extensive timeline details the events leading up to his visit in February 1972 and includes a description of an earlier visit by the national US Ping- Pong team, which many believe was responsible for exciting interest among ordinary Americans about China. And there is an intriguing exhibit chronicling National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger’s top secret visits to China in 1971, which were undertaken to lay the groundwork for the presidential meeting.
Every manned Apollo space mission
took place during Nixon’s years in office, and these are extensively chronicled in another exhibit. There is a moon rock the size of a baseball and an original, two-page, typewritten memo from key Nixon aide William Safire to Chief of Staff H. R. Halde- man outlining what should be done “in event of a moon disaster.” Next is an invitation from the Apollo 11 crew, dated July 15, 1969, inviting the president for “an informal dinner at
u President Nixon’s 1972 trip to China—during which he met with Premier Zhou Enlai and other Chinese leaders—initiated detente between the United States and the People’s Republic of China after twenty-five years of strained relations.
JFK Space Center on the eve of our flight.” The exhibit also includes a copy of the telegram Nixon sent to Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, congratulating him on the success of the historic mission.
One of the presidential limousines
that Nixon used—a massive, black, armor-plated Lincoln—is parked just
Presidential Libraries at a Glance T
HE PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARIES listed below are presented chronologi- cally by the year in which they were opened.
1916 Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center, Fremont, Ohio
1940 Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, Hyde Park, New York
1957 Truman Presidential Museum and Library, Independence, Missouri 1962 Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum, Abilene, Kansas 1971 Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum, Austin, Texas
1979 John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston, Massa- chusetts
1981 Gerald R. Ford Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan 1986 Jimmy Carter Library and Museum, Atlanta, Georgia 1990 Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, Yorba Linda, California 1991 Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California
1997 George Bush Presidential Library and Museum, College Station, Texas
2004 William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum, Little Rock, Arkansas
2004 Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, Springfield, Illinois 54
outside an exhibition room filled with gifts the president received from Americans from all walks of life. Among these gifts is a chrome-plated Colt .45 semiautomatic pistol, pre- sented to Nixon by Elvis Presley, and a gold medallion bearing the inscrip- tion “Peace, Love, and Sammy,” presented to Nixon by singer Sammy Davis Jr.
The museum’s final exhibit, a wall devoted entirely to the Watergate scandal, is not yet complete; when it is finished, however, visitors will be able to experience this aspect of Nixon’s presidency through photos, a timeline, and interpretive texts chronicling the scandal’s key events and players. The exhibit will also contain a listening station, equipped with headphones, where visitors can hear a June 1972 Oval Office conver- sation in which Nixon is heard expressing relief that no one from the White House was involved in the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate Hotel.
Of course, Watergate would prove to be Nixon’s downfall, and for some, the sordid details of that scandal—its investigations, its cover-ups, its cast of unforgettable characters, and Nixon’s resignation from the presidency— remain the dominant memory of Richard Nixon, the man. Yet another legacy lives on in the halls of his presidential library, the legacy of a boy who grew up on a lovely southern California hillside and from there went on to face his destiny on the world stage. ■
M A R C H 2 0 1 1
PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82