Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site ucsfcgl.ucsfcgl.UUCP
Path: utzoo!lsuc!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!ucbvax!ucsfcgl!arnold
From: arnold@ucsfcgl.UUCP (Ken Arnold%CGL)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.misc,net.rumor
Subject: Re: The Presidents   how I feel they rate in history
Message-ID: <9882@ucsfcgl.ucsfcgl.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 12-Jun-86 15:54:51 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucsfcgl.9882
Posted: Thu Jun 12 15:54:51 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 13-Jun-86 21:02:53 EDT
References: <3088@decwrl.DEC.COM> <783@steinmetz.UUCP>
Reply-To: arnold@ucsfcgl.UUCP (Ken Arnold%CGL)
Organization: Computer Graphics Laboratory, UCSF
Lines: 28
Xref: lsuc net.politics:6253 net.misc:2634 net.rumor:2005

In article <783@steinmetz.UUCP> davidsen@kbsvax.UUCP (Davidsen) writes:
>I think that history will have a better view of Nixon than you guys do.
>You're judging him as a person (and his honesty was virtually
>non-existant), however, he took some major steps to get the country out
>of trouble. When inflation got completely out of hand (I remember
>12%-15% raises that didn't seem to keep up) he got wage and price
>controls. His strong anti communist record allowed him to normalize
>relations with China, which seems like a good idea from political and
>ecconomic standpoints. I believe that he will be measured by those
>things, rather than his political actions.
>	-bill davidsen

You could be right, of course.  History has a selective memory, and
will remember only the things that it chooses to.  However, it seems to
me that writing off his criminality and sleaze as merely "political
actions" is not too likely.  The government of the country is
supposedly free and open, and he tried to subvert that very fundamental
cornerstone.  What happens to freedom and balance of power inside the
US is probably of more insterest (it certainly *should* be of more
interest) than foreign policy or economic gains.  I suspect he will be
most remembered as the person who had to resign from office due to
corruption, and the specifics will probably go by the wayside.  Somehow
that seems more like a long-lived historical fact than China or
inflation (which mostly ended, as it usually does, with no thanks to
the President, and for which Nixon, like every other President who had
the opportunity, took credit because it was available).

		Ken Arnold