Brad Olson: For post-Sept. 11 guidance, try Nixon

One of the worst things about our heightened-sense-of-alert way of life after Sept. 11 is that the doomsday people have returned. The Nostradamus e-mails keep turning up in my inbox where an acquaintance of mine will say, "I don't usually send forwards, but..."

National Public Radio and Larry King are digging up "historians" from wherever to place the United States alongside the Roman Empire, or the Grecian or any big empire at all that nearly ruled the world and fell apart at the hands of Huns or Khans or any other sort of Medievalish warlords. Lately, everyone wants to be a soothsayer.

But now that the world really does seem to be falling apart, a fortune teller that says it's ending is predicting a forgone conclusion. To say the world will end now is a sly way to cheat and wax prophetic. It might be like saying the university will never stop renovating. But there have been many who foretold our current dangers, even some who were not charlatans. One of these many was Richard Nixon.

It's been half a century now since he delivered the "Checkers" speech over national television, 42 years since he lost the election to JFK, 34 years since he became president, 28 years since he resigned in disgrace and eight since he died. My mother, whose heart has always bled Democrat, still loathes him. My father, an ever-vacillating moderate, suffers a defensive uneasiness about his legacy.

Demons inhabited Nixon's private and public worlds, and he spent a lifetime chasing them, often manufacturing new enemies where none existed. A thin-skinned paranoia clouded his approach to domestic politics, and he earned much of the political wrath that came his way.

But for all of his political ineptitude at home, Nixon enjoyed an astute grasp of world politics, an expertise even his harshest critics acknowledged. In the last chapter of his last book, No More Vietnams, published in 1985, what was then paranoia about terrorism and "rogue states" has lately and rightly been deemed prophecy.

He said, "the most violent and dangerous forces in the Mid-east are not Communist revolutionaries taking orders from Moscow but Moslem fundamentalist revolutionaries..."

The more striking movements of this chapter are his policy suggestions for counter-terrorism. Thomas Friedman, in a New York Times review of Henry Kissinger's most recent book, Does America Need A Foreign Policy?, suggested that "it was not intended for library shelves or academic colleagues. In many ways it has an audience of one: President George W. Bush." Many have linked Bush domestically to the Reagan years, but internationally, if he was following Nixon and Kissinger before, he is now a disciple.

Nixon wrote, "Swift, timely retaliation, even if there is some risk to innocent people, will mean that other terrorists will be less likely to threaten and kill innocent people in the future. Repeated threats to retaliate that are not followed by action are counterproductive. A President of the United States should warn only once." Little did Tricky Dick know he was already writing history 16 years before it occurred.

In another suggestion, to nations more than to presidents, Nixon urged, "when terrorists act against one nation, other nations should respond as if it is an attack on them all -- because, in essence, it is." Thankfully, this has been the multilateral reaction of most countries.

So it seems Nixon's legacy might not be so tainted after all. At least, he can be a vicarious legend.

Recently, as our Marines and anti-Taliban forces routed most of the remaining al-Qaeda bandits and Taliban fighters at Tora Bora, a friend wondered aloud if anything will change after Osama bin Laden and Mullah Mohammed Omar are captured and punished. I couldn't believe she would even ask.

Terrorists attacked our country and our people, as well as the peoples of the world. We obliterated the government that supported them, blew up all their camps and equipment, froze their assets and cornered them into caves where they must hide even from themselves to avoid any traitors or rummagers for a $25 million reward. This is not to say we've defeated global terrorism, but it certainly echoes Nixon's resolve.

There will be no back to normal, for our tragedy was too tragic. But, I will rest easier when the doomsdayers no longer occupy prime time media. It will be a great day when they have to return to their Internet doldrums to quote Revelations and Nostradamus. By then, we could once again confidently roll our eyes.

Brad Olson is a senior History major from Huntsville, Texas.

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