A Checkersed past.

RMN is one of the great tragic figures of our times, one who, unlike Eisenhower, apparently did not have that talent for judging men, most likely because he seems to have had no moral sense at all. Incredible as it may seem, he once said in a speech to a bunch of voters of Irish extraction that his wife had been born on St. Patrick's Day when in fact she had not been. Of all of the trivia about the man, that is the one I find the most fascinating, that he would pander to a group of voters to that extent.

She was in fact born the day before St. Patrick's day, and got her name Pat from the following:

Born Thelma Catherine Ryan on March 16 in Ely, Nevada, "Pat" Nixon acquired her nickname within hours. Her father, William Ryan, called her his "St. Patrick's babe in the morn" when he came home from the mines before dawn.

Nixon aspired to greatness and always seemed to fall flat just before reaching it. If you have ever wondered about his flawed ego, you need look no further than the pictures of the uniforms he approved for the uniformed Secret Service officers who guarded the White House. He apparently wanted to impart an aura of imperialism to that noble place, and failed miserably. I'll see if I can dig up a URL for you.

As evidence of Nixon's lack of a moral sense, you could look up what he did with regard to the donation of his vice presidential papers to the National Archive. There had been enacted a statute which allowed a significant tax deduction to him for such a donation, but the law had expired prior to his signing the deed to give title to the Archives. So what did Dickie do? He backdated the deed by several months. And then this part you will never have heard before because it's a fact that no one's aware of: the day after he signed the deed he changed his withholding form for taxes from married with one dependent to married with 69 dependents. This had the effect of practically elminating all Federal withholding on his Presidential salary. I believe this was on the theory that it's better to have the money in your hands and make the IRS come after it than to have the money in the hands of the IRS and make you go after them to get it.

The foregoing paragraph is absolutely true as to the facts, because it was in my office that we paid the President's salary when I worked at GAO. The interpretations of motive are mine.

Ted


TEd