Typed Letter Signed (TLS) by Nixon, Richard - 1956

Rose Mary [Woods] (1917-2005) was Nixon's private secretary from 1951 until the end of his political career in 1974, and she became a close family friend. She was fiercely loyal, and more - as the 'Washington Post' obituary put it, 'Miss Woods was Nixon's gatekeeper. Reporters said she controlled who could see her boss - and punished those she deemed critical'. The 'New York Times' (25 December 2005) takes up the baton: 'Woods's outsize allegiance burst the confines of the Oval Office when, after a career spent discreetly in the background, she achieved precisely 18 [and a half] minutes of hideous, disfiguring fame. For a woman with a reputation for probity, Woods's implausible explanation of the erasure of a portion of a key Watergate tape was like a public self-immolation ... Woods made the cover of "Time" in December 1973 not as a supremely competent woman behind the throne, let alone the first female chief of staff, but as the hapless executive secretary of a pathetic and criminal cover-up'.

("RN" with holograph greeting), in blue fountain pen ink on his engraved Richard Nixon, 577 Chestnut Ridge Road, Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey letterhead, January 2, 1991. 6 5/8" x 8 7/8"; very good. To The Honorable Daniel Patrick Moynihan: "Dear Pat: I thought you might be interested in seeing some unconventional wisdom on foreign and domestic issues. Best wishes for the New Year, Sincerely, RN." Provenance: from the estate of Daniel Patrick Moynihan. With the estate numbers in the upper margin. Moynihan (1927-2003), born March 16, 1927, Tulsa, Oklahoma; died March 26, 2003, Washington, District of Columbia; U.S. senator from New York, January 3, 1977-2001; outspoken proponent of arms control. Hillary Clinton took Moynihan's place in the United States Senate. Nixon (1913-1994), born January 13, 1913, Yorba Linda, California; died April 22, 1994, New York City; 37th president of the United States 1969-1974, and the only President to have resigned from office due to the… Read More

New York City, 1987. One Page to New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the powerful Democrat who once served in the Nixon administration as an adviser on domestic affairs. In this superb and highly interesting letter, the former President candidly reveals his thinking on welfare reform and race relations. In part: " The critics of welfare reform must face up to the fact that the division between blacks and whites is much worse than it was twenty years ago. The affluent blacks have moved upward and outward and have left the ghettos with virtually no hope for the future...." In fine condition..

Washington, D.C.,, 1959. To columnist and television reporter of Meet the Press, Lawrence E. Spivak , on Vice Presidential stationery, with a 5 page memo (carbon unsigned) describing his recent meeting with Fidel Castro. Nixon admires Castro's charisma and bravery here in this memorandum summarizing his discussion with the Cuban leader on April 19, 1959. Nixon characterizes him as having" those indefinable qualities which make him a leader of men." But there was also much that disturbed him. Everything that Castro was doing, from suspending elections to the executions of political opponents he justified as carrying out "the will of the people." Nixon says: "this almost slavish subservience to prevailing majority opinion - the voice of the mob - rather than his naive attitude toward Communism and his obvious lack of understanding of even the most elementary economic principles which concerned me most in evaluating what kind of a leader he might eventually turn out to… Read More