Richard M. Nixon won the presidency in 1968 as my husband and I were back in college working on degrees that had been put off while he served in the U.S. Navy. Chip was 25 years old when he started law school. We were way behind previous classmates. One friend in Hampton not only had his law degree but already had been appointed a judge.
We felt a bit like the tortoise racing against the hare which symbolized time. We were slow but our engines were firing up to achieve the goals we were after. He wanted to become a lawyer. I wanted to become a writer. I was already writing stories and columns for my hometown newspaper about life as I observed it.
But now I went to work to support my family starting a telephone answering service in Williamsburg and Newport News and going back to college part time.
The Pentagon Papers hit the press during the Nixon years, which clearly showed Americans how we had been misled in the Vietnam War for many years by three presidents: Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson. Nixon did everything he could to stop publishing the top-secret government documents which had been stolen and handed to the New York Times and Washington Post. The case went to the Supreme Court which found freedom of the press overruled the government’s right of privacy.
I agreed with the finding: the press exists not to serve government, but to serve the people. Don’t I wish all media outlets today still followed that basic premise, which is the most important ingredient of a free society.
I credit Nixon who ended the Vietnam War and brought the troops home. It was a relief to be free from the fighting but sickening to see communists take over South Vietnam and seek retribution from Vietnamese that had helped Americans fight the communists from the north. I decided America must never fight in wars again unless the nation was fully committed to winning the war. Unfortunately, the future would prove our leaders never learned that lesson.
Nixon also opened communication with Chairman Mao in China and this was an achievement. But he got involved in an inane break-in of Democrat headquarters at Watergate and tried to cover it up. He resigned from office turning the country over to yet another Vice President Gerald Ford.
Gerald Ford was a pleasant fellow, a longtime politician from Michigan that had been in the House of Representatives for many years. One of the first things he did was pardon Nixon, who was, by this time, a sick man.
Many Americans did not approve, but I thought it wise so that the nation could heal deep wounds. Also, I did not wish to start a dangerous precedent of sending presidents to prison, no matter how despicable they may turn out to be. Such a process can so easily be abused similar to what we see in third world governments ruled by thugs who imprison or even murder their political opponents.
Jimmy Carter was elected our next president by simply smiling and promising he would never lie to us. That’s how bad it was! So many presidents had lied to us by that time so well, we had almost lost hope of ever getting another president who, like George Washington, was supposedly remembered as a man who never told a lie. If that is so, he must have been a saint.
Carter was a sweet fellow, an engineer by profession and a fine Southern gentleman. He introduced us to a deep Southern accent and kind and gentle manners. I believe the man was the most moral president that has ever occupied the White House. However, he was not able to govern.
The nation quickly went downhill. Interest rates on loans shot skyward. I remember it well as we were trying to finance a house at the time. Inflation followed suit along with unemployment. The statistics jumped to eye popping numbers, well over 10 percent in every category. Americans struggled with financing homes, buying groceries and even getting and keeping employment.
As if hearing a call to serve, out of the West rode Ronald Reagan on a white stallion to save the nation. He talked about that “shining city on the hill” and was elected by a landslide. So now we had elected our first Hollywood star to lead the nation.
What was a young budding writer to think? It seemed to me that politics was a game for lunatics and anyone that climbed on the bandwagon to play was a chump.
I think that was my first inkling that if I wanted to become a writer and opine on politics, the state of mankind and the world, I had better learn fast how to write comedy.
© 2023.