37th President

Paul J. Carter was 9 when Richard M. Nixon resigned the presidency in 1974, watching the televised speech with his dad, a loyal Republican who had come home from work early for the event. "I … didn't grasp the magnitude of it," said Carter, now 47 and a lawyer in Long Beach. Nearly four decades later, the boy's puzzlement over the nation's 37th president had evolved into a grown-up project, "Native Son Richard Nixon's Southern California: My Life on a Map!" Made like a guide to Hollywood stars' homes, the fold-out map is an illustrated romp through the life of the only White House occupant born and raised in Southern California.

A century ago on Jan. 9, Richard Nixon was born in a Southern California agricultural subdivision dubbed Yorba Linda, in a 900-square-foot mail-order house assembled by his father. The centennial of America's 37th president won't be met with much fanfare beyond this weekend's wreath-laying at that home and a Nixon Foundation dinner Wednesday in Washington. Although the Nixon Library has other centennial-related events planned for 2013, there's little of the hoopla that accompanied the 100th birthday of California's other president, Ronald Reagan, two years ago. Like another former Republican president, Nixon is a victim of unfortunate political timing.

Sharon Smith tried to explain the dark complexity at the center of "Nixon" to her daughter, Angela, but all the Irvine 13-year-old could think of was how creepy it seemed. "He looked weird," Angela said, referring to Anthony Hopkins in the title role shortly after a recent screening at the Edwards South Coast Plaza theater in Costa Mesa. "And he acted weird too. Was he really a president?" Sharon Smith patiently pointed out that Hopkins' clenched performance tried to show the human side of Nixon, a flawed man who for a few long years was the most powerful figure in the world.

Paul J. Carter was 9 when Richard M. Nixon resigned the presidency in 1974, watching the televised speech with his dad, a loyal Republican who had come home from work early for the event. "I … didn't grasp the magnitude of it," said Carter, now 47 and a lawyer in Long Beach. Nearly four decades later, the boy's puzzlement over the nation's 37th president had evolved into a grown-up project, "Native Son Richard Nixon's Southern California: My Life on a Map!" Made like a guide to Hollywood stars' homes, the fold-out map is an illustrated romp through the life of the only White House occupant born and raised in Southern California.

Senators: A Sunday Opinion caption on Sept. 7 said that only six sitting or former U.S. senators have been nominated to run for president since Lyndon Johnson, and that none was elected. Richard Nixon, the 37th president, served as a U.S. senator from California from 1950-52.

A century ago on Jan. 9, Richard Nixon was born in a Southern California agricultural subdivision dubbed Yorba Linda, in a 900-square-foot mail-order house assembled by his father. The centennial of America's 37th president won't be met with much fanfare beyond this weekend's wreath-laying at that home and a Nixon Foundation dinner Wednesday in Washington. Although the Nixon Library has other centennial-related events planned for 2013, there's little of the hoopla that accompanied the 100th birthday of California's other president, Ronald Reagan, two years ago. Like another former Republican president, Nixon is a victim of unfortunate political timing.

How wonderfully heartwarming is the news account (Part I, Sept. 20) of the unanimous vote by the Yorba Linda City Council declaring President Nixon's birthday a city holiday. It is not surprising that this resolution has met with such tremendous enthusiasm, for the greatness of achievements and statesmanship of our 37th President becomes more evident with each passing day. SUSAN SPREEN Mission Viejo

It was the summer of 1973, when the eyes of the nation were glued to the Watergate hearings on television. And yet, thousands of miles away on the West Coast, Richard Nixon and his family were honoring a rare guest at La Casa Pacifica. Soviet President Leonid I. Brezhnev had come to the seaside estate for a stay of several days, bringing with him to South County some of the world's most powerful Communists. But in this case, none of the neighbors minded. Brezhnev came to the Western White House in July, the same month former Nixon aide Alexander P. Butterfield revealed that the President had secretly recorded all of his Oval Office meetings and phone conversations.

Last month, a federal court ruled that the testimony Richard Nixon made to the Watergate grand jury in the summer of 1975 should be unsealed and released to the public. The decision has the potential to settle finally the question of whether the nation's 37th president was a criminal. The grand jury testimony, which Nixon gave in San Clemente, was the only time in history he was required by law to be honest about Watergate. And now we will know what he said. While Nixon was president he refused to testify at the trials of Watergate conspirators or before the Senate Select Committee investigating Watergate.

Hers are concise notes, funny and practical; his are lengthy, flowery and eager. "Somehow on Tuesday there was something electric in the usually almost stifling air in Whittier," Richard Nixon wrote to Patricia Ryan in an undated letter written during their courtship. "And now I know. An Irish gypsy who radiates all that is happy and beautiful was there. " The letter and others exchanged between Nixon and the woman who would become his wife of 53 years will be on display at the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda during the next several months.

Last month, a federal court ruled that the testimony Richard Nixon made to the Watergate grand jury in the summer of 1975 should be unsealed and released to the public. The decision has the potential to settle finally the question of whether the nation's 37th president was a criminal. The grand jury testimony, which Nixon gave in San Clemente, was the only time in history he was required by law to be honest about Watergate. And now we will know what he said. While Nixon was president he refused to testify at the trials of Watergate conspirators or before the Senate Select Committee investigating Watergate.

After decades of being derided as little more than a legacy-and-curio shop designed to burnish Richard Nixon's image at the expense of the historical record, the Yorba Linda library bearing his name has unveiled a raw and detailed look at the scandal that drove him from office. The $500,000 Watergate exhibit, four years in the making, features interactive screens, White House tapes and 131 taped interviews that replace the perfunctory, much-ridiculed narrative of Watergate that Nixon himself approved when the library opened with private funds in 1990.

Richard M. Nixon once said, "You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore . . . " It wasn't true, of course. That was in 1962 when he'd just lost a gubernatorial election. He came back to be elected president twice. And especially since his resignation on Aug.

Senators: A Sunday Opinion caption on Sept. 7 said that only six sitting or former U.S. senators have been nominated to run for president since Lyndon Johnson, and that none was elected. Richard Nixon, the 37th president, served as a U.S. senator from California from 1950-52.

Richard Nixon is immortalized in wax, his image molded into a candle in that oh-so-'70s shade of avocado green. Abraham Lincoln is depicted in brass, on a fittingly weighty paper clip in keeping with the solemnity of his times. George W. Bush, often underestimated, pops up from a jack-in-the-box.

Richard Nixon is immortalized in wax, his image molded into a candle in that oh-so-'70s shade of avocado green. Abraham Lincoln is depicted in brass, on a fittingly weighty paper clip in keeping with the solemnity of his times. George W. Bush, often underestimated, pops up from a jack-in-the-box.

At the end of his compelling and dispassionate three-volume biography of Richard Nixon, the historian Stephen E. Ambrose sums up his subject's nature, those traits that over a long career brought the 37th President stunning political triumphs but ultimately disgrace and ruin. Nixon, he writes, was the toughest American politician of his time. Disciplined, highly knowledgeable, a hard worker, an inveterate risk taker. A man of enormous pride who was never ready to accept defeat.

A section of Imperial Highway in Anaheim could be renamed the Richard Nixon Parkway if Congress approves a rider on a major transportation spending bill. Rep. Gary Miller (R-Diamond Bar), who has been working with the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace in Yorba Linda on the name change idea, said Thursday the rider involves less than a mile of Imperial Highway from Orangethorpe Avenue to the Riverside Freeway.

In one call, President Richard Nixon is on the telephone to Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir talking about peace in the Middle East. On another, he is directing the White House chief of staff to make sure his daughter Tricia gets a refrigerator in her room. And he tells his chief of staff that California Gov. Ronald Reagan, who had challenged Nixon for the Republican presidential nomination in 1968, is "an uncomfortable man to be around."