As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
The story of Hubert Humphrey and Richard Nixon is one of two men who both emanated from the same emotional core. This final chapter in the competition for President began as Hubert Humphrey was dying of cancer and on Christmas day all he could think about was the man who defeated him in Richard Nixon.
It seemed strange to Humphrey surrounded by his family, in all he could think of was Nixon, but after pondering the subject for some time, he thought he would just give Nixon a call as what could it hurt as it was Christmas.
Humphrey got an assistant on the phone and the assistant eventually brought Mr. Nixon to the line. They spoke for sometime, with Nixon noting his memoirs were coming out, but that he treated Humphrey far more fair than Humphrey had treated him.
This took Humphrey back a step and Humphrey replied that his book was written with fresher wounds, and from being defeated, and the victor always has a different attitude.
When Humphrey brought up the Nixon Christmas, he said he thought he heard Nixon sob, as he said that his wife, Pat was ill, and the girls would be with their in laws, so it would be a quiet day.
The conversation ended, but the statement by Nixon bothered Humphrey as he simply did not want anyone thinking he mistreated them, especially at this stage of his illness. A few weeks later Humphrey used the excuse of Nixon's birthday to phone and say Happy Birthday to the former President. The conversation that time left Humphrey being satisfied that all was well between them.
It is rare in politics that two political titans inhabit the same stage. The first instance was John Adams and Thomas Jefferson who tore each other apart politically and mended fences in letters later in life. That was about the only other time America had two such grand adversaries in Nixon and Humphrey, and yet they too made amends to each other in the end.
Nixon had been meddling with South Vietnam to not end the war until after the election, which of course Humphrey was infuriated over, as it did cost him the election in the end, as he simply could not overcome a third party democrat in George Wallace and President Lyndon Johnson being so adversarial against his own Vice President and only coming on in the end to almost win it for Hubert Humphrey.
There were many things that went against Humphrey in 1968. LBJ, the Chicago Riots in which liberal children had the bajesus beat out of them by democrats in Chicago by police and simply that Vietnam War, in which the loyal Hubert Humphrey simply could not make a clean break from his President in resigning the Vice Presidency and to lay the blame on Johnson.
Hubert Humphrey was the most gifted politician since Senator Thomas Hart Benton in changing the American identity in laws. Richard Nixon was the most gifted political strategist in not having an equal, but in form like that scheming socialist, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Both though were titanic presences on the political stage who formed the American identity for other leaders for generations to come.
It bothered Hubert Humphrey that Nixon was sobbing, not for Nixon, but because this was a President sobbing. That is what moved the Senator most in form and to heal the wounds between them.
For all they were, they were both the same emotional heart, Humphrey more open but more reserved inside and Nixon more protective, but open inside as he protected himself. They were both poor children and both were self made men by the educations they achieved. It is their story which is the American story of two young men who no one would have picked to lead America, both rose to the leadership, and at the same time affected America from both parties as the greatest politicians of their generation.
Nuff Said
agtG
