Nixon with close personal friend, Bebe Rebozo.
President Eisenhower, flummoxed by his vice president's social awkwardness and oddness, once wondered aloud to aides why an introverted, friendless man such as Nixon pursued a career in the most extroverted profession of all - politics.
Eisenhower, a quintessential extrovert, who charted his way to the stratospheric heights of military leadeship and ultimately to his country's highest political office party through his interpersonal skills, thrived on friendship. Friendship provided him with stress relief throughout his career. He was an avid bridge player, golfer, fisherman and hunter and almost invariably indulged these hobbies with close friends by his side.
Nixon occasionally golfed and bowled, but his real passion was sitting alone in his office, often next to a fire (even in July), ruminating with the aid of a pen and yellow legal pad. Indeed, Nixon possessed this compulsive desire to succeed and many of his energies were focused on being adequately prepared for any contingency, whether this preparation required intensive reading, briefings or periods of protracted thinking and fleshing out ideas on writing paper.
This was a habit that he carried throughout his life and it likely reflected his overweening sense of inadequacy, likely stemming from the notion that this lack of social grace and sophistication required his compensating with assiduous preparation.
To he sure, Nixon was capable of pouring on the charm. None other than Margaret Trudeau described him as one of the most charming leaders she ever had encountered. Aides close to Nixon were often impressed by the courtesy and compassion he showed to White House visitors from a variety of backgrounds.
Even so, forging deep friendships was not one of Nixon's priorities - or fortes. In fact, his only close friendship is regarded even today as one of the weirdest close friendship's in presidential history.
Bebe Rebozo, a Cuban-American real estate executive was Nixon's only close friend. He was valued as a loyal friend who would never curry favor with the media by divulging details of their friendship. He was also very protective of Nixon, willing, if necessary, to use has wealth to insulate his friend from hostile forces. Rebozo, as a Cuban-American, also endured discrimination and bullying as a youth, and it's conceivable that Nixon related to this underdog status.
Remarkably, though, one of the prices of friendship with Nixon was a willingness to sit quietly for hours at a time while Nixon engaged in deep though and recorded his ruminations on his writing pad.
Only once or twice did the soft-spoken Rebozo ever share the nature of conversations with Nixon. When once prompted by a reporter to divulge the most common topics of discussion between the two, Rebozo casually replied, “Sports…foreign policy stuff.”
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