Stateside
Sharon Harris asks: what do you want to be remembered for?
H 10 DECEMBER 2019
ow do you want to be remembered someday? As 2019 ends and 2020 begins, I think about the significance of my own life. After G2E, my husband Norman and I endured nightmarish traffic to sightsee in southern
California that weekend. The Ronald Reagan and Richard M. Nixon Presidential Libraries are popular tourist sites because presidential libraries make history come alive. As Baby Boomers, we have experienced multiple administrations. We’d already toured the Reagan Library, so we traveled to
Nixon’s. It was built on the exact acreage of his early 20th century childhood home. Mention Nixon’s name and my generation cringes. During the early 1970s, a botched burglary at the popular Watergate apartment/office complex in Washington D.C. helped change American history. Nixon’s paranoid demons sidelined his good sense to bring
him down. The two-year investigation and scandal exposed his cover-up of the political crime at the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters office in the Watergate. The Library tells the complete story, but it is only a piece of Nixon’s life. Nixon’s long public life included stints in the US Navy,
Congress and as Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Vice-President from 1953-1961. Nixon was a smart guy. He lost his presidential bid when the charismatic John F.
Kennedy defeated him in a brutally close election in 1960. Nixon also lost the 1962 California Governor’s race. He vowed to leave politics forever, but returned triumphant in 1968. Nixon became President in January 1969 and resigned on 9th August 1974 to avoid impeachment for the Watergate
cover-up. I was in London that day and remember my shock. Vice-President Gerald Ford, who had replaced disgraced former Vice-President Spiro Agnew, immediately took office during a peaceful transition of power. Ford quickly pardoned Nixon, saying, “My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over...” He paid a political price for that with his 1976 defeat. The Library profiles many first-term accomplishments.
Domestically, Nixon enforced desegregation in southern schools, created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), launched a “war on cancer” campaign and led the July 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing space race. Who knew all this? He ended the Vietnam War and military draft, forever impacting America’s youth. Nixon reopened relations with China in 1972 and helped end the arms race with the Soviet Union. After his global disgrace, Nixon’s quiet post-Watergate life somehow rehabilitated parts of his reputation. He died at 81 in 1994. President Bill Clinton eulogized Nixon at the funeral.
Ironically, Clinton urged people to judge someone’s entire life, not one terrible incident. Who knew Clinton would face impeachment, and disbarment, himself in 1999 for lying about his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky? He too had an impressive career. I thought of this after learning the Nevada Gaming
Control Board (NGCB) wants to revoke Steve Wynn’s gaming license. Wynn surrendered his CEO/Chairman position in February 2018 and sold his stock after facing multiple sexual harassment and assault accusations. Wynn has consistently denied everything, calling them consensual relationships, and never faced trial.
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