R.I.P., R.M.N

Beginning of article

On April 23 I was awakened early in the morning by a call from BBC radio. Richard Milhous Nixon had met his terminal crisis peacefully in the night. Sternly the program's host told me that both former Prime Minister Edward Heath and Henry (never to be former, alas) Kissinger had referred to the thirty-seventh President as a "towering figure." I said to the host that the first would have had a fellow feeling for another leader driven from office, while Kissinger's only claim to our attention was his years in service as Nixon's foreign policy valet. Otherwise, Henry would now be just another retired schoolteacher, busy at work on Son of Metternich.

So John Kennedy and Richard …