Mrs. Nixon: A Novelist Imagines a Life (29 page)

The beach is ten minutes away, but I love to sit on my back porch.

T
he Pacific is a grand ocean. It’s oh so pretty to look at. He thinks so, too. We’ve taken many a walk here, but his leg’s been so bad, he still can’t walk. He’s been asleep since just past dinner.

Oh, it will work out. It will be all right. The doctors have operated, and if only he follows their instructions, which I know he will, now that he has time to take care of himself, it will get better fast.

Even in such darkness, I can see the little whitecaps.

He used to take walks and think of me. He called me Miss Pat and sent me a note: “Miss Pat, I took
the
walk tonight and it was swell because you were there all the time. Why?—because a star fell right in front of me, the wind blowing thru the tops of the palms.” Then all these years passed, and I got my code name, Starlight. We all got fictional names. I wonder if the bestowal made us just a little bit different. People in somebody’s story that was being made up as it went along. Starlight reminds me of “Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight . . .” And there’s one up there, tonight: one little star shining bright, people everywhere must be making a wish. Maybe Dolly sees it outside her window in New York.

Scarf double-knotted to keep the breeze from blowing my hair. What would be so bad if the wind blew it every which way? Out here on the beach with no one to see me, except my little friend the star. Off it comes, and I don’t believe I hear any gasp from the universe. I’ll put it in my pocket and fold it later when I’m inside, with nothing to do. If he’d come along, would he have remembered when my hair was strawberry blond? Silly Dick told me it was “titian-colored.” He always did see things in his special way. When I worked at the department store, I’d try to show the clothes to their best advantage, daintily turning up a cuff, twirling a wide skirt. I’d put on a necklace so the blouse would get more attention. When a gentleman was buying a lady a blouse, he’d want to know if it should match her eyes and be so surprised if I said it should flatter her skin.

Did
he get down on his knees with Henry to pray? Can what that book says be true? If I asked Henry, would he—even once in his life—be capable of just answering yes or no?

Quiet out here, quiet, quiet, quiet. That’s what Aunt Neva said, when I told her I was marrying Dick. “What are you marrying him for? He’s too quiet.”

I got my first orchid corsage the day of our wedding. And Dick and I got orchids again, for the wives of the returning POWs. People decorate with them now, like they’re roses. They don’t seem mysterious the way they did, coming from faraway places. I’ve heard there’s a grower in Malibu.

In the Peking Hotel the chef sculpted a praying mantis from a green pepper.

Now there was something unexpected. You wonder how such a creative idea like that comes to someone.

Such a lovely feeling, the scarf deep in my pocket. When men carry them, tucked in a breast pocket with just the edge showing,
they never feel them, but this scarf of mine is my sweet little security blanket. I could lie on the beach and pretend the sand was my bed, and the scarf a cover, and the breeze an invisible ceiling fan.

“Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight.” They say no one knows who wrote that. It was written by “Anonymous.” Lucky Anonymous, who never had to field any questions.

What to wish for . . . You won’t stop winking till you hear what I want most, will you?

3/16/1912: Thelma Catherine Ryan born Ely, Nevada, to a farmer and his wife; has half siblings and two brothers, Bill and Tom (both of whom she helps put through school)

1925–1929: Member of high school drama club; lead in junior year play,
The Romantic Age
. Also lead in senior year,
The Rise of Silas Lapham

1926: Mother dies of Bright’s disease and liver cancer

1930: Father dies of tuberculosis

1932: Attends Fullerton Junior College; lead in play
Broken Dishes

1933: Attends one semester at Columbia University; tours the White House

1934–1937: Attends University of Southern California, graduates cum laude with B.S. in merchandising, teaching certificate for high school; many jobs (while in school), including salesperson at Bullock’s Wilshire department store, waitress, librarian. Enters movie studio contest to “find a starlet” and is offered a job, but because it is for only one film, refuses

1937: Meets Richard Nixon when they both act in
The Dark Tower
as part of Whittier Community Players

1940: Marries RN (after much internal debate) in a rented room (the Presidential Suite) at Mission Inn, Riverside, California

1941–1945: RN an attorney in Washington, D.C., Mrs. Nixon a clerk for the Red Cross; RN a naval lieutenant, commissioned to Iowa, Mrs. Nixon works at a bank; RN to South Pacific, Mrs. Nixon in San Francisco as a price analyst for Office of Price Administration

1946: RN runs for Congress, Mrs. Nixon does research on opponent Jerry Voorhis and helps with campaign; daughter Tricia born

1948: Daughter Julie born

1950: RN defeats Helen Gahagan Douglas (who gives him the nickname “Tricky Dick”) for Senate

1952: RN is chosen as Vice President of Dwight D. Eisenhower; RN gives Checkers speech after he is accused of taking campaign funds; Eisenhower is advised to drop him from the ticket; RN, in an unprecedented move, appeals to the nation on TV; Mrs. Nixon is silently present, as an example of their frugality and honesty, in what he calls her “respectable Republican cloth coat.” The public buys it: RN stays on ticket

1953–1954: Eisenhower-Nixon elected; RN tells friend Murray Chotiner he will retire from politics after vice presidency (“I still resented being portrayed as a demagogue or a liar or as a sewer-dwelling denizen of a Herblock cartoon”); RN and Mrs. Nixon travel to Venezuela, where car is attacked by anti-American mob, daughters hear about this on the radio

1956: RN re-elected VP

1960: RN loses presidential election to John F. Kennedy by a slim margin

1961: Live in California; RN practices law and writes a book

1962: RN runs for governor of California and loses; RN publishes
book
Six Crises,
writing about Alger Hiss, the allegations he had a private money fund, Eisenhower’s heart attack, the trip to Venezuela, Khrushchev, and the campaign of 1960

1963: Moves to New York and practices law; Mrs. Nixon asks him to leave politics for good; RN is doing business in Dallas the day before John Kennedy is shot, hears the news on cab radio

1965: RN turns 52; reconsiders entering political life, breaking his word to Mrs. Nixon

1966: RN campaigns for Republican candidates

1967: RN travels extensively abroad; no mention in his memoirs about Mrs. Nixon being along

1968: RN runs for President; George Romney and Nelson Rockefeller withdraw; RN wins nomination and election

1969–1974: As wife of the vice president, and eventually as First Lady, Mrs. Nixon travels to eighty countries. Editing her husband’s speeches et cetera. Mrs. Nixon acquires antiques and many paintings for the White House, holds “candlelight tours,” has “Evenings [of performances] at the White House,” feels there should be more public parks. She visits South Vietnam, the first First Lady to visit a combat zone (she favors amnesty for those who do not serve, at the same time she supports the servicemen)

1970: Mrs. Nixon goes to Peru in a humanitarian effort after the massive earthquake; shootings at Kent State (Mrs. Nixon is “appalled”)

1972: Trip to China; Mrs. Nixon goes alone to Africa

1973:
Roe v. Wade;
Mrs. Nixon is pro-choice; she also endorses ERA, wants a woman appointed to the Supreme Court (and never tires of telling RN this). She does not get her way. She spends about five hours a day answering the
majority of the mail she receives at the White House. Haldeman and Ehrlichman, her nemeses, and “two of the finest public servants” her husband has ever known, resign in the growing White House scandal about the Watergate break-in

1974: Return to Venezuela twenty years after initial tumultuous trip; Watergate scandal and eventual resignation of RN as President (Aug. 9, 1974), against Mrs. Nixon’s wishes (her advice had been to destroy the tapes he kept of White House conversations, which proved incriminating); the couple depart for their home La Casa Pacifica, San Clemente, California, after a teary good-bye speech to White House staff, in which RN thanks many and forgets to mention Mrs. Nixon

1975: Mrs. Nixon gardens, has visits in California with her daughters, takes walks, is reclusive, worries about RN, who has physical problems (phlebitis that nearly kills him); RN is depressed

1976: Stroke

1980: Return from California to East Coast; live in East Side NYC town house

1981: Move to Saddle River, New Jersey

1984: Mrs. Nixon declines further Secret Service protection

1991: In a rare public appearance, Mrs. Nixon attends dedication of the Reagan Library with RN

1992: Many health problems, also diagnosed with lung cancer

1993: Dies at age 81 in Park Ridge, New Jersey; buried in Yorba

Linda, California, Richard Nixon Birthplace and Museum

The Lady in the Green Dress

Hard questions on Vietnam: Joe McGinniss,
The Selling of the President
1968
(New York: Trident Press, 1969),
p. 111
.

Stories as Preemptive Strikes

In this chapter and throughout the book, I am indebted to Julie Nixon Eisenhower’s
Pat Nixon: The Untold Story
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986). Subsequent references will be to
PN.

RN talking to pictures: Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein,
The Final
Days
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1976), p. 395.

Late-night phone calls by Nixon: Jonathan Schell,
The Time of Illusion
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1975),
p. 51
.

“fragmentation”: Ibid.,
p. 6
.

Plan to get prostitutes to yacht: Ibid.,
pp. 205
–206.

Mrs. Nixon after mother’s funeral:
PN,
p. 27
.

Raymond Carver, “Are These Actual Miles?” (formerly “What Is It?”), in
Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?
(New York: McGraw-Hill Paperback, 1987),
pp. 210
–211.

The Faux Pas

“funny shows”: McGinniss,
Selling of the President 1968,
epigraph.

Mrs. Nixon answered Wilkinson/Paul Keyes questions: Ibid.,
p. 157
.

Mrs. Nixon, Without Lorgnette

Based on Anton Chekhov, “The Lady with the Little Dog,” in
Stories,
tr. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (New York: Bantam, 2000), pp. 361–376.

“And it seemed”: Ibid., p. 376.

“In his appearance”: Ibid., p. 362.

“Why did she love him so?”: Ibid., p. 375.

“felt compassion”: Ibid., p. 375.

Chekhov’s letter to his brother: “To A. P. Chekhov, Moscow, May 10, 1886,” in
Letters of Anton Chekhov,
ed. Avrahm Yarmdinsky (New York: Viking Press, 1973),
p. 37
.

“How?”: Chekhov, “The Lady with the Little Dog,” p. 375.

Approximately Twenty Milk Shakes

Suggested by reading John C. Lungren and John C. Lungren Jr.,
Healing
Richard Nixon
(Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2003),
p. 68
.

Friendly, Faithful, Fair

Cold stadium:
PN,
p. 125
.

Shoes in a bag:
PN,
p. 133
.

Gift of bowl:
PN,
pp. 187
–188.

Ernest Hemingway, “Cat in the Rain,” in
The Short Stories of Ernest
Hemingway
(New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1966),
pp. 165
–170.

“Time will say nothing”: W. H. Auden, “If I Could Tell You,” in
Selected
Poetry of W. H. Auden
(New York: Vintage, 1970),
p. 69
.

“I love you”:
PN,
p. 423.

Gatsby refutes: F. Scott Fitzgerald,
The Great Gatsby
(New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1925),
p. 110
.

“Yes, but”:
PN,
p. 457.

“never get any credit”:
PN,
p. 456.

Delmore Schwartz, “In Dreams Begin Responsibilities,” in
In Dreams Begin Responsibilities
(New York: New Directions, 1978),
p. 6
.

The Quirky Moments of Mrs. Nixon’s Life

Johnsons with dogs:
PN,
p. 250
.

Queen at Balmoral:
PN,
p. 222
.

Mrs. Nixon’s Junior Year Play

A. A. Milne,
The Romantic Age
(1922; repr., New York: Samuel French).

Dialogue from
The Romantic Age
: act 2,
p. 40
.

Mrs. Nixon Plays Elaine Bumpsted

Martin Flavin,
Broken Dishes
(1930; repr., New York: Samuel French).

Review in the
Evening World:
Back cover,
Broken Dishes
.

RN’s lists:
PN,
p. 152
.

Mrs. Nixon Gives a Gift

“I have always wanted”:
PN,
p. 82
.

Guy de Maupassant, “The Necklace,” in
The Best Short Stories, Guy de Maupassant
(Ware, Hertfordshire, England: Wordsworth Editions Limited, 1997),
pp. 111
–118.

Nixon’s growing self-awareness: Lungren,
Healing Richard Nixon,
p. 38
.

Caracas, Venezuela, 1958

Spit:
PN,
p. 174
.

Commended by Eisenhower: Ibid.,
p. 175
.