A Speech, and a Protest, at Nixon Library

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/a-speech-and-a-protest-at-nixon-library/

When Tim Naftali of the National Archives became director of the Nixon Presidential Library in 2007, he promised to diversify the list of speakers and “start at ground zero” in revamping the library’s historical exhibits.

Many of his decisions have displeased members of the Nixon Foundation, located on the same property in Yorba Linda, Calif., perhaps none so much as his selection of John Dean, former White House counsel to Richard M. Nixon, to speak at the site this evening.

The privately run Nixon Foundation and Nixon supporters have run a weeks-long campaign, including writing letters to all the living presidents, to protest Mr. Dean’s appearance and urge the library to cancel it. Robert Odle, a former communications aide to Richard Nixon, told Newsweek that Mr. Dean’s appearance was “in poor taste.”

(snip)
“John Dean’s importance to what is known as the Watergate scandal is indisputable,” said Mr. Naftali, “and if young people are going to learn about that drama they have to contend with Mr. Dean and his role and the information he provided.”

I think she helped plant the rose garden in the first place. But I've never been there...

Allowing the one honest man in the Nixon administration to sully the grounds of the Nixon library! What can the supporters of the nation's most famous crook do to make sure Nixon's legacy of evil is not tarnished by this man? :sarcasm: