Preface
Only if you have been in the deepest valley, can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain. - Richard Nixon.
If there is ever a man who can claim the title of the one I am so endlessly fascinated by, it is Richard Nixon. The boy from Yorba Linda, the snappy anti-communist senator, the down and out disgraced V.P, the New Nixon, the egregious president, the ratfucker, the once-again disgraced former President, and then there's Nixon the Elder Statesman. The advisor. This is where I will focus on in this story. What if Nixon's rehabilitation post-presidency was better? What if it came quicker? What if Nixon's sway came back? Now, there has already been a timeline which has had a similar concept, The Third Coming of Nixon by Apocatequil. Now this is a good timeline as is, but it goes in one direction, one where Nixon takes a direct role. Whereas, I want to explore the idea of Nixon's power being elsewhere, being exhumed in greater force in the places he wanted to.
Now Claudius, you're probably asking, how the hell do you rehabilitate Nixon quicker?? To that I say, we go back to the Frost Interviews. Nixon, for lack of a better term, got walloped. He had spent two years in the wilderness, and had planned his great comeback, another New Nixon, but he got the journalistic equivalent of a sucker-punch thanks to David Frost pressing him hard on Watergate, his cockups, and how this was blatantly an attempt to save face. To start, we have to go back there. This is not about saving Nixon's legacy or is it turning him into some foreboding villain of American politics (to a degree at least), it's about the idea of Richard Nixon, what he represented, who he was, and how he was perceived. You all know Richard Milhous Nixon, who he was, what he was like, so I will not waste my or your time reexplaining what has been ceaselessly examined, discussed and displayed about America's 37th President. I recently had the great pleasure of reading three books, all on or around Nixon. Richard Nixon: The Life by John A. Farrell, Nixonland by Rick Perlstein and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 by Hunter S. Thompson. All of them display Nixon from several different viewpoints and areas in his life, but only the first displays Nixon the Elder Statesman, that final character he reinvented himself into following Watergate.
This is definitely the biggest task I have undertaken. Saving Richard Nixon. The man who is still the textbook corrupt major politician in America, considered one of the worst because of his actions, even with the cross-examinations. But I believe it is possible. There are so many routes and ways Nixon could go, as seen with Apocatequil's timeline, but also others. Would he have tried to take a direct role, or preferred to stay in the shadows, influencing behind the backs of other men? Hard to say, especially with a man as convoluted as Tricky Dick. That being said, this is not a stab in the dark, I have and will write this story with the research I have undertaken in mind, and, I hope dearly that whomever reads this finds it enjoyable. Would Richard Nixon for certain have done the things he will in this story in real life? Maybe, maybe not, but damn if I won't attempt to make it entertaining.
The central race in the world today is neither an arms race nor a space race. It is the race between man and change. The central question is whether we are to be the master of events, or the pawn of events. - Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon had a kind of Walter Mitty fantasy life. He was a man with a grandiose thoughts: dreams of not simply being president but maybe becoming one of the truly great presidents of American history. - Robert Dallek
Richard Nixon had a kind of Walter Mitty fantasy life. He was a man with a grandiose thoughts: dreams of not simply being president but maybe becoming one of the truly great presidents of American history. - Robert Dallek