The Historical Presidency: The Nixon Act

Scholars are accustomed to viewing Ronald Reagan the politician through the prism of his career as a Hollywood actor. The presidency, Lou Cannon wrote, was Reagan’s “role of a lifetime.” Less often appreciated is that Richard Nixon, too, was the quintessential actor, transforming time and again to reinvent himself as the “new” Nixon and the new “new” Nixon. He was the eager “boy wonder.” He was the fierce Red‐baiter. He was the revered elder statesman. For more than half a century, scholars have sought to locate which was the “real Nixon.” The exercise has proven elusive, for Nixon became a secretive president not simply for security or trickery but because he hid himself. In this essay, I look to leave Nixon both more and less legible. I have found that by shifting over and over, in hiding, in acting, in playing each role, Nixon became unknowable.