News
Obama Channels Nixon on Energy
The energy issue has been around for decades, so it is very hard for a president to say anything new about it. President Obama's Oval Office address on the Gulf oil spill is an example. Toward the end, he invoked images of American determination and ingenuity: The one...
Providing Americans Clean Air and Water
The words pollution and environment were on many politicians mind in 1969. Improvement of the environment was an achievement during the Nixon administration. Nixon grasped issues rapidly and presented a comprehensive and broad legislative environmental agenda. A...
Can the Penn-McKee Hotel be Saved?
The site of the first debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon is not only in desperate need of rehabilitation and preservation—it may one day have an appointment with a wrecking ball. Of course, many reading this will be tempted to Google just where the...
Legacy of Parks
Environmental conservation was at the forefront of Richard Nixon’s domestic legislative agenda. In his 1971 State of the Union message, RN declared: “I will propose programs to make better use of our land, to encourage a balanced national growth–growth that will...
RN and the Formation of the EPA
The establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970 was one of the most important actions of Richard Nixon’s presidency, setting up an arm of the Federal government’s executive branch that now employs more than 17,000 people and operates a budget of...
June 12, 1971 (And a Favorite Photo)
Thirty-nine years ago today Tricia Nixon married Edward Finch Cox in the White House Rose Garden, in one of the truly most memorable moments in the Executive Mansion's history. Last month, Mrs. Cox visited the White House for a Mother's Day tea, as described some days...
Expletive Deleted
President Obama's recent TV statement about kicking posterior led a number of journalists to muse about previous presidents who used bad language in the White House. Thanks to the tapes, of course, we know about RN's unfortunate weakness for expletives. But as a...
Ben Stein on the Malek Controversy
Fred Malek, White House special assistant during the Nixon Administration and later RN's Deputy Director of OMB, and also finance co-chairman of Sen. John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign, was appointed last month by Virginia Governor Robert McDonnell to head a...
Trivial Pursuit and the Nixon Era
Let's get out that familiar box with the elegant script on top, open it, and pick a card at random. The question reads: What was Canada's foremost cultural export of the 1980s? As hard as it may be to believe, the answer is not Michael J. Fox, but surely Trivial...
Nixon, Brown, and the 1960 California Primary
Fifty years ago, a fellow named Brown was on the Democratic primary ballot in California. Governor Pat Brown, father of Jerry, was seeking to be his state's favorite son at the party's presidential nominating convention. Vice President Nixon was unopposed on the GOP...