No modern President could have been less equipped by nature for political life. Painfully shy, Nixon dreaded meeting new people. Fearful of rejection, he constructed his relationships so that a rebuff, if it came, would seem to have originated with him. Fiercely proud, he could neither admit his dependence on approbation nor transcend it. Deeply insecure, he first acted as if fate had singled him out for rejection and then he contrived to make sure that his premonition came to pass. None of us really knew the inner man. More significant, each member of his entourage was acquainted with a slightly different Nixon subtly adjusted to the President's judgment of the aide.
The view that Nixon was the incarnation of evil is as wrong as the adulation of his more fervent admirers. What gave Nixon his driven quality was the titanic struggle among the various personalities within him. And there was never a permanent victor between his dark and sensitive sides. Now one, now another personality predominated, creating an impression of menace, of torment, of unpredictability and finally of enormous vulnerability.
This is why those of us who worked closely with Nixon developed a grudging respect and something akin to tender protectiveness for him. His aberrations grew out of a desperate conflict of discordant elements; thus he was in truth the first victim of his own unharmonious nature. We saw a Nixon who could be gentle and thoughtful; some of his most devious methods were mechanisms to avoid hurting people face to face. With all his tough-guy pretensions, he really wanted to be remembered for his idealism. He spoke often of his mother and her gentleness; he missed her dreadfully when she left him when he was quite young to take care of an older brother dying of tuberculosis.
His self-image of coolness in crisis was distorted by the dogged desperation with which he attacked his problems born out of the fatalism that in the end nothing ever worked as intended. His courage was all the more remarkable because it was not tied to a faith in ultimate success that distinguished leaders like De Gaulle or Churchill or Roosevelt.
I recoiled at some of Nixon's crudities. I resented being constantly manipulated. Yet I was deeply grateful for the opportunity he had given me to serve my country. Where outsiders saw a snarl, I saw the fear of rejection. What often appeared as deviousness was a means to preserve his options in the face of inner doubt about his own judgment. Few men so needed to be loved and were so shy about the grammar of love. Complexity was his defense, a sense of inadequacy his secret shame, until they became second nature and produced what he feared most.
During Nixon's final torment I often reflected on an event in the summer of 1970. On a Saturday afternoon the White House switchboard operator reached me at the hotel in Laguna Beach, Calif., that served as the press center. Would I like to drive with the President and Bebe Rebozo, his old friend, to Los Angeles? We could have dinner at Chasen's restaurant.