1/ Here's what so many people get wrong about Richard Nixon and Watergate.

👇🧵 2/ First - the context. Nixon entered office with the deck stacked against him.

He was the first president since 1849 to take office with both Houses of Congress controlled by the opposing party.

The permanent bureaucracy, media, and political elite were all aligned against him.

President Nixon dictated a long diary-like memorandum describing the visit to the Lincoln Memorial because he wanted to make a record of what was for him a memorable event:

"Manolo and I got out of the car at approximately 4:40 and walked up the steps to the Lincoln statue. . . .

By this time a few small groups of students had begun to congregate in the rotunda of the Memorial. I walked over to a group of them . . . and shook hands. They were not unfriendly. As a matter of fact, they seemed somewhat overawed, and, of course, quite surprised.

When I first started to speak to the group there were approximately eight in it. I asked each of them where they were from and found that over half were from upper New York State. At this point, all of them were men. There were no women. To get the conversation going I asked them how old they were, what they were studying, the usual questions. . . .

Two or three of them volunteered that they had not been able to hear the press conference because they had been driving all night in order to get here. I said I was sorry they had missed it because I had tried to explain in the press conference that my goals in Vietnam were the same as theirs—to stop the killing and end the war—to bring peace. Our goal was not to get into Cambodia by what we were doing, but to get out of Vietnam.

They did not respond, so I took it from there by saying that I realized that most of them would not agree with my position, but I hoped that they would not allow their disagreement on this issue to lead them to fail to give us a hearing on some other issues where we might agree. And also particularly I hoped that their hatred of the war, which I could well understand, would not turn into a bitter hatred of our whole system, our country, and everything that it stood for.

I said, I know that probably most of you think I’m an SOB, but I want you to know that I understand just how you feel. I recall that when I was just a little older than you, right out of law school and ready to get married, how excited I was when Chamberlain came home from Munich and made his famous statement about peace in our time. I had heard it on the radio. I had so little in those days that the prospect of going into the service was almost unbearable and I felt that the United States staying out of any kind of conflict was worth paying any price whatever. I pointed out, too, the fact that I came from a Quaker background. I was as close to being a pacifist as anybody could be in those times. As a result I thought at that time, that Chamberlain was the greatest man alive, and when I read Churchill’s all-out criticism of Chamberlain I thought Churchill was a madman." (Continued)

https://x.com/nixonfoundation/status/2031839703507362100

"In retrospect, I now realize I was wrong. I think now that Chamberlain was a good man, but that Churchill was a wiser man and that we in the world are better off than we would be because Churchill had not only the wisdom but the courage to carry out the policies that he believed were right even though there was a time when both in England and all over the world he was extremely unpopular because of his “anti-peace” stand.

I then tried to move the conversation into areas where I could draw them out. I said that since some of them had come to Washington for the first time I hoped that while they were young that they would never miss an opportunity to travel. One of them said that he didn’t know whether he could afford it, and I said I didn’t think I could afford it either when I was young but my wife and I borrowed the money for a trip we took to Mexico and then one to Central America. The fact is, you must travel when you are young. If you wait until you can afford it you will be too old to enjoy it. When you’re young, you can enjoy it. . . .

At that time a girl joined the group and since I had been discussing California I asked if anybody there was from California. She spoke up and said she was from Los Altos and I said that was one of my favorite towns in Northern California and I hoped it was as beautiful as I remembered it. She did not respond." (Continued)

Here are the seven pages of President Nixon's grand jury testimony that @JamesRosenTV uncovers. (1/7)

https://twitter.com/JamesRosenTV/status/2020502276394430799

(2/7)

51 years ago, President Nixon resigned.
Now? His legacy is getting a major reappraisal.

/🧵

🧵 1/ Sen. @tedcruz just repeated the tired lie that “Nixon was a crook.”

That line collapses under the weight of facts.
Here’s a reality check for Sen. Cruz—and the rest of D.C.—needs to hear:👇 2/ Nixon entered office with the deck stacked against him.

He was the first president since 1849 to take office with both Houses of Congress controlled by the opposing party.

The permanent bureaucracy, media, and political elite were all aligned against him.

On the morning of December 21, 1970, Elvis Presley arrived at the White House—unannounced.

He had a handwritten letter for President Nixon, requesting a meeting. By that afternoon, the King was in the Oval Office.

Here's the letter that made it happen. ✍️ "Dear Mr. President.

First, I would like to introduce myself. I am Elvis Presley and admire you and have great respect for your office. I talked to Vice President Agnew in Palm Springs three weeks ago and expressed my concern for our country. The drug culture, the hippie elements, the SDS, Black Panthers, etc. do not consider me as their enemy or as they call it the establishment. I call it America and"

History is a pathetic junkyard of broken treaties. 🧵🧵 Yet naive idealists persist in believing that summits, state dinners, windy toasts, tearful bearhugs and abrazos, and solemn signing ceremonies are the very essence of diplomacy.

Mayor Johnson’s reference to President Nixon is gratuitous and the facts are not on his side in his characterization of Richard Nixon and the Nixon administration’s civil rights record.

Here are the facts: 🧵

https://twitter.com/theblaze/status/1810406488344809573

In 1971, the Nixon administration developed a plan to carry out the 1954 SCOTUS decision in Brown v. Board of Education to desegregate all schools in the South. In 1969, 64% of Southern Schools were segregated. By 1974, 8% were segregated. Done effectively and peacefully.