how's tricks?

1979.  March 4

I got back from Richmond in a heavy fog about noon today, 40 minutes late ----------------- [excerpt] ------------------ , and then lunched with Arthur Burns....He was in a reminiscent mood and told stories about George Humphrey, whom he regarded as a great phoney, Eisenhower, whom he respected, Kennedy, for whom, he said, "I came to acquire great respect and affection; he always did his homework."

I asked what his estimate was of Nixon's intellectual qualities.  "Oh, he would have been a first-rate professor of political science or law in any of our best universities," Burns said.  "He had a powerful, well-organized mind.  It was a pleasure to watch him take hold of a problem and break it down.

Of course he was much more interested in foreign than in domestic affairs."  I asked him whether he had been surprised by the Watergate revelations.  He paused for a moment (he is a great pauser), then said slowly, "No, I was not.

I had a foretaste of it."

He described an incident in 1971 when he had come out for an incomes policy and Nixon, one evening on the Sequoia, had told Charles Colson, "The time has come to cut Arthur down to size."  There followed a series of White House leaks designed to discredit Burns.

After Colson found God, he came to Burns, told him the story and sought his forgiveness.

Arthur said:  "I wouldn't have minded it so much if Nixon had said that to Colson in a passing mood of irrritation.  But he said it a very cool, collected, considered way."  I asked whether he ever saw Nixon anymore.  He said, "Well, I'm not sure you would approve, but I call him every New Year's Day to wish him well.  It takes hours before I can bring myself to do it, but he is such a lonely man living such a sad life; so I grit my teeth and do it."

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{Journals.  1952 - 2000.  Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.  Edited by Andrew Schlesinger and Stephen Schlesinger.  Copyright 2007.  The Penguin Press, New York.}

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