Recently, a number of writers to this paper have criticized Duke University for failing to honor former President Richard Nixon, and in particular, for not providing a home for the Nixon Presidential Library.
It might be helpful to recall the circumstances under which the Nixon library did not come to Duke. The former president sought a library that would use 150,000 square feet. Nixon's presidential papers required only 40,000 square feet--less than one-third the proposed space. The remaining 110,000 square feet were to be used as a monument to Nixon's presidency, helping to celebrate his years in American politics.
After investigating the matter thoroughly, the Duke faculty senate unanimously agreed that the purpose of a presidential library was to further scholarship, not to memorialize a person. Hence, we offered to provide a home for the library and proposed a site of 60,000 square feet--50 percent more than President Nixon's papers required, and enough for all kinds of seminars and programs. Nixon and his associates rejected that proposal, thereby seeming to confirm that one of their purposes in seeking to come to Duke was to rehabilitate and legitimize the Nixon presidency through building a monument to the former president.
Lest we forget, Nixon had lied repeatedly to the American people about his own involvement in the Watergate cover-up, as well as his policies in Vietnam and Cambodia. Only a presidential pardon from Gerald Ford kept him from being indicted for criminal action. A White House "plumbers' operation" had broken into a psychiatrist's office and tapped phones to get Nixon "enemies."
The Duke faculty were prepared to offer a home for the papers of this presidency. We were not prepared to exonerate or celebrate it. That decision was appropriate, and from my perspective, one of our proudest moments.
William Chafe
Chair, Department of History
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