Nixon Reconsidered

"His death has not rendered his enemies any less hostile,"says Paul Gottfried.

Getting to the heart of the matter, Nixon is being raked over the coals once again, because of his “anti-Semitic remarks.” As a Jew who knew and liked Nixon, I was never struck by his anti-Semitism. Nor was Henry Kissinger, who was Nixon’s closest adviser and whose family, like mine, were war refugees from Central Europe. It is extraordinary, as Norman Podhoretz once observed, that a supposed anti-Semite, Nixon, had more Jewish associations than any other American president. His advisers from the time he went to Congress in 1946 down to his second presidential term featured Jews, with whom he was on intimate terms. And if one reads the remarks of Israeli politicians, never did their state have a better friend than Nixon. This president never stinted in his praise of Israel’s founder David ben Gurion or in his expressions of admiration for the brave patriots whom he discovered in Israelis.

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