Another Life_ A Memoir of Other People - Michael Korda [261]
New York was Nelson Rockefeller territory, a place full of Democrats and liberal Republicans who, if they agreed on nothing else, shared a dislike of Nixon. In a city where great wealth, family and social connections, and glamour were what mattered, Nixon was not wealthy, socially connected, or glamorous, nor, with his famous need to control events, did he seem altogether at ease in the chaotic, uncontrollable big city, any more than Mrs. Nixon did. They remained small-town Californians who had ended up in New York only because they had been obliged to leave Washington. New York was their Saint Helena. Nixon’s tan, Mrs. Nixon’s stiff hairdo, the finger bowls on the table all seemed somehow un–New Yorkish, as did the decoration of the house, which was startlingly Oriental.
A taste for the Oriental in home decor is very Californian—after all, California is on the Pacific rim—but the Nixons seemed to have been carried away by it. Most of the art, the furniture, and the rugs were Chinese, or of Chinese inspiration; so, for that matter, were the servants and the food. I fantasized briefly that Nixon might have been a real-life Manchurian candidate—which would certainly have explained his conversion from a founding member of the anticommunist China Lobby to architect of rapprochement between Washington and Beijing. Were the servants, I wondered, in fact his controllers? Had his presidency been a carefully orchestrated Chinese plot?
Nixon had been delayed downstairs by some business, so that Mrs. Nixon, Julie, and I were seated when he arrived in the dining room. I stood while Julie introduced us. I fear that I stared at him rudely. My initial thought was that he was much taller than I had expected. For some reason, Nixon had always seemed to me small, but he was a good six feet tall, with the shoulders and bulk of an athlete and the brief, firm handshake of the professional politician. Cutting a formal, presidential figure even in his own home, he wore a beautifully cut dark-blue suit, a white shirt, and a sober tie. At close quarters—and the dining room was so small that they were very close quarters—he was a formidable presence, made more so for me by the simple fact that it was Nixon.
Most striking of all was his voice: a deep, rumbling basso profundo, rather like an avalanche in the distance, pitched an octave or two below even Henry Kissinger’s. Nixon’s voice was far warmer, deeper, and more human than it sounded on television. Television had done him no favors—in the end, this was perhaps his major political tragedy. His complexion, which seemed sallow on the screen, was in fact healthy and deeply tanned, and the scowl and the famous five-o’clock shadow were hardly noticeable. There is a theory that great men have large heads and prominent features—think of de Gaulle and his nose, LBJ and his ears, FDR and his jaw—and by this standard, if no other, Nixon had reached greatness. His head was enormous, his jowls and ski-jump nose were just as cartoonists had always portrayed them, his eyes were dark and penetrating. “Welcome,” he said, rather formally. “Nice to see you.”
I mumbled something appropriate and sat down. To my astonishment, Nixon went to the other end of the table, took Mrs. Nixon’s hand, and said, “Nice to see you,” in exactly the same tone of voice, then sat down, unfolded his napkin, and addressed himself to his soup.
I thought about this a lot at the time. I didn’t doubt that Nixon and Mrs. Nixon were close, but he seemed to have some difficulty revealing the fact in front of a stranger. On the other hand, I thought I saw a look of pain in Mrs. Nixon’s eyes, which made me wonder if Nixon had really noticed that she was there. I remembered John Ehrlichman telling me that he had once suggested to Nixon, early in the 1968 presidential