Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/359132
ByGillianFlaccus The Associated Press YORBA LINDA Almostade- cade after Richard Nixon re- signed, the disgraced former president sat down with his one-time aide and told the tale of his fall from grace in his own words. For three decades, that version of one of the na- tion's largest and most-dis- sected political scandals largely gathered dust — un- til this week. Starting Tuesday, to com- memorate the 40th anniver- sary of Nixon's resignation, portions of the tapes will be published each day by the Nixon Presidential Library & Museum and the private Richard Nixon Foundation. The postings begin with Nixon recalling the day he decided to resign and end Saturday — the date of his last day in office — with the 37th president discussing his final day at the White House, when he signed the resignation agreement, gave a short speech and boarded a helicopter for San Clem- ente, California. The segments were culled from more than 30 hours of interviews that Nixon did with former aide Frank Gan- non in 1983. The sections on Watergate aired publicly once, on CBS News, before gathering dust at the Uni- versity of Georgia for more than 30 years. "This is as close to what anybody is going to experi- ence sitting down and hav- ing a beer with Nixon, sit- ting down with him in his living room," said Gannon, now a writer and historian in Washington, D.C. "Like him or not, whether you think that his resiwgna- tion was a tragedy for the nation or that he got out of town one step ahead of the sheriff, he was a human be- ing," he said. Nixon, who died in 1994, had hoped that providing his own narrative would help temper America's final judgment of him. Perhaps with that in mind, he didn't shy away from the tough questions, commenting on everything from the threat of impeach- ment to the so-called "smok- ing gun" conversation that included evidence he partic- ipated in a Watergate cover- up. "This was the final blow, the final nail in the coffin. Although you don't need an- other nail if you're already in the coffin — which we were," Nixon said in a seg- ment about the June 23, 1972 tape. Nixon said when he de- cided to resign, he faced such strong resistance from his wife that he brought a transcript of the "smoking gun" tape to a family meet- ing to show her how bad it was. "I'm a fighter, I just didn't want to quit. Also I thought it would be an admission of guilt, which of course it was," he said. "And, also, I felt it would set a terribly bad precedent for the future." The tone of the tapes contrasts with the some- times adversarial tone of the well-known series of Nixon interviews done in 1977 by British journal- ist David Frost. Nixon ap- pears relaxed in the tapes. He smiles occasionally, speaks fondly about his two daughters and wife and seems emotional while recalling the final days of his fraught administra- tion, as pressure mounted for his impeachment over a 1972 break-in at Demo- cratic headquarters by bur- glars tied to the president's re-election committee who were trying to get dirt on his political adversaries. The decision to release these friendly interviews now, years after the fact, might not be a coincidence, said Luke Nichter, a Nixon expert and professor at Texas A&M University. With the passage of time, he said, every former pres- ident sees their legacy re- examined and recast, and Nixon may be no different. WATERGATE RecordingsrevealfinaldaysofNixonWhiteHouse THEASSOCIATEDPRESS Richard Nixon waves goodbye with a salute to his staff members outside the White House as he boards a helicopter and resigns the presidency on Aug. 9, 1974. By Christopher Sherman The Associated Press MCALLEN, TEXAS Over- whelmed by the arrival of thousands of unaccompa- nied immigrant children, the state of Texas relaxed its standards for the shel- ters that house them, easing rules governing how much space each child needs and what kind of facilities they should have. In some ways, the re- sponse to the influx resem- bled the reaction to a hur- ricane, with federally con- tracted shelters asking the state licensing agency to temporarily bend some of its regulations to accom- modate a large population of children. As with a natural disas- ter, President Barack Obama put the Federal Emergency Management Agency in charge of coordinating the government's response. Di- saster-relief teams towed their portable showers and kitchens to the border, and Catholic Charities took do- nations and distributed clothing and supplies to the displaced. Kyle Janek, executive commissioner of Texas Health and Human Ser- vices, instructed the state body that licenses shelters to work with them. "Because of the large numbers we were seeing in a short period of time," Janek said, he directed the Texas Department of Fam- ily and Protective Services to lower shelter standards to the same level as after a hurricane. He made the re- marks late last month in tes- timony to a legislative com- mittee. The regulatory changes reduced the number of square feet required for each child and allowed more chil- dren to be housed per avail- able toilet, sink and shower. Some shelters proposed hav- ing additional kids sleep on cots — an idea that was ap- proved. A suggestion to give them air mattresses was de- nied, according to shelter documents obtained by The Associated Press through an open-records request. Even with the changes, the shelters are a world away from the crowded con- ditions in the Border Patrol station holding cells where children were held for days for processing. At the shel- ters, children take classes, receive hot meals and can play. More than 57,000 chil- dren, most from Central America, entered the U.S. illegally between October and June without a parent or guardian. That was more than double the number who arrived over the same period a year earlier. Requests for rule excep- tions, called variances, are evaluated for hygiene con- cerns and the potential risk for the spread of diseases such as chicken pox and tu- berculosis, as well as "main- taining appropriate super- vision ratios," Patrick Crim- mins, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Fam- ily and Protective Services, said in an email. At the end of July, nine Texas shelters were operat- ing with variances that al- lowed additional capacity, Crimmins said. "This is obviously not business as usual. If a pro- vider steps up and wants to try and shelter more chil- dren, we will help make that happen," he said. Once they are processed by the Border Patrol, chil- dren are placed in the cus- tody of the government's Office of Refugee Resettle- ment. They stay at federal government shelters un- til they reunite with family members in the U.S. or move to longer-term foster care to await their day in immigra- tion court. After hovering around 6,000 or 7,000 for several years, the number of chil- dren in the federal shelters doubled in 2012 and doubled again in 2013, before surg- ing higher still this year. The agency responded by increasing the number of available beds in its shel- ter network — from 3,300 in 2012 to 5,000 in 2013. With the addition of three tem- porary shelters, that num- ber rose this year to more than 7,000. At the end of July, the shelter caseload was down to about 6,300 children in 100 permanent facilities and three large temporary shel- ters on military bases in Texas, Oklahoma and Cal- ifornia. The caseload had been more than 7,600 in mid-June. On Monday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services an- nounced that it was sus- pending operations at three temporary shelters in coming weeks because the number of children crossing the border has declined and because the agency had "expanded ca- pacity to care for children in standard shelters." Some of that additional capacity was achieved by adding beds to existing shelters. One application by Southwest Key Programs, an Austin-based nonprofit that is the country's largest supplier of services to un- accompanied minors, noted that it would be adding two children to each room of four, reducing the space per child from 60 square feet to 40 square feet. A program spokeswoman confirmed they had requested vari- ances, but did not respond to requests for interviews. Because the rule change was being requested for only a short time, "purchas- ing frame beds would not be practical," according to the program's application. The nonprofit planned to purchase air mattresses or cots. BORDER Te xa s ea se d ru le s fo r housing immigrant children Select"Subscribe"tabinlowerrightcorner Complete information for automatic weekly delivery to your email inbox That's it! This FREE service made possible by the advertisers in TV Select Magazine Kindly patronize and thank them. Click on their ads online to access their websites! N EWS D AILY REDBLUFF TEHAMACOUNTY FREE online subscription to TV Select Magazine Digital edition emailed to you, every Saturday! Just go online to www.ifoldsflip.com/t/5281 (You'll only need to go there one time) • Fully searchable online, zoom in, print out pages and more! • No newspaper online subscription or website access required. • Best of all ... it's ABSOLUTELY FREE! WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 6, 2014 REDBLUFFDAILYNEWS.COM | NEWS | 3 B