Supporting Nixon Sir: "Even in the United States." wrote Henry
Fairlie in the 'Truth about Nixon', "though one does not often meet them socially, there are people who support Richard Nixon." Further on he writes: "I am among those whom one does meet socially, who believe Richard Nixon . . . is, generally, not a nice fellow and something of a crook."
As an American studying in England, I have a number of questions to ask. With whom is Mr Fairlie socialising when in America? What makes him think he is among those whom one does meet socially? I certainly have not met Mr Fairlie socially, and Mr Fairlie obviously has not met the almost two thirds of the American voters who told the pollsters they were planning to support the President.
Mr Fairlie's silly, but thankfully admitted, bias is further illustrated by his rather strong re action to Mr Nixon's speech before high school students • in which he was quoted as saying: "You have to hate to lose . . . it isn't losing that is wrong. It's quitting. Don't quit, don't ever quit." Mr Fairlie suggested that these sentiments are at least shallow and trite, but one wonders how he would have reacted had such sentiments been uttered by, say Joe Kennedy to one of his sons (with whom Mr Fairlie would doubtless have been delighted to socialise). Mr Fairlie belongs to the Pete Hamill school of journalism, and his statements regarding the awful results of a second Nixon administration, the Republican Party in general (" it believes there is no form of political power which it is not entitled to purchase, and it believes all political power can be purchased . . . ") and the thickheadedness of the middle class " ethnics " who are supporting the President, can be dismissed as the mindless and misinformed ravings of a journalist who has been socialising all too much and thinkall too little.
Peggy Noonan Wroxton College, Wroxton nr. Banbury, Oxfordshire
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