Last month I took a trip down — or up and down — memory lane to Mount Mansfield, where in 1974 I was a ranger-naturalist for Vermont’s department of forests and parks. The day, August 8th, was an anniversary: on that afternoon forty years ago, rangers gathered hikers on the summit to announce that come noon the following day, President Richard Nixon would resign. The peak rang with cheers.
I wasn’t fond of Mr. Nixon. Aside from the usual criticisms, I had a personal beef. In spring ‘74, responding to the Arab Oil Embargo, he froze revenue-sharing with the states, cancelling funds supporting Vermont’s highly successful backcountry education program on Mansfield and Camel’s Hump. By Labor Day, we rangers were out of work. So I took grim satisfaction knowing that Nixon, too, would be on the street.
The ‘70’s were dismal times to job-hunt. I had many opportunities to revile Nixon as I went from almost working on a ski lift crew to almost apprenticing to a canoe-maker to actually teaching high school history.
I’ve reflected on that as we approached the anniversary of Nixon’s pardon. Most Americans were incensed by the pardon and even angrier when they read Nixon’s shamelessly self-serving statement accepting it – a classic version of “I’m sorry if I’ve upset you” -- placing responsibility for Watergate on the public’s perception of his actions rather than accepting it himself. Many believed the fix was in and the pardon certainly contributed to Gerald Ford’s failure to gain election in his own right. This seemed to confirm a central truth of history: good people like Ford occasionally do bad things.
But most of us now believe Ford was right; that a pardon would harm the country less than prolonged criminal proceedings against the disgraced former president. Though it wasn’t clear at the time, Ford did us a favor.
Nixon did me a favor too. I found I loved teaching history. Forty years later, I’m still at it. So here are more historical truths: sometimes bad people cause good things and sometimes bad things can have good results.
These examples support yet another historical truth: short-term and long-term consequences of events differ; we should wait a while before judging their impact.
Which brings me back to my recent hike up Mansfield, where I chatted with the Green Mountain Club summit stewards who carry on the backcountry education program with the same energy and commitment we had forty years ago. But they had difficulty concealing their ignorance of Richard Nixon. In college-aged minds, he seems to occupy space with Martin Van Buren and Millard Fillmore.
So here’s a final historical truth, best expressed by writer Gore Vidal: With age we become not only forgetful, but forgotten.
