Nixon on Super 8

[AdamSmith]

"OUR NIXON"

SYNOPSIS:

Throughout Richard Nixon's presidency, three of his top White House aides obsessively documented their experiences with Super 8 home movie cameras. Young, idealistic and dedicated, they had no idea that a few years later they'd all be in prison. This unique and personal visual record, created by H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman and Dwight Chapin, was seized by the FBI during the Watergate investigation, then filed away and forgotten for almost 40 years. OUR NIXON is an all-archival documentary presenting those home movies for the first time, along with other rare footage, creating an intimate and complex portrait of the Nixon presidency as never seen before.

OUR NIXON begins in 1969. While many young people are demonstrating or dropping out, we meet three squares who have just started new jobs at the White House. Their loss of innocence and their betrayal by the President is the story of OUR NIXON. Their story sheds new light on larger historical themes at a key moment in American history when the age of Aquarius gave way to the age of Nixon.

Haldeman, Ehrlichman and Chapin filmed over 500 reels of home movies from 1969 to 1973, capturing the prosaic and the profound. They filmed big events: the Apollo moon landing, historic anti-war protests, the Republican National Convention, Tricia Nixon's White House wedding and Nixon's world-changing trip to China. They filmed world leaders and celebrities: Nicolae Ceausescu, Chou En-lai, Barbara Walters. But they also filmed each other and everyday life: Ehrlichman eating dinner off a tray on Air Force One, Chapin's wife and kids meeting the Easter Bunny on the White House lawn, Haldeman riding a bicycle at Camp David. Ehrlichman was especially fond of filming hummingbirds. They filmed to have something to show their grandchildren. They filmed because they thought that Nixon's presidency would change the world forever. The tragedy is that they were right.

http://www.ournixon.com/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2282662/

[RA1]

Nixon is still difficult to evaluate. For many years I thought that after much time passed his stock would improve, especially after opening China. Now I think that a huge mistake although the world stands still for no one or no nation. I don't think I shall live long enough to know how this all really plays out.

Best regards,

RA1

[AdamSmith]

opening China. Now I think that a huge mistake

You think? How come? Just curious.

[RA1]

I think it was inevitable but as a friend of mine says, who likes their landlord? In this case, who likes their banker who continues to undervalue their currency + trade with their sworn enemies? The saving grace seems to be that China cannot afford to "short sell" the US any more than the US can pay them off (in a reasonable amount of time).

Best regards,

RA1

[AdamSmith]

Thus it is. But not really through Nixon's doing, surely? Deng & other developments don't seem much tied to the opening he and Henry crafted.

In 2005 I heard a US economist who lives in Shanghai remind us that to the Chinese, 300 years only begins to be the "long view," and that their relative weakness on the world economic stage for the last 2 or 3 centuries was a short-term aberration in their 2.5 or so millennia previous as a or often the dominant global trading power.

[RA1]

I was hoping to make the point that Nixon only opened the door. The Chinese took it from there. If 300 years is the beginning of a "long view", if they had waited just a little while, say 100 years, I would be gone before these problems. Of course, other problems would have (and have) presented themselves.

Best regards,

RA1