A New Biography Attempts to Complicate an Elliptical First Lady

THE MYSTERIOUS MRS. NIXON: The Life and Times of Washington’s Most Private First Lady, by Heath Hardage Lee

It’s no mystery why the first lady Pat Nixon was once the most admired woman in America. Silently glued to her adored husband’s side, perfectly poised Pat epitomized white womanhood on the eve of the feminist revolution.

Self-contained yet approachable, Pat loved mingling in a crowd and was great with children. Her stamina was unsurpassed. She punctually attended all 115 of her official events in 1969, slept six hours a night and told a reporter that she was “never tired.”

Although critics suggested that “Plastic Pat’s” smile was as stiff as her bouffant, and as artificial as her polyester double knits, according to a Gallup poll she had a 90 percent approval rating in the second year of her husband’s presidency.

But hers was not an easy road, an admiringnew biography contends. Raised in poverty and orphaned as a teenager, she worked to put both herself and her two brothers through college. Devotion to her husband’s political career requiredextended absences from her daughters. That husband, Richard Nixon, somehow forgot to thank her in his resignation speech.

In his memoirs, the former president regretted that his disgrace cost his wife “the praise she deserved.” She had, he said, “given so much to the nation and much to the world. Now she would have to share my exile. She deserved so much more.” She suffered a stroke after reading portions of a best-selling account that portrayed her as an alcoholic recluse, a baseless image cemented via a blistering “Saturday Night Live” parody.