Richard Nixon born 9 January 1913

[Octafish]

5. Ike thought Tricky Dick a mere politician, not presidential timber.

James Reston wrote, during Nixon's last year in office with Eisenhower, that the Vice President watched football games while the President was making his decisions on a summit metting. Eisenhower simply was not interested in Nixon's view of things....

(...)

Eisenhower's periodic deflations of Nixon did not arise from mere vindictiveness. It seems clear from his actions, and from things he told many intimates, that he did not consider Nixon a statesman.... Eisenhower has been recorded... remarking that Nixon did not grow or mature in office; that he was not presidential timber; that he had no roots; that he was "too political".

That last phrase... best sums up Ike's attitude.... The one thing Eisenhower regularly entrusted to Nixon was housekeeping work in the Republican Party... campaigning for every Republican in Ameirca in the off years.... If Eisenhower needed Right-Wing support, Nixon was dispatched to round it up.... It was especially true when the White House had to deal with Joseph McCarthy....

Nixon did not want to attack McCarthy openly.... But (Eisenhower's) staff knew there would be little impact if a liberal Republican attacked Joe. The denunciation had to come from the right, so Eisenhower himself gave Nixon the job.... When a select committee of the Senate was appointed... Nixon chose its personnel and... "arranged McCarthy's humiliation by appointing hanging judges." Roy Cohn listed Nixon among the severest critics of McCarthy to show up for his funeral.

NIxon realixed that these were dirty missions.... His complaint was that Eisenhower did not seem to... value the man who could accomplish them.... Nixon, not understanding Eisenhower's standards, thought he could ingratiate himself by doing all the regime's dirty work. He thought this was the way to rise. All it did was convince Ike that he was not made for higher things. His one chance of growing in the president's esteem might have come from a refusal to run such errands....

SOURCE: Gary Wills, via Brad DeLong: http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2005/11/gary_willss_nix.html

A crooked politician who makes an Enemies List is almost as dangerous as his crooked political heirs who've managed to run roughshod over the Constitution, People and planet for, oh, the greater part of a half-century.