Nixon Perfectly Clarified

It’s rehabilitation time again for Richard Nixon, who’s been up and down more than Jake LaMotta.

The 37th President’s reputation, not unlike a ’65 Pontiac our family once had, is in need of yet another trip to the repair shop. That darn car would run well for a while and just when we thought we could trust it, bam, it’d break down again. Eventually, we quit deceiving ourselves that we had a decent car and just junked it.

I digress.

As for Nixon, once the most reviled man in America, he had been making a bit of a comeback that culminated with his death in 1994. At his funeral outside the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, dignitaries of both parties lauded him as a great man, a wise man, a visionary man, a kind man. And in the years just before his death, he had been rehabilitated to a considerable extent, having been accorded the stature of a statesman emeritus. Watergate was increasingly being relegated to the dust bin of history.

Now come another 200 hours of previously unreleased White House tapes. They suggest Nixon was involved in the Watergate cover-up almost from the beginning and also offer more unflattering portrayals of the president. Excerpts printed in the New York Times last week will give Nixon-haters plenty of ammunition.

A Nixon-hater myself while in college in the late ‘60s, I’ve since come to realize that, in life, things are not always as they seem. Knowing that now, let me explain what Nixon really meant in his tape-recorded statements:

What he said (six weeks after the Watergate break-in about paying hush money to burglars): That’s what the money is for. They have to be paid. That’s all there is to that.

What he meant: It’s disgusting what they did, and they must pay for it. That’s all there is to that. Surely, they don’t expect me to be part of paying hush money? Yes, I’m irked!

What he said (to chief of staff H.R. Haldeman in 1971 about going after perceived opponents): We’re going to prosecute--got to prosecute everybody. Does that bother you as being repressive?

What he meant: If this were Russia or China, we’d simply go after all these anti-war protesters and our other opponents and harass the hell out of them on one thing or another. That would be wrong. I’ve spent my whole career speaking out against those regimes, and I abhor those kind of tactics with every ounce of conviction within me.

What he said (about John Dean, the White House counsel who was cooperating with prosecutors): I think we can destroy him. . . . We must destroy him.

What he meant: John Dean is a fine young man who fears he may have some culpability and is understandably trying to avoid going to prison. I’m sorry he got so heavily involved. I wish he’d come to me for advice, so I could have helped him before he destroyed himself.

What he said (about the public learning about other White House covert operations): Most people around the country think this is routine, that everybody’s trying to bug everybody else. The [Watergate story] is not one that’s going to get people that [expletive] excited, because they don’t give a [expletive] about repression and bugging and all the rest. Let’s just look at wiretapping. The country’s for it. The whole country.

What he meant: These are contentious times, and our opponents might try some pretty unsavory things. Let them. I’d rather go camping with Ted Kennedy than sink to their level.

What he said (about turning over White House files wanted by the Senate Watergate committee): The hell with them. I’ll sit on those papers, if I have to burn them, I’ll burn every [expletive] paper in this house.

What he meant: Once we’ve clarified the constitutional issue here, let’s see if we can’t work with them on some sort of compromise. Why don’t we invite Sam Ervin over for fried chicken and see if we can’t find some common ground.

What he said (about impeachment): Nobody should even raise such things. . . . My point is that if they get to that, the president of the United States, my view is then fight like hell.

What he meant: Pour me a Jack Daniels. I’m not feeling so good.

Nixon haters will continue believing that what he actually said was what he actually meant. It’s one of the burdens that visionary geniuses like Nixon must bear.

Not to worry. Nixon rehabilitators have been down this road before.

Incidentally, the bad news on that front is that another 278 hours of White House tapes are scheduled for release next year.

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821, by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail at dana.parsons@latimes.com.