John Roy Price - The Last Liberal Republican: An Insiders Perspective on Nixons Surprising Social Policy

THE LAST LIBERAL REPUBLICAN

An Insiders Perspective on
Nixons Surprising Social Policy

John Roy Price

University Press of Kansas

2021 by the University Press of Kansas

All rights reserved

Published by the University Press of Kansas (Lawrence, Kansas 66045 ), which was organized by the Kansas Board of Regents and is operated and funded by Emporia State University, Fort Hays State University, Kansas State University, Pittsburg State University, the University of Kansas, and Wichita State University

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Price, John Roy, Jr., author.

Title: The last liberal Republican : an insiders perspective on Nixons surprising social policy / John Roy Price.

Other titles: An insiders perspective on Nixons surprising social policy

Description: [Lawrence, Kansas] : University Press of Kansas, [ 2021 ] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020042496

ISBN 9780700632053 (cloth)

ISBN 9780700632060 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: United StatesPolitics and government 1969 1974 . | Nixon, Richard M. (Richard Milhous), 1913 1994 Friends and associates. | Price, John Roy. | PresidentsUnited StatesStaffBiography, | Moynihan, Daniel P. (Daniel Patrick), 1927 2003 . | United StatesSocial conditionsth century. | Republican Party (U.S. : 1854 )Historyth century. | Political cultureUnited StatesHistoryth century.

Classification: LCC E .P 74 2021 | DDC 973.924092 dc

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/ 2020042496 .

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data is available.

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The paper used in the print publication is acid free and meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z 39.48-1992 .

To My Family

My wife, Svetlana, my children, Matthew and his wife, Veerle,

John Mason, Alexandra, Philippe

My sister, Ellen

And in loving memory of Peter and Nelrose Maravell

______________________________Preface

Over the decades, I have been a diarist. Not every day, not every week, but when an event or a mood moved me, I wrote. A brief note sometimes, a long reflection at others, and with attempts to capture details in conversations always.

Once spurred into this project, I located my diaries, which I called Diary or Daybook or Daily Notes at different times, but I also found detailed minutes I kept of meetings of the Council for Urban Affairs, the cabinet body Richard Nixon created and chaired for the first eighteen months of his administration. The diaries are a most important supplement to the minutes, which themselves can be quite revealing and frank. The diaries include comments made to me by many of the figures in the White House and in the decade of my political involvement with the Ripon Society and with Nelson Rockefeller through the 1960 s that led to my White House job.

I have also invoked the records others kept of discussions, most notably John Ehrlichmans Notes of Meetings with the President, and materials by other White House Staff personnel, such as Kenneth Cole, Ehrlichmans deputy. I have given dates of the notes Ehrlichman or others made. They are contained in Nixon Library, White House Central Files (WHCF), Staff Member Office File (SMOF), in various boxes of Ehrlichmans or others. A couple of my own memoranda are included in the WHCF, SMOF under my name. Ehrlichmans notes, interestingly, are duplicated in the Hoover Institution, John D. Ehrlichman Papers, White House Special Files, 01/20/196904/30/1973 . In Palo Alto, they are to be found in Boxes and of the Ehrlichman files.

For me, my diaries, minutes, and memories, and those of others, made this era alive again.

______________________________Acknowledgments

This adventure began with an invitation from Dr. Nigel Bowles, director of the Rothermere American Institute (RAI) at the University of Oxford, to give a talk there in the spring of 2011 , on Richard Nixon. I had just finished my five-year tour as CEO of a bank in Pittsburgh during the financial crisis. My wife, Svetlana, then pregnant with our youngest, Philippe, and son John Mason and daughter Alexandra made the trip with me. Nigels interest, his continued encouragement, reading my typescript, and his comments and guidance deserve my deepest appreciation. All his successors at RAI have cheered me on. Dr. Gareth Davies, of St. Annes College, and expert in Great Society programs, helped me. So, too, did Dr. Daniel Sledge of the University of Texas, whom I met in the Nixon Library as both of us were reading from my files on health. Two others are from far earlier in my life. Reading my work from the beginning, they have given me caring and enthusiastic support, criticism and strategy: Dr. Reed St. Clair Browning, my friend from kindergarten, and through his fine career in history and as provost and acting president at Kenyon College; and Dr. Bruce F. Pauley, my Grinnell College roommate and Hapsburg and Austrian historian at the University of Central Florida. I thank former president of Grinnell and historian George Drake, retired literature professor James Kissane, professors Barb Trish, Bill Ferguson, and Sarah Purcell, all at that nurturing place, and Dr. Phil Thomas, one of my favorite teachers there long ago. I am beholden to my Grinnell thesis advisor, the late Dr. Joseph F. Wall, a Bancroft Prize winner, on my paper on the 1928 presidential election. Timothy Dickenson, part of our familys life since he miraculously materialized on these shores in early 1965 , has been of inestimable help, with his phenomenal grasp of history, his ability to crystallize thinking, and his enthusiasm in discussing Nixon and American politics with me over the decades. I thank Dr. Luke Nichter of Texas A&M UniversityCentral Texas, as his knowledge of both the Nixon era and the academic and publishing world has been materially helpful. Sharpening my thinking about Nixon (and, hopefully, occasionally sharpening my prose) has been David Shribman, the former executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist. Martin Schram, the White House correspondent and later Washington bureau chief for Newsday in those times, was of great help.

To reorient me from a banking career to writing and publishing, another boyhood friend, gifted and dedicated banker Ronald M. Freeman, egged me on. Gritty help and strategic advice came from Art Klebanoff, of Rosetta Books. Derek Leebaert, businessman turned author, shepherded me through the author submission process, as did Dr. Jay Geller of Case Western Reserve and John Delaney of ICM. Chris DeMuth of the Hudson Institute was helpful in many ways, not just in recalling with me the thrilling days of yesteryear. I am grateful to Mark Steinmeyer of the Smith Richardson Foundation and to Joel Scanlon of Hudson, for their assistance during much of the project. Theodore Eugene Charles-Jean Barreaux was encouraging.

Where I have relied on archives and not my diaries, memoranda, or memory, I have the greatest gratitude for those at the Nixon, Reagan, and Hoover presidential libraries, the Hoover Institution, and the Library of Congress for their steady support. While he was at the Nixon Library, Ira Pemstein was the archivist who opened and organized my voluminous files. Ira went on to the Reagan Presidential Library, where he is the supervisory archivist, and I thank him and his colleague there, Jennifer Mandel. Besides Meghan Lee Parker, the domestic policy guru at the Nixon Library, I appreciate the help from Greg Cumming, Dorissa Martinez, and Carla Braswell and the constant willingness to find something from Ryan Pettigrew, the A/V expert there, and his former colleague, Pam Eisenberg. The director of the Library, Michael Ellzey, has been encouraging, as have the staff at the Richard Nixon Foundation. There, Jonathan Movroydis gave me solid support before heading off to the Hoover Institution at Stanford, and his colleagues, Jim Byron, Jason Schwartz, Joe Lopez, and Chris Nordyke, have my thanks. At the Hoover Presidential Library, Craig Wright, its supervisory archivist, Spencer Howard, and Matt Schaefer were all welcoming. Valoise Armstrong at the Eisenhower Presidential Library was helpful. Thanks to Emily Gibson, archivist at the Hoover Institution, who is processing the papers of Martin Anderson. I owe particular debts to Geoffrey Kabaservice, interpreter of moderate Republicans and their fall, for his counsel, and his unpublished history of the Ripon Society and memoir of Robert Price; and to John R. Hauge for access to the unpublished memoir of his father, Dr. Gabriel Hauge. Archibald L. Gilliess 1966 congressional campaign in my home district was where I first cut my teeth in elective politics, writing policy statements for him. I have Arch to thank for recollections of Nelson Rockefeller and of John Hay Whitney.