It's nice to know that the most famous person with whom I share a birthday is no longer demonized, especially in light of the current occupant of his post. My boomer mother will be thrilled to discover that it's not so bad that I was born on Nixon's birthday, when she's always maintained that my life would have been so much better if I'd just hurried my entrance to this world by being born the day before, on Elvis' birthday.

Just one short comment on your unsupported assertion that Nixon "lost" the 1960 election by reason of "dubious" votes, presumably referring to Mayor Daley's alleged manipulation of the Chicago votes. In 1960, I believe that Illinois had 27 electoral votes; if Kennedy had lost Illinois, JFK still would have received 276 electoral votes, enough to win the presidency (269 to win in 196). (JFK would have had to lose both Illinois and Texas, where JFK --and favoirte son LBJ-- got about 46,000 more votes than Nixon, for Nixon to have won the presidency; the size of JFK's victory margin in Texas makes Republican claims that voter fraud made the difference there very difficult to prove). Moreover, I understand that there also was questionable voting-counting in Republican areas "down-state" in Illinois that inflated Nixon's Illinois totals, maybe enough to offset any Daley manipulations in Chicago.

So, unless someone can show that Nixon would have won in 1960 if just Illinois' electoral votes had gone to him, rather than to JFK, please don't bolster your "resurrection" of Nixon with an off-hand suggestion that, maybe, Nixon really did "win" the presidency in 1960. Isn't it time the mass media quick regurgitating this urban myth?

...The man also destroyed the lives of thousands of people with lies he told the UnAmerican Activities Committee, was taking kickbacks for years as a Congressman ...

Ummmm....

What are you talking about?

Nixon's red-baiting was destructive but mostly took place during his campaigns for congress. The impression I have always gotten was that he was actually more civilized and less dramatic and vilifiying than the far-right ideologues who were on the HUAC committee when he took his seat. He was effective in cross-examining Alger Hiss because Alger Hiss lied his ass off to a number of investigative bodies. But this is not Nixon's fault.

And I am not sure I have ever heard the accusation that he "...was taking kickbacks for years as a Congressman..." Absent substantial evidence, I don't really believe that after all these years we are finally going to find out that Nixon was on the take.

Agnew's conviction had nothing directly to do with Nixon, other than maybe to indicate how little character had to do with Nixon's decision making process.

It is too easy to suggest that because of Nixon's dishonesty, abuse of power, misuse of office, and betrayal of public trust, that he was also guilty of various and sundry other tawdry crimes. But for all of his failings, Nixon aimed high. He did not try and steal money, he tried to steal the government so that he could make his own money. (And can you name one other president who would have loved more to see his face on a dollar bill?)

In the words of Gil Scott Heron

They call it due process and some people are overdue

We beg your pardon America

Somebody said "brother-man gonna break a window, gonna steal a hubcap, gonna smoke a joint, brother man gonna go to jail"

The man who tried to steal America is not in jail

"Get caught with a nickel bag brother-man, get caught with a nickel bag", says the lady on your way to get your hair fixed

"You'll do Big Ben, and Big Ben is time"

But the man who tried to fix America will not do time

Said they're going to slap his wrists, gonna retire him with 850 thousand dollars

And America was "shocked"

America leads the world in shocks

Unfortunately, America does not lead the world in deciphering the cause of shock

850 thousand dollars they said and the people protested and so they saw it like "we'll give him 200 thousand dollars"

Everybody said "OK, that's better"

I'd like to retire with 200 thousand dollars some day

San Quentin not San Clemente

Do not pass go, go directly to jail, do not collect 200 thousand dollars

-"We Beg Your Pardon, America" Gil Scott Heron (link below)

Grant - worst ever. Except now he's not

Wilson - superman. Super racist near dictator man, you mean

Polk - stature rising year by year

Jackson - the left and right can't decide which one should champion him

These things ebb and flow with the times and who wants to revise and reclaim history. That's what history is like. It's not factual it's perspective, context and the times.

Richard Nixon claimed to remember where he was during another momentous event -- the assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Nixon said that he first heard about Kennedy's death during a taxi ride in New York City. However, a United Press International photo taken that day tells a different story. The photo shows a "shocked Richard Nixon" (as the caption reads) having already learned of Kennedy's assassination upon his arrival at New York's Idlewild Airport -- in other words, before his alleged taxi ride. Perhaps Nixon was trying to deflect attention from the fact that the plane he had arrived on had originated from Dallas, Texas. Indeed, Nixon (as he later admitted) had been in Dallas from November 20 to the 22. While in Dallas, Nixon had attended meetings with right-wing politicians and executives from the Pepsi-Cola company. Nixon's Taxi-Cab Tales: Click to read

Journalist Jim Marrs gives this account: "With Nixon in Dallas was Pepsi-Cola heiress and actress Joan Crawford. Both Nixon and Crawford made comments in the Dallas newspapers to the effect that they, unlike the President, didn't need Secret Service protection, and they intimated that the nation was upset with Kennedy's policies. It has been suggested that this taunting may have been responsible for Kennedy's critical decision not to order the Plexiglas top placed on his limousine on November 22." [Note: The Pepsi-Cola company had a sugar plantation and factory in Cuba, which the Cuban government nationalized in 1960.