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Pat
Nixon and the Peru Earthquake
Excerpt
from Chapter 6: Charity Choices of The Faith of America's
First Ladies, by Jane Hampton Cook
“She
opens her arms to the poor and extends her hands to the needy”
(Prov. 31:20).
The camera focused on the man in NBC’s New York studio. Through the
lens’s limited point of view, the broadcaster’s orange tie
was a vivid contrast against the newsroom’s cartoon-blue
background. His tiger-speckled glasses took up most of his face,
while his coat’s lapels were as wide as his chest. To the
viewer, the newsman’s clothing merely reflected the times,
silently screaming, “It’s 1970.”
When he saw the camera’s signal, the broadcaster looked directly into
the lens. “Mrs. Richard Nixon ended her visit to Peru. She
said she found the earthquake destruction incredible,” he said
simply, with no emotion.
Another camera instantly burst Technicolor’s rainbow, taking the
viewer to the gray bumpy streets of Lima, Peru. There the camera
panned over endless lines of uniformed men along a drab street.
They stood at attention, flanking the city’s ancient plaza and
cathedral.
Out of the camera’s eye but within its ear, the reporter’s resonant
voice began to narrate the story.
“Elements from all three Peruvian armed services were arranged around
Lima’s Plaza de Almas Monday morning. It was the feast of St.
Peter and St. Paul,” he said.
The reporter’s name, Tom Steinhorst, flashed in white block letters
over the plaza scene, a magic trick of news room editing, while
the camera showed a limousine speeding from left to right along
the street next to the plaza.
“The first lady arrived with Consuelo de Valasco, the wife of Peru’s
president, to attend mass in the cathedral,” Steinhorst
continued.
Then the camera changed its point of view, filming from a position in
front of the cathedral’s doorway. It held steady and showed
the two first ladies, who wore black lace mantillas in their
hair, as they walked up the steps. When they entered the
cathedral, they disappeared from the camera’s eye.
“Later the Peruvian president, General Juan Valasco, arrived at the
head of his government,” Steinhorst narrated while the camera
showed Valasco following the same path as the women—up the
steps, into the cathedral, and out of sight.
Although the camera showed their separate entrances, it failed to
explain why President Valasco did not accompany his wife and his
country’s most important guest, the wife of the president of
the United States, into the Mass remembering the fifty thousand
Peruvians who died in the earthquake. Steinhorst also didn’t
mention that it was Consuelo, not her husband, who had greeted
Pat at the airport the day before.
But twelve years earlier, other cameras had captured the reason for
President Valasco’s hostile hospitality. Pat and Richard
Nixon, who was vice president of the United States at the time,
had visited Lima. Leftists had mobbed their car and threatened
their lives. President Valasco had recently overthrown Peru’s
government. He dared not welcome Pat, at least not in front of
the cameras. He was a leftist.
Steinhorst and his camera also failed to explain why Pat had decided to
return to the nation whose president could not shake her hand in
public and whose people had thrown rocks at her years earlier.
But sometimes a camera with a limited point of view can answer
the most important question, even if someone forgot to ask it.
Steinhorst continued to narrate while his camera switched from the
cathedral and showed a scene with rubble in the foreground and
mountains in the distance.
“After mass, Mrs. Nixon with Mrs. Valasco flew to the disaster area
with tons of American supplies. This town was one of the hardest
hit. Huarez had been a city of thirty-five thousand. Mrs. Nixon
was given the estimate that about a third of the population
perished in the quake,” Steinhorst stated without emotion.
Steinhorst did not report what Pat, the locals, and other reporters
knew. Half a dozen helicopters and planes flying relief missions
into Huarez had crashed in the treacherous mountain air
currents. He didn’t explain that Pat’s visit was dangerous.
He also didn’t describe the supplies she brought, the two
planes full of blankets, tents, medical kits, and fifteen
thousand dollars in donations from individual Americans.
The camera showed Pat and Consuelo as they climbed over boulders and
chunks of concrete in Huarez. Surrounding them were reporters,
relief workers, and local Peruvians. Consuelo kept her eyes
focused on her guest, offering her hand to make sure Pat
didn’t fall. But the first lady didn’t need the help. The
camera showed Pat stepping around the debris easily, as if she
were wearing tennis shoes and not pumps.
Pat focused her attention on the shattered faces of the Peruvians and
the aid workers. She didn’t appear to notice what the
camera’s color film detected brilliantly. Her blue suit
matched the sky above, causing her to stand out among the gray
and lifeless hues around her. Her smile and warm handshakes lit
their faces. She was their rainbow after the storm.
“Mrs. Nixon was obviously impressed with the extent of the
devastation. She seemed to pay special attention to the
children,” Steinhorst said, his voice hinting at emotion for
the first time.
His voice dropped away for a few seconds, allowing the natural sounds of
the scene to take over his story.
The camera zoomed to a close-up of Pat and a young girl.
“Oh, my,” Pat said while the girl handed her a bouquet of daisies.
Pat smiled and hugged the girl tightly, as if she were clinging to her
own daughter.
“These are beautiful,” Pat said.
The camera flashed for two seconds to a scene of hundreds of tents,
where thousands of Peruvians had taken refuge. More than eight
hundred thousand had lost their homes.
“The tents here were provided by American relief. In this camp, Peace
Corps teams are working with Peruvian volunteers,” Steinhorst
narrated.
The camera seemed eager to get back to Pat and cut to another close-up
of her. Steinhorst again stopped his narration to allow the
sounds of the scene tell the story. A man showed Pat his festive
tan sombrero, trimmed with red fringe. He gave it to her and
said, “Even though it’s old.” Pat smiled and eagerly put
the sombrero on her head.
The camera’s narrow perspective couldn’t show each hand that Pat
touched. It didn’t have enough tape to record Pat as she
listened, with the help of a translator, to the Peruvians tell
their stories of where they were when the earthquake hit. No
camera captured her raspy voice as she asked relief workers
where they were from. One answered Germany, another South
Africa. She commended them all for their efforts to help and
hugged as many as she could.
“One major purpose of the
trip clearly was to reawaken American interests. And most
Peruvians were still suffering from the consequences of last
month’s earthquake,” Steinhorst said, while the camera
panned from left to right over a scene of Peruvian bystanders
sitting on fences. What stood out the most were their faded
black farmer’s hats, one of the few items they now owned.
For the first time, the camera turned to the mustached and
leisure-suited Steinhorst, who stood and held his microphone in
front of a group of Peruvians holding a leftist banner.
“And one Washington official said, ‘Peru needs help. Who’s the
president more apt to listen to than his own wife?’” he
reported. “Tom Steinhorst, NBC News, Huarez, Peru.”
Then he sent the camera’s eye back to the man in the brightly colored
New York studio.[i]
In its own limited way, Steinhorst’s camera answered the question of
why Pat returned to Peru. When the earthquake created boulders
out of buildings, Pat was there to extend her hands to those who
once threw stones at her. She came because they needed her. They
needed hope.
***
Lima’s newspaper editors praised Pat for her courage,
tenderness, and sacrifice.
Certainly an act like Mrs. Nixon’s is not common in an age in which
the rules of international protocol are limited to form and a
conventional response such as a telegram, as befits the high
station of a first lady of a nation. In her human warmth and
identification with the suffering of the Peruvian people, she
has gone beyond the norms of international courtesy and has
endured fatigue in an example of solidarity and self-denial.[ii]
When Pat entered the White House as first lady in 1969, she brought with
her memories of official life from 1952 to 1960. She discovered
that much had changed in America since she was the wife of the
vice president. By the time she was first lady, most households
owned television sets, and the media had defined a new role for
the first lady: newsmaker. With the spotlight on her more than
ever, Pat knew that her charitable choices would be a topic for
television. Her daughter explained how she approached this
challenge.
“As Mother considered the various suggestions for projects, she was
aware that any first lady’s influence must be wielded
cautiously and responsibly,” Julie Nixon Eisenhower wrote.[iii]
Helen Thomas, the veteran United Press International White House
correspondent, observed that Pat’s own childhood and young
adulthood—which were lean, difficult, and grieving
years—also impacted her choices.
“She is warm and kind and she goes the extra mile to shake a hand and
greet a stranger,” Helen said. “She is concerned about
people’s feelings. Mrs. Nixon is a very strong woman, and
sometimes a very stubborn woman. As a hostess, she has kept her
promise of not entertaining just the big shots. She never
forgets her days of poverty when she was growing up.”[iv]
Pat’s charity choices led her to open the White House doors to the
disabled and arrange for special tours for the blind. For the
first time, visually impaired visitors ran their hands along the
silk walls, carved sofa legs, and cool silver urns. One camera
filmed a White House Christmas party that Pat hosted for
children from a blind school. It showed her warm hugs and
captured a touching close-up of a blind teenage boy in a red
sweater. He smiled while carefully touching the side of the
White House gingerbread house to feel its hardened dough walls
and the outlines of the icing stars on the rooftop.
“While always dignified and gracious, Mrs. Nixon was also a passionate
believer in volunteer service and the importance of Americans
helping one another. The appearance of the White House today and
its accessibility to visitors at special times each year owe
themselves in large degree to her generous and creative
efforts,” President Bill Clinton said in a tribute to Pat
after her death in 1993.
“During her first Thanksgiving as first lady, she invited 224 senior
citizens from area nursing homes to the White House for a
special meal. She invited hundreds of families to
nondenominational Sunday services in the East Room. And she
offered the White House as a meeting place for volunteer
organizations dedicated to solving community problems,”
Clinton said. [v]
Pat also spent much of her time as first lady on missions of personal
diplomacy, such as her visit to Peru. By the time she left the
White House, she had visited seventy-eight nations through her
role as the wife of the president and vice president. She is the
most widely traveled first lady to date. She also promoted
volunteerism and opened the White House doors to the poor and
needy. Pat modeled a life of service.
Notes
[i]
To write the fictionalized
short story of a true moment in the life of Pat Nixon, the
author consulted these sources: All networks.
“Excerpts of Evening Network News Broadcasts from the Week
of 6/27/70 to 7/3/70.” WHCA VTR# 3770. Nixon Presidential
Materials, National Archives and Records Administration,
College Park, MD, July 14, 1970;
Pat Nixon, “Remarks on Arrival at Jeorge Chavez
Airport in Lima, Peru, with Mrs. Juan Velasco.” Tape
C-046, Nixon Presidential Materials, National Archives and
Records Administration, College Park, June 28, 1970;
Pat Nixon, “Remarks Walking through Earthquake Area in
Peru’s Anta Valley.” C-047, Nixon Presidential
Materials, National Archives and Records Administration,
College Park, June 29, 1970.
[ii]
Lester David, The Lonely Lady of San Clemente.
[iii]
Julie Nixon Eisenhower, Pat Nixon: The Untold Story. 1986.
[iv]
Lester David, The Lonely Lady.
[v]
William Clinton, “Statement on the Death of Pat Nixon,
June 22, 1993,” http://www.originalsources.com (accessed
August 2005).
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