News

World War II began seventy years ago today.  After the initial German victories there would be some months of phony war before Europe really engaged; and it would take a couple of years before we entered; but today is when it began. W. H. Auden famously lamented the...

Here's the best ---you can forget the rest --- from Paul Krugman's column in today's New York Times: ...it’s now doubtful whether health reform, even if we get it — which is by no means certain — will be anywhere near as good as Nixon’s proposal, even though Democrats...

Today's San Jose Mercury-News has an editorial that begins by pointing out some similarities between the national health-care program advocated in the early 1970s by President Nixon, and the one that President Obama is now trying to get through Congress. The editorial...

The fortieth anniversary of "three days of peace, love and music" on Max Yasgur's farm in Bethel, New York, continues to be celebrated, most recently in movie theaters this weekend when Taking Woodstock, the new film by Cold Mountain and Incredible Hulk director Ang...

From reading press accounts of Senator Kennedy's legislative career, one might think that RN's 1971 launch of the War on Cancer was simply a response to Kennedy's initiatives.  Indeed, their political rivalry did play a role.  In politics, as in the marketplace,...

When then President Bill Clinton spoke at former President Richard Nixon’s funeral, he suggested that the “day of judging President Nixon on anything less than his entire life and career come to a close.” The speaker had no clue at the time how much he would need that...

On Wednesday night, a crowd of over 700 gathered in Yorba Linda to see former Senator George McGovern talk about his new book, a short biography of Abraham Lincoln. The event, co-sponsored by the Richard Nixon Library and Museum and the Richard Nixon Foundation (and...

I recently posted a piece about Alex Ross' three New Yorker articles based on the material released as a result of his Freedom of Information Act requests regarding the government's interest in Leonard Bernstein.  The bulk loyalty investigations were earlier...

PN - pictured at the Miami Beach Convention Center in August 1972 - was the first Republican First lady to have a keynote speech at the Republican National Convention. (Photo Credit: Life Magazine) In 1984, First Lady Nancy Reagan addressed the Republican National...

The story of how President Nixon's plan for comprehensive health care for all Americans fell by the wayside in 1974 because Sen. Ted Kennedy thought it possible to get a plan more to his liking enacted after a Democratic President entered the Oval Office has been the...