Analysis : The Quintessential Fighter Battles Back to Statesman Status : Image: Twenty years after leaving White House in disgrace, Watergate stain fades. Nixon enjoys new respect at home, abroad.

YORBA LINDA —  When Richard M. Nixon mounted the stage at his presidential library Thursday, he wrapped one arm around the man who had been his second vice president, and waved to the gathering of friends and former colleagues who had come to pay him tribute.

One almost expected his waving hand to make the “V” for victory sign that became his trademark during a long political career, flashed for the cameras even on the day he left the White House after resigning under threat of impeachment from the Watergate scandal.

But Nixon didn’t do it on this 25th anniversary of his first presidential inauguration. He didn’t have to.

Because in the eyes of his assembled friends and colleagues, Nixon, 81, has transcended his time as a mere politician to become a world statesman, with the shame of Watergate receding into the past.

His legacy should not be that he was the only American President who resigned from office, Nixon stalwarts argue, but that he was the American leader who re-established relations with China, opened the first period of detente with the Soviet Union, and knew precisely what America’s Cold War role should be.

Now, almost 20 years after leaving the White House, the image of Nixon the ruthless politician may be fading into what one historian describes as “not just our elder statesman, he’s our beloved elder statesman.”

“He’s back, and he’s respected, and he is welcome in the White House, and people do turn to him for advice, and his books are bestsellers,” said Stephen E. Ambrose, a Nixon biographer and a history professor at the University of New Orleans. “It’s almost a miracle.”

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A new policy center at the Nixon Library & Birthplace that was formally announced Thursday is expected to add historical focus to Nixon’s achievements, particularly in the area of foreign policy.

But never, political observers say, will revisionists be able to separate Nixon from the Watergate scandal that brought down his presidency.

“I think it will be impossible in our lifetime not to think of Watergate when we think of President Nixon,” said Suzanne Garment, a resident scholar of the American Enterprise Institute who has written about the mistrust and cynicism that has marked the American political system in recent times, and whose husband, attorney Leonard Garment, was an insider in the Nixon White House. “What happens . . . is that we are coming to think of him in a much more complex way. . . . That complexity grows and makes him a much more fascinating figure.”

“There are some respects in which he is a more mellow man, with more interesting judgment than ever before,” Garment added. “On the other hand, Watergate will not disappear. So you take the good with the bad.”

A former staffer, Dewey Clower, recently recounted a conversation he had with Nixon shortly after the resignation in which the former President said that “Watergate was like a gnat flying around my face until it got so big it swallowed me.”

But ultimately, Nixon would not be swallowed by political defeat, Clower added. “I think he has probably made the greatest recovery that’s possible.”

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His staying power--his ability to bounce back long after foes have proclaimed him politically dead--was touched on during the reunion by those who served in his Administrations.

“When thinking about President Nixon and how he helped to meet and to win some of our greatest public challenges of all time, and how he met and prevailed in a myriad of personal challenges as well, it comes down to two words in my opinion: resolve and resilience,” former President Gerald R. Ford said in a speech at Thursday’s ceremonies. “The resolve to stay the course against communism, against all odds . . . the resilience to outlast, sometimes even outlive his critics in one personal crisis after another.”

Clearly, few national politicians in American history suffered the harsh treatment that Nixon endured.

Nixon jokingly called attention to the criticism he has received as he stood before about 1,000 friends and former Cabinet officers.

Referring to a small but noisy group of protesters stationed on the perimeter of the museum grounds, Nixon said, “I hope you haven’t been distressed by some of that background noise that we’ve had here. I remind our young people out there that I’ve been heckled by experts.”

But Nixon was not always so mellow in reacting to demonstrators, particularly Vietnam protesters, some of whom ended up on his political “enemies list.”

In his lengthy public career, Nixon’s political misfortunes took on hyperbolic proportions. Comedians hunched their shoulders, stuck out their chins and shook their heads in imitations of “Tricky Dick,” repeating his famous phrases: “You’re not going to have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore,” and “I am not a crook.”

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While his present-day promoters tend to focus on his achievements, little is said about his secret decision to invade Cambodia, which set the stage for a Communist takeover of that country, or the decision to send in the National Guard to break up anti-war demonstrations at Kent State University in Ohio, which resulted in four deaths and gave the anti-war movement one of its most enduring images.

After resigning the presidency and suffering a lengthy self-imposed exile from the public light, Nixon has worked to restore his tarnished image.

He has written his memoirs and other books about global politics--his 10th is scheduled to be published in June--and he has continued his involvement in foreign affairs. Nixon also has advised every President who has succeeded him, according to his staff, and has held policy discussions with leaders of other nations.

But more than any policy center or book Nixon authors, the former President himself is the best reminder of his greatness, said Ambrose, the Nixon biographer.

“Sitting at a table with Nixon is to sit with history as you can do with no other person,” Ambrose said, noting that Nixon’s national political involvement--which began with his election to Congress in 1946--spanned the Cold War. “You want to talk about Khrushchev? Nixon can talk about Khrushchev. He was there. He knew him.”

Nixon demonstrated the depth of his expertise during the ceremony at which he spoke for almost half an hour without relying on notes.

As he reminisced about the past and shared his views on how to maintain peace beyond the Cold War, he recited anecdotes about world leaders such as Mao Tse Tung, and quoted the likes of Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle.

After the ceremonies, those who were invited to watch Nixon’s reunion with his former Cabinet officers said he still had much to offer American policy planners.

“He has served his country through World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the Cold War, and if you don’t put him in that perspective--a leader who has guided this nation through many crises--you won’t see the great man,” said 32-year-old John Carvelli of Orange.

John Stahter, 43, also of Orange, said “Richard Nixon has an uncanny ability to sense the importance of events and he knows how to influence them. In some ways, his ability to influence world events is greater now than it has ever been because there is hardly anyone left of his generation.”

While Nixon has tended to focus his attention in recent years almost exclusively on foreign policy matters, he also revealed Thursday that he is still mindful of the pressures of domestic politics.

Remarking on Adm. Bobby Inman’s decision to withdraw his name from consideration for defense secretary because of public attacks he expected--a statement that Nixon called “strange and sad”--the former President posed the question: “Was it worth it?”

“Well, my answer, very briefly, is this. Politics is never going to be heaven, and sometimes it’s hell. But it was worth the trip.”

Times staff writers Matt Lait and Lily Dizon contributed to this story.