In California, the Nixon Foundation intends to rehabilitate the legacy of the former president

Extraordinary Actor as a Gay Politician (Harvey Milk), committed director, journalist in his spare time (he last interviewed the drug trafficker “El Chapo” in 2015), friend of Hugo Chavez or even destroyer of the war in Iraq, Sean Penn remains, at 61, a man of ideas. At the start of spring, the Californian is, once again, where you least expect him. This licensed democrat accepted the invitation of the Richard Nixon Foundation where, on a platform, he debates in front of 350 people the war in Ukraine with the Republican Robert O’Brien – Trump’s former national security adviser.

The actor is just back from Ukraine, where he was shooting a documentary when the war broke out. In the audience, a woman leans towards her neighbor: “He’s on the left, but I like him.” So is America: polarized on social issues (firearms, abortion, etc.), but united on international issues. Faced with Russia, Democrats and Republicans always agree.

Welcome, then, to the Richard Nixon Foundation, in the very conservative Orange County, adjoining Los Angeles. It is one of the twelve presidential foundations whose mission is to preserve the archives and perpetuate the memory of former heads of state. And this, according to a tradition that goes back to Franklin D. Roosevelt (president from 1933 to 1945). Both library and museum, these documentation centers are also museums and meeting places where history and current events are discussed.

“Each occupies a niche, explains its president Jim Byron. The Carter Foundation, in Georgia, is centered on peace; that of Ronald Reagan, in California, privileges defense issues; at Clinton, in Arkansas, the accent “We specialize in foreign policy,” he continued from his office adorned with campaign posters, “because, as Clinton pointed out in his 1994 funeral oration, no president has had more influence than Nixon on global geopolitics.”

“The perception of my grandfather is starting to change”

Vice President of Eisenhower for eight years (1953-1960), this friend of Churchill and de Gaulle arrived at the White House in 1969 already with solid travel experience. Becoming president in 1969, this master of “Realpolitik” succeeded in 1972, with his diplomatic adviser Henry Kissinger, in opening a dialogue with China… in order to better weaken the Soviet Union. A masterful blow.

Author of the “crazy theory” – a doctrine of deterrence based on unpredictability – Nixon also brought Ho Chi Minh to the negotiating table with the aim of ending the Vietnam War, during the Paris Accords in 1973 Another example: the same year, Nixon took advantage of the outcome of the Yom Kippur War (55,000 dead) to draw Egypt into American orbit, making Cairo a stabilizing force in the Middle East until the Arab Spring. of 2010.

Unfortunately for his posterity, the Watergate scandal, exactly fifty years ago, on June 17, 1972, pushed this record into the background. “The perception vis-à-vis my grandfather is beginning to change, however, wants to believe the forties Chris Nixon while showing the helicopter, kept at the foundation, which took the illustrious passenger in the air after his resignation in 1974. More and more historians recognize his major contribution as a supporter of realism in geopolitics,” adds his grandson. Jim Byron completes: “Don’t lose sight of the fact that we lived in a ‘Nixonian’ world for half a century, that is to say until the announcement of the ‘unlimited cooperation agreement’ between the China and Russia, announced by Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, three weeks before the war in Ukraine,” he said.

A year ago, the foundation launched a “Nixon Seminar”, which meets once a month under the aegis of Henry Kissinger, 99, Mike Pompeo, the former Trump foreign secretary, and Robert O ‘Brian. The idea? “Prepare the rising generation of the Republican Party so that its future executives are ready to deal with international issues when we return to the White House in 2024!” O’Brien replies tit for tat at the end of his debate with Sean Penn. “The Nixon School” welcomes prestigious speakers.

Millionaire PayPal founder Peter Thiel, for example, gave a talk on cryptocurrency and China, while Rick Perry, Trump’s former energy minister, came to talk about “Energy and National Security.” Each time, we reflect on how Nixon would have approached the subject,” adds Jim Byron. Twenty-eight years after the death of the master of Realpolitik, Republicans are convinced that his realism can still serve as a compass.