Nixon book critics miss big picture, author says

Ex-president's defenders blast drug, abuse allegations

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Aides to ex-president Richard Nixon lashed out Monday at claims he used drugs and hit his wife, but the author of a new biography that includes those accounts says critics are missing bigger points.

"Of far greater importance to me in the historical sense is the evidence, for example, that in 1968 -- in order to get himself elected -- Nixon sabotaged Lyndon Johnson's Vietnam peace initiative," author Anthony Summers told CNN. "Now that's important, because 21,000 Americans and countless Vietnamese died during the Nixon administration."

Parts of Summers' book -- "The Arrogance of Power: The Secret World of Richard Nixon" -- have been denounced as "ridiculously irresponsible" by John Taylor, executive director of the Nixon Library and Birthplace Foundation. Summers defended his book against critics who have focused on two claims: that Nixon took a mood-altering drug as president and struck his wife, Pat, after a failed 1962 bid for governor of California.

But the book also includes allegations that the 37th president, who resigned in 1974 amid the Watergate scandal, consulted a psychotherapist while in the White House; and that his mental state was considered so precarious that former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger warned U.S. commanders against accepting orders from the White House unless backed by either Schlesinger or the secretary of state.

"This was a tormented man who at various stages -- as a result of his anxieties, his great difficulties -- had been using in the past a psychotherapist and consulted that psychotherapist during the presidency," Summers said. "But he was not all right in the since that we absolutely need our presidents to be as all right as they can be. This was a man who could not stand up under pressure."

In a CNN interview Monday, Summers stands by claims in his book that Nixon took a mood-altering drug as president and struck his wife, Pat, after a failed 1962 bid for governor of California

Taylor dismissed Summers' account of Schlesinger's actions -- which he and an assistant have confirmed -- as "old stories." Taylor added that Henry Kissinger, then Nixon's secretary of state, did not share Schlesinger's concerns.

"There's no doubt about the fact he took those steps. What is in question, however, is Mr. Summers' allegation, wrapped up in innuendo and hearsay, that those steps were necessary," Taylor told CNN on Monday. He said that Summers' "unbalanced analysis" of the Vietnam era and anti-war sympathies clouded the book.

But he and other Nixon defenders have concentrated their attacks on Summers' allegations that Nixon used the drug Dilantin and beat his wife. Summers' account came from John P. Sears, an aide to Nixon in the 1968 campaign and in his administration. Sears in turn cited Waller Taylor, whom he said was a Nixon family lawyer, and Pat Hillings, a Nixon associate, as his sources. Taylor and Hillings are dead.

"President Nixon never lifted his hand to Mrs. Nixon," Taylor said. "He loved her beyond description. She was a strong woman. She never would have stood for it." He said the accounts come only from "second- and third-ring campaign aides" and others around the fringes of the Nixon camp for those reports.

"No Nixon daughter, no Nixon son-in-law, no close staff member or friend ever witnessed such behavior or knew of such behavior," he said. He added that Summers' description of Waller Taylor as a family lawyer was incorrect.

	VIDEO
CNN's Carol Lin takes a look at the allegations Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)

Earlier Monday, Summers -- who also has written books about Marilyn Monroe and J. Edgar Hoover that included sensational charges -- discounted Taylor's comments.

"I don't think that Mr. Taylor, who wasn't there and has no information on this very intimate part of Nixon's life, is qualified to issue a negative," he said.

Stephen Bull, a former special assistant to Nixon, called the accusations "absurd and ludicrous" Monday.

"If you were to ask someone to come up with the most ridiculous charges against Richard Nixon, and there have been a bundle of them over the years, these two would top the list," Bull said. "These are just totally inconceivable to me."

The New York Times also said Nixon received the drug Dilantin, an anticonvulsant commonly prescribed for the treatment of epilepsy, from Jack Dreyfus, founder of the Dreyfus Fund and a Dilantin promoter. Dreyfus told The New York Times that he gave Nixon a bottle of 1,000, 100-milligram capsules of the drug in 1968 and later gave him more.

Dilantin's side effects can include confusion and inability to sleep, according to the drug maker, Parke-Davis. Taylor said Nixon accepted the pills only as a courtesy to his friend.

"Mr. Dreyfus would give Dilantin to anyone who asked. That was his particular preoccupation. But there is no evidence that President Nixon ever took the drug," Taylor said Monday.