An Extended Nixon Family Gathers to Look Back, Ahead

YORBA LINDA —  Richard M. Nixon blended past and present Wednesday, touring the house where he was born and the next-door presidential library he will dedicate today at a ceremony to be marked by a rare gathering of four American Presidents.

Nixon was accompanied by his wife, Pat, their daughter Julie and her husband, David Eisenhower, on a tour of the simple wooden house built from a kit by Nixon’s father and the adjacent $21-million Spanish-style library building of Arizona sandstone.

As the Nixons emerged from their car to the cheers of about 50 people, the only man to resign the presidency waved to the crowd and mouthed the word “tomorrow” at people shouting questions at him from a roped-off area for spectators.

Pat Nixon, 78, in a white-and-black silk dress, accepted a bouquet of yellow roses from three Brownies and kissed each one on the forehead. Her husband, 77, bent over and shook hands with them before entering the building.

The eve of the dedication was marked by gatherings of Nixon loyalists throughout the day in Yorba Linda, everyone from longtime friend Bebe Rebozo to personal secretary Rose Mary Woods, from former Treasury Secretary William E. Simon to the Rev. Billy Graham.

The library was the scene of a luncheon of contributors to the building and a late afternoon reception of men and women who toiled in the White House in the years before Watergate drove Nixon out of Washington and back to San Clemente.

For Pat Nixon, today’s dedication will be a rare public appearance. While her husband has spent much of the last decade removing the tarnish from his reputation, writing books, visiting foreign countries and meeting world leaders, Pat has spent her time in private. Friends say she is devoted to her children and grandchildren and indulges her love for gardening.

Hours before the Nixons visited the library, Simon, Nixon’s secretary of the Treasury and one of the main money-raisers for the privately funded, privately operated facility, served as host of a luncheon for about 50 longtime Nixon supporters.

Among the guests were Rebozo, one of Nixon’s closest friends; Max Fisher, an oil magnate and Nixon pal, and Carl Karcher, founder of the Orange County-based Carl’s Jr. fast-food chain.

President Bush was scheduled to arrive Wednesday afternoon at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, spend the night at the Anaheim Hilton and join Nixon and the two other living Republican ex-Presidents, Gerald R. Ford and Ronald Reagan, for the dedication today.

The occasion will mark the first gathering of four Presidents since the 1981 White House gathering of Reagan, Ford, Nixon and Jimmy Carter en route to the 1981 funeral of slain Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. Carter declined an invitation to attend the library opening.

Before the dedication, Bush will host a California Republican Party fund-raising breakfast at the Anaheim Hilton. Afterward, he will join Reagan, Ford and Nixon for lunch at the library.

On the eve of the ceremonies, men and women who worked in the White House for Nixon filed into the building for one of the largest gatherings of Nixon Administration alumni since Watergate forced him to resign the presidency 16 years ago.

“It will probably be the real first and last conclave of those who have been associated with Richard Nixon . . . since his second inaugural,” said Patrick J. Buchanan, a former Nixon speech writer.