to her, but she doesn’t seem to be in touch with them. Never mentions them. Mr. Nixon has just about finished that scotch. Mrs. Nixon, her ginger ale. The Secret Service and the chauffeur are waiting outside. What a job that must be, even if Julie thinks they overdo it from time to time. Well, in here it’s warm and might be very convivial if Watergate had remained only the name of an apartment building. If only, if only. How much time are you going
to waste thinking about
if only,
David? Also, imagine if there’d been no Vietnam. Julie and I couldn’t even attend our college graduations because of the war protesters who showed up. The Nixons gave us a lovely dinner, but still. It would have been nice to have the option of going to graduation.

What should I say? Mr. Nixon is staring into his empty glass. Mrs. Nixon has stopped talking and seems to be mesmerized by the fire. Wasn’t there a line in one of Brautigan’s books, when someone says: “There is some of each of us in the fire”? Those titles!
The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster
. Not something the relatives would have read. Doesn’t my father-in-law like the short stories of Maupassant, though? Amazed he wouldn’t hate the guy because he’s French. Bet he’s not reading anything now unless it’s a transcript of a tape. And all those messages from Haldeman and Ehrlichman, keepers of the gate. What was the name of that dog who guarded the gates of hell? Cerberus. Maybe they should rename King Timahoe Cerberus. Never comes when he’s called, anyway—he’s too busy eating the pillows.

Well, if the Nixons have a good, cheerful evening, that’ll cheer up Julie, as well. Is there anything I’m not thinking of that might amuse them, get their attention?

Possibly: “Remember that Mimi kept buttons for Mr. Nixon’s campaign by my grandfather’s bedside in the hospital?”

Or: “Remember the time we were campaigning in New Hampshire and Julie and I weren’t married yet, and they put me far away from her at the Holiday Inn, to make sure everything would be proper?” No: neither of the Nixons would smile about that, even now.

Better: “Mr. Nixon, if you’d been Alger Hiss—impossible, I know, but just for the sake of argument—do you think you would have asked to appear to refute Whittaker Chambers’s accusations,
or waited to be called? What I’m asking is whether there’s an advantage to going on the offensive, and how might that vary from situation to situation.” An interesting thought, but my mother-in-law wouldn’t say another word the rest of the evening.

Best: “Another scotch, a little ice? Ginger ale? Let me see what Julie’s up to.”

Or possibly: “Mrs. Nixon, I know what resolve you have, what optimism and energy. Do you think if you’d had a different background, you might sometimes see things as being more open-ended? Because your life didn’t exactly proceed by your being flexible, did it? It proceeded by doing what you had to do.”
That’ll be the day,
when I say that.

Go with: “Another scotch?”

I
van Ilych has already died when Tolstoy’s story begins. We go back in time, and Ivan Ilych’s movement toward death is narrated. We see that he suffers, as does his family. If you replace the idea of dying with Richard Nixon’s misery about Watergate, you can almost make an exact substitution. Section VI of the story begins: “Ivan Ilych saw that he was dying, and he was in continual despair.” Read: “Richard Nixon knew that he could not put Watergate behind him, and he was in continual despair.” Tolstoy’s story continues: “In the depth of his heart he knew he was dying, but not only was he not accustomed to the thought, he simply did not and could not grasp it.” Substitute: “In the depth of his heart he knew he could not escape the results of his actions, but not only was he not accustomed to the thought, he simply did not and could not grasp it.” This is why—as the tapes reveal—Richard Nixon goes around and around, conjecturing, entertaining a frightening variety of thoughts, keeping farfetched and more cogent thoughts at bay, letting them come to the surface, acknowledging them only those times they seem to rise to the surface unexpectedly, like a drowned body. Tolstoy’s story
continues: “The syllogism he had learnt from Kiesewetter’s Logic: ‘Caius is a man, men are mortal, therefore Caius is mortal,’ had always seemed to him correct as applied to Caius, but certainly not as applied to himself.”