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The decision by Mountain State University to create the On Line Nixon Era Center is a recognition by its president, Dr. Charles Polk, that this era, l946 onward requires a global view and a variety of approaches to be understood. Coursework, research, document collection, and cyberspace community discussions with acknowledged experts on the Nixon era will become major avenues for understanding the world as it was in l946 and the world it would become, and the world that is still to come. By bringing together documents, experts, nationally known faculty, students, and community through technology, the hope is that the Nixon Era Center can make a lasting contribution to encouraging a fuller appreciation of America's recent history. |
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In l946, the world changed. As the United States and its allies were celebrating their victories over the Axis powers in WWII, a new war was underway – the Cold War. Events of the last half of the twentieth century, and those of the first years of the new century, have been shaped by the Cold War struggles against communism in ways and to degrees yet to be understood. United States post WWII policies, both foreign and domestic, were conditioned by the Cold War. What children were taught in schools, colleges and universities, what newspapers and books printed, what television and movies produced, and what Americans believed was impacted by the Cold War. McCarthyism, civil rights, Korea, and Vietnam captured anti-communism ideology. So, too, did congressional legislation, defense budgets, foreign aid, the American space program, and American politics and elections.
The Nixon Era Times is the official publication of the Nixon Era Center at Mountain State University. Through these pages you will be able to track the progress and growth of the Center, its components, and its results. The Times will publish scholarly research articles to which you, the reader, will be able to react. Your comments will also be made available. Additionally, the Center will provide opportunities for further networking, through its planned chat rooms and bulletin boards. There, readers and viewers will be able to exchange thoughts, opinions, and ideas at will.
There is a index of on-line research materials that you can reach through the Nixon Era Times. It already contains a wealth of interesting and useful information about Richard Nixon and his administration and some of the more controversial matters that have shaped History's views of the Thirty-seventh President of the United States. There are materials on Watergate, Deep Throat, and Nixon's Secret Government. How the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the nation's highest echelon of military leadership, spied on President Nixon and Henry Kissinger, stole classified and secret documents from them, and were eventually caught by the President is described and documented. There is also the entire Summary Motion to Dismiss and the Response to that Motion in the John Dean vs. St. Martin's et al lawsuit. The law suit is important. It placed competing versions and conflicting testimonies about Watergate and its place in Recent American History, for the first time, but not the last, in not only the court of public opinion but also a district court.
Finally, it also shares the actual history of the pardoning of Richard Nixon. There is an oral history and lecture by the man who was responsible for sitting across from Richard Nixon on behalf of the succeeding president and people of the United States and negotiating the pardon and the possession of the infamous White House tapes.
"I believe," said Dr. Polk, "that this project [developing the Nixon Era Center] is a major effort in all respects. It's a major commitment for Mountain State. It's a major commitment from the technology experts. It's a major commitment from those who are supporters of this project. I hope, too, it will become a major commitment from the users – researchers in the Center's archives and library, students in the Center's classes, and Americans in general who want to understand their history and the world."
"I do believe it important to supplement our early observations by contemporary journalists with the more lasting record created by history. And, I believe the Nixon Era Center is the best hope to getting that done." |
