Where we're you when Nixon resigned?

[LincolnToddFan]

Yes!! I totally agree Bill. Anyone who is able to cause my late grandma and so many others to almost foam at the mouth with anger brings out the armchair psychologist buried deep inside me.

He was a man of fierce bigotry and paranoia. I could read transcripts of his secret tapes for hours on end, and in fact I have done just that. Who in the hell goes and makes an actual LIST of their enemies and opponents?!

But I have to believe that he was also a profoundly lonely man. He loved his wife and girls, but seemed to keep them at a deliberate arms length. There are no photos that I've ever seen of him giving Pat, Julie or Tricia a cuddle. But in the book "Dog Days at the White House" author Traphes Bryant describes an incident when President Nixon was given a new Labrador puppy named King Timahoe by some admirers in Maryland. Nixon was so delighted he actually got on his knees and hugged the dog. I almost cried reading it. And the way he broke down and wept at his wife's funeral was just too painful to witness.

Many don't know this but former President Clinton deeply respected Nixon for his sharp intelligence and diplomatic acumen. Toward the end of Nixon's life Clinton was in frequent contact with Nixon by phone, and even met with him a couple of times at the WH.

So what happened in the life of Richard Milhaus Nixon to cause these extremes in his personality? Vindictive, mean and paranoid on the one hand, and vulnerable, astute, wise on the other?