Nixon library tense over potraying disgracaed president’s legacy

The Nixon library, which opened in 1990 in Yorba Linda, about 40 miles southeast of Los Angeles, has become the focus of a behind-the-scenes tussle over how the story of the only person to resign from the US presidency should be told.

It pits Nixon loyalists who want the library to do more to portray the 37th president as a great leader with a range of domestic and foreign accomplishments, against historians and others who say that the library, as a symbol of US history and education, has a duty to also provide an unvarnished, and unflattering, lesson on Nixon’s downfall.

A key issue is whether the Nixon Foundation, which is run by former aides to the president and Nixon family members and is raising $25 million to renovate the library, is trying to delay the appointment of a new library director by the National Archives so the renovation can be done without interference from those not loyal to Nixon.

The Nixon library has been without a director for more than two years. The last director, Timothy Naftali, resigned shortly after installing a Watergate exhibit that detailed Nixon’s role in trying to cover up his administration’s involvement in the burglary of Democratic Party offices in the Watergate complex in Washington.

Members of the Nixon Foundation vehemently objected to the exhibit, and several boycotted its opening in 2011. The other exhibits at the library are reverential toward Nixon. The foundation, which is run by a board of directors led by former Nixon aide Ron Walker, rejects the notion that it has tried to stall the appointment of a new library director.

Some Nixon historians aren’t convinced. They include Stanley Kutler, who successfully sued the National Archives to force the release of White House audio tapes of Nixon and his aides discussing Watergate. Kutler calls the situation at the Nixon library ‘troubling.’

The tension at the Nixon library reflects how the memories of Watergate, and its impact on Americans’ trust in the presidency, remain bitter and unresolved for some.