A VISIT to the Richard Nixon presidential library in Yorba Linda, the small town in Orange County, California, where the future president was born on January 9th 1913, is not a straightforward affair. The details of Nixon's pre-presidential life—the hardscrabble upbringing, the rapid political ascent, the globetrotting vice-presidency—are dispatched with efficiency. A large hall showcases the president's foreign-policy feats in glowing terms. A smaller one displays the domestic achievements. Pat Nixon's frocks are given an outing.
约巴林达，加州橙县的一个小镇。
1913
年
1
月
9
日，未来的总统出生在这里。但是，参观理查德·尼克松总统图书馆并不是件轻松的事情。
他成为总统之前的生活细节——同贫困抗争的成长经历、火箭般的仕途升迁、周游世界的副总统任期——都凝缩在其中。他的外交功绩以醒目的方式陈列在一个巨大的展示柜中。相比之下，展示他内政成就的柜子要小一些。展品中还包括帕特·尼克松的礼服。
Then comes Watergate. Aggressive typefaces in bold hues draw the eye to accounts of “dirty tricks”, “the cover-up” and other details of the scandal that brought Nixon's second term to a premature close in 1974. If this part of the museum feels disconnected from what precede sit, that is hardly a surprise. It was installed less than two years ago after an unseemly row between the private Nixon Foundation, which had run the library since it opened in 1990, and the federal National Archives, which took over in 2007 and was unhappy with the foundation's kid-gloves treatment of Watergate.(The organisations insist that relations are now much better.)
随后就是“水门事件”展区。在这里，粗狂的字体以醒目的色调将人们的注意力吸引到对“肮脏伎俩”、“欲盖弥彰”以及其他的对丑闻细节的描述，那场丑闻使尼克松的第二个总统任期在
1974
年过早地结束了。如果你觉得这一部分同之前的内容没有联系，这根本不值得什么大惊小怪。“水门事件”展区是在尼克松基金会和国家档案馆的不光彩的争执之后诞生的，设立还不到
2
年。自
1990
年开馆以来，总统图书馆一直由尼克松基金会负责运营。
2007
年，国家档案馆开始接手管理，他们对尼克松基金会在水门事件上遮遮掩掩的态度感到不满。（如今，双方都坚持认为关系已大有好转。）
In some ways the contrasting treatments feel appropriate. One hundred years after Nixon's birth, America is unsure howto regard his presidency. For cheerleaders his work abroad, particularly his groundbreaking (and opera-inspiring) journey to meet Chairman Mao in China in1972, makes him the greatest statesman since Franklin Roosevelt. Domestically,they urge recognition of his efforts to protect the environment, his dedication to desegregation in the South and the end of the draft. At a remembrance ceremony at the library on January 6th, Watergate went unmentioned.
从某些方面来说，这种对比式的处理手法给人的感觉并不过分。在尼克松诞辰
100
周年之际，该如何评价他的总统任期，美国尚未有明确的态度。
对他的支持者来说，尼克松的外交政绩，尤其是他在
1972
年飞赴中国会见毛主席的开创性之旅（也为舞台剧提供了创作灵感），使他成为富兰克林·罗斯福之后最伟大的政治家；在内政方面，尼克松促进环保、废除南方种族隔离政策并且签署法案结束越战，他的支持者强烈要求对他的这些贡献予以承认。在
1
月
6
日的一场纪念仪式上，没有人提起“水门事件”。
For his critics, however, the crimes of Watergate were only the most damaging expression of a temperament monumentally ill-suited to the highest office. Look at the early congressional successes,won on the back of viciously negative campaigns. Listen to the paranoid, volatile, often racist rantings captured on the taping system Nixon had installed in the Oval Office. More recent episodes of presidential scrutiny, such as the Clinton impeachment hearings or allegations of executive over-reach during the George W. Bush years, have served as uncomfortable reminders of the traumatic Watergate experience.
说到对他的批评，“水门事件”的罪行仅仅是对那种永远不适合当总统的性格的最有杀伤力的表达。看看他从政初期在国会中的成功，无一不是靠恶意的负面竞选策略而赢得；听听那些带有妄想狂的、反覆无常的，并且还时常流露出种族主义色彩的咆哮，而这些都被他安装在椭圆形办公室内的录音系统捕捉到。近年来，克林顿遭弹劾听证，小布什时期的高官因越权而被指控。此类针对大人物的审查越来越多，它们一直在提醒人们不要忘记“水门事件”的惨痛经历。
Always conscious of his family poverty and suspicious of east-coast elitists, Nixon struggled to form personal bonds with others. “His Achilles heel was his inability to trust,” says Jonathan Aitken, a Nixon biographer and former British MP (also disgraced, but rehabilitated). Yet he forged strong working relationships with the likes of Leonid Brezhnev and Mao. His presidency also made rich contributions to the modern political lexicon: think of the “silent majority”, the “-gate” suffix for scandal and the “Nixon-to-China” metaphor for hardliners who strike deals with foes.
