Editorial: Nixon’s dark legacy

Saturday, July 14, 2007 | 7:04 a.m.

E nding a long feud with the federal government, the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Birthplace joined the National Archives last week and will see some radical changes.

Timothy Niftali, the new director, has already been scrubbing the museum of some Nixon whitewash. Gone is a display on Watergate that declares the scandal was a "coup" plotted by Democrats, as well as claims that The Washington Post reporters who broke the story, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, offered bribes for their scoops. Also gone is the dubious claim that the infamous 18 1/2-minute gap on a White House recording was caused by a mechanical malfunction.

Niftali plans to feature oral accounts from Watergate figures as well as White House tapes and footage of the Watergate hearings. The library in Yorba Linda, Calif., has been run by a private foundation for years and finally settled a feud with the federal government over documents and control. The museum has faced righteous criticism for soft-pedaling Nixon's downfall.

"I've pledged to make this a non partisan library where everybody can feel comfortable," Naftali told the Yorba Linda Star. "My job is to make this a center to study Nixon's life and times."

Indeed, more than 11 hours of White House recordings made by Nixon and more than 78,000 pages of documents were made public for the first time.

Nixon's administration was marked by secrecy and corruption, highlighted by the Watergate break-in and spying on Americans on the president's enemies list. It is important that the lessons of the Nixon years are presented unvarnished for future generations, something the current administration seems to have forgotten.

The turnover of the museum ironically comes as the Bush White House tries to stonewall Congress by claiming executive privilege over internal discussions and documents, much as Nixon tried and failed to do. It is also ironic that Vice President Dick Cheney, who has been at the center of the White House effort to keep secrets, was a Nixon aide. We are now seeing the seeds planted in the Nixon era come to their unfortunate fruition.