Ask the Scholar
Document scope · 1 page
Scholar
Ask about this object, its catalog metadata, its source description, or the page inventory.
For page-specific OCR and visual context, open one of the page chats.
Source Description
This file contains:
From Constance Stuart to Haldeman RE: RN and PN's anniversary. 1 pg. [Subject: Personal] [Memo], 6/9/1970
Draft of a letter from RN to Julie Nixon for her graduation. 7 pgs. [Subject: Personal] [Letter], 5/27/1970
From Raymond K. Price, Jr. to Haldeman RE: letter to Julie Nixon. 1 pg. [Subject: Personal] [Memo], 5/28/1970
Second draft of a letter from RN to Julie Nixon for her graduation. 7 pgs. [Subject: Personal] [Letter], 5/28/1970
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
26144947
label
WHSF: Contested, 6-44
core
doc
dtoType
document
citationUrl
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
26144947
sourceUrl
contentType
document
title
WHSF: Contested, 6-44
description
This file contains:
From Constance Stuart to Haldeman RE: RN and PN's anniversary. 1 pg. [Subject: Personal] [Memo], 6/9/1970
Draft of a letter from RN to Julie Nixon for her graduation. 7 pgs. [Subject: Personal] [Letter], 5/27/1970
From Raymond K. Price, Jr. to Haldeman RE: letter to Julie Nixon. 1 pg. [Subject: Personal] [Memo], 5/28/1970
Second draft of a letter from RN to Julie Nixon for her graduation. 7 pgs. [Subject: Personal] [Letter], 5/28/1970
citationUrl
collections
Richard M. Nixon's Returned Materials Collection
Contested Materials Files
imageCount
1
hasImages
yes
source
import
hasTranscription
no
Source extras
naId
26144947
levelOfDescription
fileUnit
recordType
description
ocrSource
nara-archive
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
document
mediaId
b380a8a2a70129bd
ocrText
Richard Nixon Presidential Library
Contested Materials Collection
Folder List
Box Number
Folder Number
Document Date
No Date
Subject
Document Type
Document Description
6
44
6/9/1970
Personal
Memo
From Constance Stuart to Haldeman RE: RN
and PN's anniversary. 1 pg.
6
44
5/27/1970
Personal
Letter
Draft of a letter from RN to Julie Nixon for
her graduation. 7 pgs.
6
44
5/28/1970
Personal
Memo
From Raymond K. Price, Jr. to Haldeman
RE: letter to Julie Nixon. 1 pg.
6
44
5/28/1970
Personal
Letter
Second draft of a letter from RN to Julie
Nixon for her graduation. 7 pgs.
Monday, June 07, 2010
Page 1 of 1
MEMORANDUM
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
June 9, 1970
MEMORANDUM FOR BOB HALDEMAN
FROM
CONST you STUART
June 21 is Father's Day. It is also the 30th anniversary
for the President and Mrs. Nixon. In case the President
would like to be reminded.
Pearls are the traditional gift for thirty years of wedded
bliss.
LETTER TO JULIE - DRAFT - 5/27/70 - PRICE
Dear Julie:
Few days in a person's life are quite SO special as graduation
day. I know that even though you will not be present at your class's
ceremonies this will be a very special day for you: one of reflection,
of remembering, and of pride; of re-living past experiences and
dreaming of future hopes. It is a day when you will feel very close
to those friends with whom you have shared the college years, and
who have been so important a part of those years.
Graduation is a very special day for parents, too, when the hopes
and the love of so many years that seem to have passed so quickly are
reflected in a face that suddenly seems so much more grown.
There is nothing fathers are fonder of giving than advice - and
because this is such a special day, perhaps a few special thoughts
would be appropriate.
I know how keenly aware you are of the strains that divide your
own generation, and how sensitive you are to its concerns. I know that
because you are the President's daughter, you have been the target of
many of their discontents -- and I know how deeply some of the abuse
has hurt. There will be times when you will be tempted to bitterness.
Julie
2
Those are the times to call on what Abraham Lincoln called "the better
angels of our nature" -- and to try to understand what needs understanding,
and to forgive what needs forgiveness.
Many of your generation today are caught between extravagant hope
and equally extravagant despair. One of the lessons of life, which each
generation learns in its turn, is that the world never quite lives up to
our hopes or down to our fears. It is a world of good and evil, with
both rooted deeply within the nature of man himself. It is a world of
contridictions. It is a world in which to simplify, more often than not,
is to distort.
If we are to raise the threshold of hope, if we are to realize the
potentialities for good that exist in this world, we must recognize both
the extent and the limits of those possibilities.
You recall that three weeks ago, shortly before dawn on a Saturday
morning, I had a long talk at the Lincoln Memorial with some of the
students who had come to Washington that weekend to demonstrate. It
seemed to me important at that time to reach out, across the gulf of
differing opinions on some of the issues that divide us today, and to talk
with some of America's young people -- individuals, not representatives
of organized groups -- about some of the perspectives that I think are
Julie
- 3 -
often lost sight of in the debates over whatever may be the current
question of any particular moment.
I wanted to talk with them without the distracting presence of
television cameras or reporters, as one human being to another, and
as one generation to another.
I made some small talk, in an effort to put them more at ease.
But essentially I tried to share with them some of the lessons of history
that it SO often seems each generation has to learn anew for itself --
lessons of the difference between wishing for peace and achieving it.
I talked with them, also, about people -- and about the need to see
people, different kinds of people, from different cultures, in all the
various count les of the world, if we are really to get to know the world.
So often we think about other countries in terms of what they look like on
a map, when what really matters about each country is its people, and
what they are like, and how they think and feel.
I don't know whether they understood. I think eventually they will.
I often wonder what I would most wish for if I were twenty one
today. I suppose I would wish most for a world at peace. But as I look
back over the lessons of history, I realize that to achieve this I would
Julie
4 -
also have to wish for something more: I would wish for a world in
which those who wanted peace had the courage and the wisdom and the
steadfastness, and were willing to make the sacrifices, that maintain-
ing the peace requires.
It often has seemed that each new generation has had to learn for
itself, too late, the hard lessons of what it takes to keep the peace.
Time and again, those lessons have been learned only as the peace
itself was consumed on a pyre of wishes for it, proving once again how
easily wishing can become the death of hope.
There is no responsibility I take more seriously than trying to
ensure that your generation does not have to learn those lessons the
way mine did.
Never has there been a greater need for discriminating judgments,
and for a sensitive understanding of the world around us, knowing that
the world is going to be constantly and rapidly changing, and knowing
too that our understanding of it can never be perfect --- but doing our
best to understand not only what appears on the surface, but also its
deeper meaning.
Julie
- 5
This has been called an age of miracles. But these achievements,
whether traveling to the moon or conquering disease or being able to
dial London on the telephone, have not been miracles at. all, but rather
the product of hard work, determined effort and disciplined thought.
The same habits of disciplined thought that unfold the mysteries
of science are needed if we are to achieve our hopes of bettering our
human conditions of life. Therefore, guard always against the ravages
emotion visits on reason. There is a place -- an important place -- in
our lives for emotion, a place that must and should be governed not by
the head, but by the heart. Love, caring, the bonds that tie people
together in family or friendship -- these are fashioned of emotion.
Laughter, joy, the bittersweet lessons of sorrow -- these are fashioned
of emotion. And these are what give our lives depth, meaning, beauty.
The danger lies in letting reason intrude too much on emotion, or emotion
intrude too much on reason. Just as pure reason can kill love and laugh-
ter, SO too can unrestrained emotion destroy the process of reason.
Never lose sight of the distinction between being moral and being
self-righteous.
Julie
- 6 -
Always remember that none of us can ever be right all of the
time -- but the more dispassionately we employ our reason, the more
likely we are to be more nearly right more of the time.
Always be ready to join in controversy when it can serve a con-
structive purpose -- but never seek out controversy for its own sake.
When engaged in controversy, always listen to what the other
person says but also try to be sure of what he means. Often what he
seems to mean is not what he does mean, and what seem unbridgeable
differences are not really SO different after all.
Always remember that we never stop learning and the mark
of a mind that keeps growing is that driving curiosity that never is
satisfied with what it already knows. You always have had that streak
of driving curiosity -- that determination to learn more, and not to be
satisfied with merely the surface of things. Whatever else may change,
whatever else you may lose, never lose your curiosity, or that restless,
questioning character of mind.
Julie
7
Yours is the first generation that will enter the 21st century still
in the prime of life. For you, therefore, the 21st century represents
not the unreal world of a distantly imagined future, but rather the very
real world which you soon will inherit.
It will be your world to shape -- and, to a degree that even a
short time ago would have seemed inconceivable, it will be yours to
shape by conscious choice. For as the rapid advance of technology
expands our capacities, it also expands our range of choice about how
those new capacities are to be put to use.
My generation are trustees, for the present, of this world you
will soon inherit. I hope we can leave it better than we found it. With
your help, and with the help of those millions of other young people who
have shown themselves SO intensely concerned not only with their own
future but with that of the nation and of mankind, I believe that we
will.
MEMORANDUM
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
May 28, 1970
MEMORANDUM FOR BOB HALDEMAN
Subject: Letter to Julie
Attached is a redraft of the Julie letter. It's improved, but
I'm still far from satisfied -- and on reflection I'd recommend
against doint it.
It seemed a good idea at the time the President suggested it.
But the more I've wrestled it around, the more it seems impossible
to avoid its seeming contrived - -- and the less likely it seems that,
if the President sends a letter to his daughter via the press, we
could avoid the obvious comparison with the Hickel letter.
Jim Keogh also says that he's uneasy about the idea, and
that he would be against doing it.
Du81
Raymond K. Price, Jr.
Attachment
2d Draft - Ltr to Julie
LETTER TO JULIE - 2ND DRAFT - 5/28/70 - PRICE
Dear Julie:
Few days in a person's life are quite SO special as graduation
day. Even though you will not be present at your class's ceremonies,
I know this will be a very special day for you: one of reflection, of
remembering, and of pride; of re-living past experiences and
dreaming of future hopes. It is a day when you will feel very close
to those friends with whom you have shared the college years, and
who have been SO important a part of those years.
Graduation is a very special day for parents, too, when the
hopes and the love of SO many years -- years that seem to have
passed SO quickly - are reflected in a face that suddenly seems SO
much more grown.
Since there is nothing fathers are fonder of giving than advice,
perhaps a few special thoughts would be appropriate on this special
day.
There has never been a greater need for discriminating judg- -
ments, and for a sensitive understanding of the world around us --
knowing that the world is going to be constantly and rapidly changing,
and knowing too that our understanding of it can never be perfect, but
Julie
- 2
doing our best to understand not only what appears on the surface but
also its deeper meaning.
Such understandings do not just happen. They have to be worked
at.
This has been called an age of miracles. But these achievements,
whether traveling to the moon or conquering disease or being able to
dial London on the telephone, have not been miracles at all, but rather
the product of hard work, determined effort and disciplined thought.
The same habits of disciplined thought that have so dramatically
unfolded the mysteries of science are equally needed if we are to
succeed in bettering the human conditions of life. Therefore, guard
always against the ravages emotion visits on reason. There is a place
-- an important place -- in our lives for emotion, a place that must
and should be governed not by the head, but by the heart. Love,
caring, the bonds that tie people together in family or friendship --
these are fashioned of emotion. Laughter, joy, the bittersweet
lessons of sorrow -- these too are fashioned of emotion. And these
are what gives our lives depth, and meaning, and beauty. The danger
lies not in having strong emotions, but rather in letting reason intrude
Julie
- 3
too much on emotion, or emotion intrude too much on reason. Just
as pure reason can kill love and laughter, SO too can unrestrained
emotion destroy the process of reason.
Never lose sight of the distinction between being moral and being
self-righteous.
Always remember that none of us can ever be right all of the
time -- but the more dispassionately we employ our reason, the more
likely we are to be more nearly right more of the time.
Always be ready to join in controversy when it can serve a con-
structive purpose -- but never seek out controversy for its own sake.
When engaged in controversy, always listen to what the other
person says but also try to be sure of what he means. Often what he
seems to mean is not what he does mean, and what seem unbridgeable
differences are not really SO different after all.
Always remember that we never stop learning -- and the mark
of a mind that keeps growing is that driving curiosity that never is
satisfied with what it already knows. You always have had that streak
of driving curiosity -- that determination to learn more, and not to be
satisfied with merely the surface of things. Whatever else may change,
never let yourself lose your curiosity, or that restless, questioning
character of mind.
Julie
- 4
When I sat down to write this, I asked myself what I would most
wish for if I were twenty-one today. I suppose I would wish most for
a world at peace. But as I look back over the lessons of history, I
realize that to achieve this I would also have to wish for something
more: I would wish for a world in which those who wanted peace had the
wisdom and the steadfastness and the understanding that maintaining the
peace requires.
It often has seemed that each new generation has had to learn for
itself, too late, the hard lessons of what it takes to keep the peace.
Time and again, those lessons have been learned only as the peace
itself was consumed on a pyre of wishes for it, proving once again how
easily giving way to wishing can become the death of hope.
You will recall that three weeks ago, shortly before dawn on a
Sat urday morning, I had a long talk at the Lincoln Memorial with some
of the students who had come to Washington that weekend to demonstrate.
It seemed to me important at that time to reach out, across the gulf of
differing opinions on some of the issues that divide us today, and to talk
with some of America's young people -- individuals, not representatives
of organized groups -- about some of the perspectives that I think are
Julie
- 5
often lost sight of in the debates over whatever may be the current
question of any particular moment.
I wanted to talk with them without the distracting presence of
television cameras or reporters, as one human being to another, and
as one generation to another.
I made some small talk, in an effort to put them more at ease.
But essentially I tried to share with them some of those lessons of
history that it SO often seems each generation has to learn anew for
itself -- lessons of the difference between wishing for peace and
achieving it. I talked with them, also, about people -- and about the
need to see people, different kinds of people, from different cultures,
in all the various countries of the world, if we are really to get to know
the world. So often we think about other countries in terms of what they
look like on a map, when what really matters about each country is its
people, and what they are like, and how they think and feel.
I don't know whether they understood. I think eventually they will.
The world today seems small - - smaller by far, certainly, than
it did when I was young. We can fly around it in a weekend. We have
grown accustomed, on our television sets, to watching events live by
Julie
- 6
satellite while they are happening in Britain or Japan or during a
splashdown in the mid-Pacific. Already our conception of space is
conditioned by the vastness of translunar distance, and already we
are thinking ahead to the far greater vastness of those distances
which man, within your lifetime, can expect to travel.
And yet, however much this world may have shrunk in our per-
ceptions of it, it still is vast beyond the imaginings of most of us.
Though we cross the Pacific in a day, the civilizations we encounter
on its other side are many centuries old, rooted in customs already
long established before the first European set foot on North America
-- and before most of Europe itself was civilized. We would make a
grave mistake if we failed to recognize how great are the differences
among the world's cultures. But we would make an equally great
mistake if we failed to recognize the essential similarities of man
wherever he is, whatever his race, whatever his culture. Man in his
infinite variety is still a single species, and still a unique and precious
creature with the same capacity, wherever he is, to experience love
and pain and joy and sorrow.
Julie
7
Yours is the first generation that will enter the 21st century still
in the prime of life. For you, therefore, the 21st century represents
not the unreal world of a distantly imagined future, but rather the very
real world which you soon will inherit.
It will be your generation's world to shape -- and, to a degree
that even a short time ago would have seemed inconceivable, it will
be yours to shape by conscious choice. For as the rapid advance of
technology expands our capacities, it also expands our range of choice
about how those new capacities are to be put to use.
The range of possibilities offered by the next few decates is the
most exciting prospect in the whole history of man. I am glad for you
that you are young today, and these years ahead are the ones that will
be yours. If I could choose one time in history to be alive, it would be
now - - and if I could choose one time to be graduating from college it
would be now. So make the most of these years, as I know you will --
give them your best, and they will give you theirs.