NIXON, RICHARD M. (1913-1994). Thirty seventh president of the United States. TLS. (“RN”). ½p. Small 4to. Woodcliff Lake, September 17, 1992. On his personal stationery to his former advisor, Senator DANIEL PATRICK “PAT” MOYNIHAN (1927-2003).

“Your letter of September 8 was right on target.

It is a national tragedy that an unholy alliance of the far right and left killed FAP. Regards…”

Nixon took office at a time when poverty and welfare were at the forefront of American politics. His predecessor, Lyndon B. Johnson, had waged a “war on poverty” and the Aid to Assist Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), implemented during the New Deal, had ballooned in cost becoming publicly controversy. To study the matter, Nixon appointed a committee that recommended the Family Assistance Plan (FAP), a negative income tax, which would provide a guaranteed basic income to those below a certain income threshold, as distinct from other welfare programs that provided services and allegedly created dependency. Despite finding public support at both ends of the political spectrum, FAP was opposed in the Senate, and led Nixon to withdraw his support before that body stripped it altogether from its welfare reform legislation in 1972.

At that time, Moynihan was an advisor to Nixon on urban affairs. As a former assistant secretary of labor under Kennedy and Johnson and director of the Harvard–MIT Joint Center for Urban Studies, Moynihan was chosen, in part, because of his broad academic background in social policy. In 1973, he authored The Politics of a Guaranteed Income: The Nixon Administration and the Family Assistance Plan, which discussed the problem of welfare dependency and detailed the legislative defeat, acknowledging that the chances of its passage had always been small and posited that the FAP “represented the inception of profound social change; it was the first piece of legislation to guarantee an income floor as a right to all families with children. Further FAP was a product of ‘abnormal’ decision making: it resulted not from political necessity nor from the pressure of organized lobbies, but rather from scrutiny of the burgeoning problem of welfare dependency and an analysis of alternative solutions to it. Tracing its political course… Moynihan stresses that ‘in the end the [FAP] bill was defeated in the Senate Finance Committee by liberal votes,’” (“The Politics of a Guaranteed Income: The Nixon Administration and the Family Assistance Plan – A Review Article,” The Journal of Human Resources, Hausman).

Nixon was famously re-elected by one of the largest landslides in U.S. electoral history, helped by Kissinger’s “October surprise” announcement in October 1972, suggesting that peace was at hand in Vietnam, only to be disgraced after two Washington Post reporters uncovered the connection between a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters and Nixon’s re-election campaign, embroiling Nixon in Watergate, probably the most famous political scandal in American history. The trial of Nixon’s aides and conviction for conspiracy resulted in the president’s resignation from the nation’s highest office on August 9, 1974, becoming the only president ever to resign his post. Following the presidency, Nixon moved from his native California to New York City in 1979 and to New Jersey in 1981. Nixon published numerous books during this period and his speaking engagements and public appearances prompted both the Washington Post and Newsweek to write of his rehabilitation and comeback.

Our letter is a testament to the ongoing relationship between the fallen president and his former advisor and was written during incumbent President George H.W. Bush’s campaign against Bill Clinton, who campaigned on the issue of welfare reform and with whom Moynihan would work – and often disagree – on the issue.

With Nixon’s holograph salutation. Folded into thirds and in excellent.