It is inevitable when typing a famous person, product, or event into a Google search, you will get hundreds of hits that have almost nothing to do with the person themselves. This does not mean, however, that they are historically insignificant websites. Richard Nixon had such a long public career, and was involved in so many notable events, that he is bound to appear on the periphery of a great many sites. Moreover, the sites he appears in can still tell us a great deal about Richard Nixon.

For example, there is a bizarre online exhibition administered by the NARA called When Nixon met Elvis. And in contrast to its Didactic websites, this exhibition showcases the potential of the NARA to provide primary sources online. Included in the site is an eccentric letter, written on what appears to be American Airlines stationary, which begins, "Dear Mr President, First I would like to introduce myself. I am Elvis Presley and admire you and have great respect for your office." Presley goes on to say that he recently expressed his concerns to Vice President Agnew about "the drug culture, the hippie elements, the SDS, Black Panthers etc" and he would like to offer his services to Nixon as a 'Federal Agent at Large'. The level of paranoia and social division in America at the time, which the National and Didactic websites fail to capture, is summed up in Presley's closing statement that "I have done an in-depth study of drug abuse and Communist brainwashing techniques and am right in the middle of the whole thing where I can and will do the most good." 

Throughout this exhibition, however, Nixon's voice is firmly absent from the historical record, with only the photographs, memorandums, and letters by staff. This absent Nixon is a feature not only of these peripheral websites, but the more in depth analyses offered by the Disgraced Nixon websites. In the Disgraced version of Nixon, it becomes clear that the 'absent Nixon' was a device used by the President to distance himself from his own questionable actions, by letting others speak and act for him, often signing his name as Haldeman (his chief of staff), and deleting his own voice from eighteen and a half minutes of Watergate tapes. 

Even in these peripheral websites, like the Nixon family website, the Alger Hiss story, and the Nixon and Sport website, the 'absent Nixon' can tell us just as much about the historical surroundings, and Nixon's contributions to them, as any National or Didactic history.
 

The National 
Richard Nixon

The Didactic 
Richard Nixon

TheDisgraced
Richard Nixon

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