[2008.05.10] The fuel of power 权力助燃剂

Richard Nixon
理查德·尼克松
The fuel of power
权力助燃剂

May 8th 2008
From The Economist print edition

A fascinating biography argues that Americans supported Richard Nixon because of his anger and resentment, not despite it
一部卓越的传记表明，美国人并不是容忍了尼克松的愤怒与怨恨，相反，正是这种愤怒与怨恨为他赢得了美国人的支持

IS THERE really room for another book on Richard Nixon? In the past two years alone there has been a doorstop of a biography by Conrad Black, a blow-by-blow account of Nixon’s visit to China by Margaret MacMillan and a joint portrait of Nixon and Henry Kissinger by Robert Dallek. And those are only the notable ones.
是否真的还有必要再来一本尼克松传？仅仅过去的两年内，已经有了那么多关于他的作品：康拉德·布莱克所写的仰止之作；玛格丽特·麦克米伦关于尼克松的中国之行那种的翔实记录；罗伯特·达莱克则生动地刻画了尼克松与基辛格的肖像……这还仅仅是作品中最为著名的那些，无名之作更数不胜数。

The answer is that, if Rick Perlstein is the author, then there is certainly room. Mr Perlstein first came to attention in 2001 with his excellent study of Barry Goldwater “Before the Storm”. His new book on Goldwater’s successor as the Republican candidate for the presidency is every bit as good-a fluently written and carefully researched book that is bound to be the political hit of the season.
但作者若是里克·珀尔斯坦，那则另当别论。凭藉那部研究巴里·高华德[1]的卓越之作《风暴前夕》，里克在2001年就已扬名。而叙说高华德后继者竞选道路的这部新作丝毫不亚于前者。流畅顺达的文笔，审慎求实的调查，如此绝佳的应景之作无疑会受到读者的追捧。

Nixon hardly has a reputation as Mr Normal. But it is still astonishing to be reminded of quite how odd Nixon and his circle were. He wore a necktie when he was in his dressing gown. He once visited his mother, camera crew in tow, to wish her a happy birthday-and shook her by the hand. He sent memos to his wife, Pat, about how “RN” would like his furniture arranged. Nixon matter-of-factly ordered H.R. Haldeman to draw up a list of the “big Jewish” contributors to the Democratic Party. “Could we please investigate some of the cocksuckers?” Chuck Colson, Nixon’s general counsel who famously said that he would run over his grandmother for his boss, once contemplated firebombing the Brookings Institution, a stately think-tank, and then sending in FBI officers dressed as firemen to steal a document that Nixon wanted.
读者自然知道，饱受争议的尼克松绝非”泛泛先生”[2]。但是，遥想到当年他和手下圈子里的那些咄咄怪事，此刻的我们仍不免愕然。披上宽松长袍的晨衣时，他会系上领带；有一次跑到母亲那里祝她生日快乐时，身后居然还带着摄制组，他握着她的手使劲地摇啊，犹如会晤来访的外国元首；他甚至会发备忘录给妻子佩特，只是想告诉她”RN”是多么喜欢他所布置的那套家具。尼克松曾严肃认真地让霍尔德曼[3]草拟一份赞助民主党的”犹太大佬”名单。”我们就不能去调查这帮混蛋吗”？对他忠心耿耿的高级顾问查克·科尔森曾发骇世之言，”只要老板需要，就是碾死我的祖母都没问题。”这位手下干将还考虑过要向智库布鲁金斯学会投放燃烧弹，以便FBI特工扮成消防员去将尼克松想要的文件偷出来。

What drove this extraordinary man? Boundless ambition was part of it. Nixon once told Leonard Garment, another adviser, that he was willing to do “anything” to get what he wanted-anything except “see a shrink”. But it was ambition turbo-charged with resentment. Nixon hated the liberal snobs who ran America-the holier-than-thou Ivy-League types who looked down on ordinary people while pretending to champion their cause-and he was never happier than when confronting them. He made his reputation pressing for the exposure of Alger Hiss, a senior State Department official, as a spy and a communist, and did battle with people like Adlai Stevenson, twice the Democrats’ presidential nominee in the 1950s, and George McGovern, who was trounced in 1972. Nor was the loathing all one way. Hating Richard Nixon was almost the defining feature of American liberalism during his glory years.
究竟是什么驱使着一个如此特立独行的人？无限的政治野心显然脱不了干系。尼克松曾告诉伦纳德·加门特（也是总统顾问），为得到自己想要的，他愿意去做”任何事”—当然，”看心理医生”这事他可不干。但这种野心却裹着一股愤恨，而这愤恨又仿佛运转中的涡轮发动机，为那种血脉贲张的野心提供源源不断的动力。他憎恨那些把持着美国国政的所谓自由主义精英，那些高人一等的名校毕业生一边看不起普通百姓，一边又摆出一副为民作主的架势来。狭路相逢时，若能戳穿那种伪善的面具，强烈的满足感就会油然而生，似乎再没有比这更让他感到开心的了。国务院高官阿尔及尔·希斯在他的穷追猛打后，毕露原形——一个间谍兼共产主义分子。而他亦由此声誉日隆。此外，他也没放过上世纪50年代曾两次获得民主党总统提名的艾德莱·史蒂文森，至于乔治·麦戈文更是在1972年的大选中被收拾得面目全非。仇恨并非只是单向的，在荣耀生辉的总统岁月中，那种对理查德·尼克松咬牙切齿的恨几乎可看做是美国自由主义最明显的时代特征。

But light struggled with dark in Nixon’s soul. The dirty trickster also had a foreign-policy brain. Nixon had little interest in home affairs: he was content to sub-contract what he called “building outhouses in Peoria” to bright liberals such as Patrick Moynihan. For Nixon the only thing that mattered was foreign policy. He and Mr Kissinger had a revolutionary view of foreign policy-one defined not by the cold-war categories of good versus evil but by the European notion of the balance of power, where the greater good of global order and control was paramount-even if that meant making a deal with China.
然而，光明与黑暗的对决却蛰伏于他的内心深处。在外交领域，这个”卑鄙的骗子[4]居然闯出一片天，乃至独步天下。尼克松似乎对内政提不起多大兴趣，处理这等繁琐无聊的杂事犹如”在皮奥里亚建厕所”那般毫无挑战性。不如转嫁他人，由那些精明的自由主义者（比如帕特里克·莫伊尼汉）去打理罢。在他眼中，惟一重要的事就是制定国家的外交政策。尼克松与基辛格都有一种超越的、颠覆性的外交战略眼光—国与国间的关系不能由冷战时代那种非黑即白的二元思维来定义，以往那套国家意识形态主导外交的僵化思路应当彻底摒弃。欧洲的”权力均势”理念才是正常的国际关系所应遵循的守则。在维护全球秩序与大国博弈的过程中如何获得更多的现实利益则是极为重要的—即使这意味着在某种程度上要向中国妥协。

Mr Perlstein’s biggest contribution to his subject is to set Nixon’s private resentments in the context of a broader culture of resentment. “Nixonland” is a study of how the consensus of the early 1960s turned into the cacophony of the late 1960s, when “regular” white Americans found everything they held dear thrown into question: threatened by black activists, looked down upon by pointy-headed intellectuals, vilified by student radicals, corroded by a rising tide of lawlessness and vulgarity and fatally challenged not just by the anti-war movement but also by America’s failure to achieve its aims in Vietnam. As far as Nixon’s supporters were concerned, the swinging sixties were the seething sixties. Mr Perlstein rightly points out that many people supported Nixon not in spite of his boiling rage but precisely because of it.
其书最精妙处在于，珀尔斯坦将尼克松个体上的私怨置于一个更广泛的主体相互怨怼的文化语境中。它考察了上世纪六十年代早期所达成的社会共识是如何演变成末期那种聒噪、分化和紧张的。在当时的美国社会，昔日为”普通”白人所珍重的一切事物均面临种种挑战：黑人激进分子的威胁、高傲而又昧于实际的知识分子的蔑视、激进学生的诋毁、道德败坏（越来越严重的目无法纪和粗鄙庸俗之风）所带来的侵蚀……而最致命的冲击则不仅来自于社会的反战运动，还来自于失败的越南战争所带来的那种自我怀疑。就尼克松的支持者而言，喧腾争鸣的六十年代也是一个无法排忧解烦的愤懑年代。珀尔斯坦一针见血地指出，许多尼克松支持者并非没有意识到他身上那汩汩流淌的愤恨之情，恰好相反，他们觉察地很清楚—他们需要的正是这样的愤怒。

“Nixonland” is also a study of how those resentments split the once triumphant Democratic Party into two warring factions. In the disastrous 1968 convention in Chicago the delegates could not even agree on which songs to sing. At one point one group started up with “You’re a Grand Old Flag” while its rival belted out “We Shall Overcome”.
它也考察了那些怨恨如何将曾经欢欣鼓舞的民主党拆卸成彼此分庭抗礼的两个派系。1968年在芝加哥召开的那次代表大会糟糕至极，代表们甚至连唱何歌曲都要争论不休。中途，一伙人突然弹起身来高唱《你是一面古老而绚丽的旗帜》，而对手则拉开嗓门，高奏《我们一定会胜利》。

It is hard, in the current political season, to read this book without hearing the sound of history rhyming, to paraphrase Mark Twain. George McGovern’s promise of “post-partisanship” galvanised America’s youth. He trumpeted his opposition to the Vietnam war under the slogan of “right from the start”. He went on to suffer one of the biggest defeats in the general election in American history. “Dirty politics confused him,” Hunter S. Thompson sighed. Nixon chose “experience counts” as his campaign slogan in 1960 and boasted that he had spent “a lifetime getting ready”. He made up for his lack of personal charm by an almost deranged relentlessness. But this week’s result suggests that these are only half-rhymes at best: Barack Obama has already met his Richard Nixon and slain her.
在当下如火如荼的美国大选期间，读者不难从书中获得马克·吐温所谓的”历史的规律”。乔治·麦戈文的”超越党派偏见”承诺则激励了当时的美国青年。他打出”一开始这就是对的”的竞选标语，公开表达自己的反越战立场。随即遭遇了美国总统竞选史上最大的一次惨败。”肮脏的政治迷惑了他”，亨特·S·汤普森哀叹道。1960年的尼克松选择”经验很重要”作为竞选口号，并且吹嘘他”倾其一生都在时刻准备着”。这种几乎疯狂的执着弥补了他个人魅力的缺乏。但本周的结果表明，历史最多仅重复了一半：巴拉克·奥巴马已遇见他的”理查德·尼克松”，而且还用刀抹了她的脖子。

[1]：来自亚利桑那州的美国参议员，共和党人。1964年大选中曾被提名为总统竞选人
[2]：高华德曾被称为Mr. Conservative。
[3]：当时的白宫办公厅主任。
[4]：尼克松是极右派，靠反共成名，并一度支持麦卡锡，与新闻界结怨极深，在当时的媒体笔下，他以擅长权术著称，被封上Trick Dick的恶名，其言谈举止也常是主流媒体和脱口秀节目挖苦的对象—-译者。

译者：Alex147

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