President Nixon’s Lasting Impact On American Indian Life (Video)

 Yesterday morning, I received the following email from the Richard Nixon Foundation.

Five Oklahoma Tribal Leaders to Gather and Assess Impact of Nixon Policies on American Indian Life On Wednesday, October 16, 2024, the First Americans Museum and the Richard Nixon Foundation will host a landmark policy conference, Tribal Self-Determination Revisited: President Nixon’s Lasting Impact on American Indian Life. The event will bring together five prominent Oklahoma tribal leaders, along with policy makers and members of the Nixon administration, to discuss, reflect on and assess the ongoing effects —more than 50 years later— of the Nixon administration’s transformational federal policies on American Indian life and tribal sovereignty.

President Nixon's 1978 Speech To The Oxford Union

Here is a fascinating address by former President Richard Nixon to students at the Oxford Union in November 1978. Following his address, he takes questions from the students.

The video synopsis from the Richard Nixon Foundation:

November 1978: President Nixon takes questions from British and American students and talks about foreign affairs at the Oxford Union.

50 Years Since Vietnam Peace Agreement

50 years ago yesterday, I was at Chaffee Motors (Ford dealer) in Hawthorne, California after taking my dad there so he could pick up his car that had some mechanical work done.

While there, I heard on the radio that former President Lyndon Johnson died. The next evening, January 23, 1973, President Richard Nixon announced the Vietnam Peace Agreement that ended the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.

What caused this memory was a Twitter post by the Richard Nixon Foundation of yesterday.

They posted:

Lyndon Baines Johnson died 50 years ago today. The following night on January 23, President Nixon would go on live television to announce the end of the Vietnam War. After the announcement he wrote this letter to Lady Bird Johnson.

It is hard to believe that 50 years has passed. 

Unfortunately, the peace agreement only held for two years. 

Nixon Was A Halloween Fan

Some presidential trivia.

Former President Richard Nixon was a big fan of Halloween. Each year, he would be out greeting the neighborhood trick or treaters at his doorstep. 

The following has him posing with some of the kids. I presume it was at his residence either in Saddle River or Park Ridge, New Jersey.

Photo courtesy of the Richard Nixon Foundation.

50th Anniversary: Nixon Lands In China

From the Richard Nixon Foundation: 

50 years ago today President and Mrs. Nixon landed on Air Force One in Beijing to begin their historic visit to the People's Republic of China.

Read about why President Nixon went to China and how this became the most important diplomatic overture of the second half of the 20th century, leading to “the first great crack in the Cold War.”

Nixon Foundation Remembers Bruce Herschensohn

 Some sad news came in the following email from the Richard Nixon Foundation:

December 1, 2020

Bruce Herschensohn and his parents with President Nixon in the Oval Office in 1974. Remembering Bruce Herschensohn  Stanley Bruce Herschensohn, a conservative fixture in American politics for decades, former White House official, brilliant artist, storyteller, historian, and dear friend and longtime confidant of President Nixon and the Nixon family, passed away on Monday, November 30. He was 88 years old. "One word defines Bruce Herschensohn: patriot," said Hugh Hewitt, President of the Richard Nixon Foundation. "A resonant, mellifluous voice for freedom, he was always calm, always insistent on the truth that people needed to be free, wanted to be free and would be free. Though he’s no longer with us, his role as freedom’s champion will live on through his films, his writings and his students." Bruce began his career as a box-boy at Ralphs Grocery, then climbed the ranks of RKO Radio Pictures from messenger runner into the Art Department. After service in the U.S. Air Force, he began his own motion picture company. One of the films he wrote, directed, edited, and scored was the feature-length documentary "John F. Kennedy: Years of Lightning, Day of Drums" for the United States Information Agency (USIA).  He was appointed Director of Motion Pictures and Television for the USIA. During his tenure, the USIA received numerous awards for film and television productions, including an Academy Award.  In 1969, Herschensohn was selected, alongside astronaut Neil Armstrong, as one of the Ten Outstanding Young Men in the Federal Government and received the Distinguished Service Medal.  He was appointed Deputy Special Assistant to President Nixon in 1972, with a broad portfolio of responsibilities.  President Nixon said of Herschensohn, “He is particularly well qualified in an area I find important, foreign policy. He is an expert in that area.” On August 7, 1974, Herschensohn visited President Nixon in the President’s private study, where he implored the President not to resign from office the next day.  From 1978 through 1991, Herschensohn was a popular political commentator in Los Angeles on both KABC-TV and KABC-Radio. In 1980, he joined the Reagan Presidential Transition Team.  Herschensohn won the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in California in 1992. He was narrowly defeated by Barbara Boxer in the general election, but received over four and a half million votes, over one million more votes in California than the national Republican ticket. He visited more than 90 countries in his lifetime. He taught "The U.S. Image Abroad" at the University of Maryland, taught foreign policy as the Nixon Chair at Whittier College, worked with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in Zurich, and served as Chairman of the Board of Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, where he was a Senior Fellow in the School of Public Policy and from which he received an Honorary Doctor of Law degree.  From 1993 to 2001 he was a Distinguished Fellow at the Claremont Institute and, in 1996, a Fellow at the John F. Kennedy Institute of Politics at Harvard University.  To the delight of his friends and fans, Herschensohn made countless appearances and gave dozens of speeches at the Nixon Library and Birthplace over 30 years, notably delivering the keynote address at President Nixon's Centennial Birthday Celebration, just steps away from the home in which President Nixon was born. More recently, Millennials across the Internet know him for his PragerU video, “The Truth About the Vietnam War,” which has been viewed more than four million times since its release in 2014.   Remembrances from Bruce’s friends:   “Some individuals deserve to have dictionary words bestowed upon them in life.  For Bruce Herschensohn, 'loyalty' stands out. Once Bruce became your friend and ally, he never left your side…never.  His loyalty to country, to principles, to comrades and to ideals never wavered, never waned.  President Nixon had the highest of respect for Bruce, but, even more, also spoke of his steadfast sense of honor and duty.  When he spoke of Bruce, it was always with warmest words of  affection.” -- Ken Khachigian “Bruce Herschensohn was a patriot.  A man of the greatest personal integrity. He loved Richard Nixon and never wavered in his support and admiration of the President. I loved Bruce like so many who knew him.  He will be missed, but never forgotten.” -- Dwight Chapin