Alleged source denies quotes in anti-Nixon book

Outraged Former Pat Brown Aide Says He Never Said Nixon Beat His Wife

British author Anthony Summers-noted for sensationalistic biographies of Marilyn Monroe and J. Edgar Hoover-has now published a book posthumously heaping preposterous accusations at Richard Nixon. The book is so scurrilous it would not be worthy of comment here had it not already been widely publicized in newspapers around the country and by television networks.

In The Arrogance of Power: The Secret World of Richard Nixon, Summers rehashes and re-examines virtually every rumor and innuendo about Nixon-and then goes on to some that heretofore were unheard of.

First, he claims the young Nixon's role in exposing Alger Hiss as a Communist spy was grossly exaggerated. Then he alleges that Nixon won the 1950 California Senate race by smearing opponent Helen Gahagan Douglas as "the pink lady" (a quote from Douglas's Democratic primary opponent, that Summers, like others before him, falsely attributes to Nixon).

Summers even attempts to rewire the old jalopy that Hiss may not have been a spy after all.

But what has attracted the most attention is his accusation that Nixon beat his wife, Pat, after he lost the 1962 gubernatorial race in California.

Provocative stuff, but is it true?

Not according to the only contemporaneous, living source whom Summers cites by name to back up the story.

This source, Frank Cullen, a longtime aide to the late Gov. Pat Brown (D.-Calif.), says he learned he was cited by Summers only after he received a call from me. He says he never met Summers or heard of Summers's book until my inquiry, and categorically denied that he ever suggested to anyone that Nixon had attacked his wife.

Even including Cullen, Summers relied wholly on second-hand sources to make his allegation. He writes, for example, that while preparing a book on Nixon's twilight days in the White House (Final Days), investigative reporter Bob Woodward was told of an alleged incident in which Nixon struck his wife severely enough to put her in the hospital. But Woodward did not publish the story, Summers says, because it was "not well-enough sourced."

Similarly, Summers says that Seymour Hersch, while writing a biography of Henry Kissinger, "learned from sources of three alleged wife-beating incidents." But Summers does not identify these sources, Hersch himself never published the allegation and Kissinger vehemently denies knowing of any wife-beating or even considering it possible.

Washington lawyer John P Sears, who worked on Nixon's 1968 campaign and was briefly on his White House staff, is quoted as saying he was told by Nixon "family lawyer" Waller Taylor that "Nixon had hit [Pat] in 1962 and she threatened to leave him over it."

"I'm not talking about a smack," Summers quotes Sears as saying. "He blackened her eye... I had heard that from [California Rep. and Nixon family friend] Pat Hillings as well."

Yet, Sears himself did not meet Nixon until after the 1962 defeat, and Taylor and Hillings are dead. And, according to John Taylor of the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, Calif., "Waller Taylor was not the Nixon family lawyer but happened to occupy the same law firm office as former Vice President Nixon."

So Sears, even if cited accurately, nonetheless did not know what he was talking about.

"The most compelling account of such abuse," writes Summers, "relates to the 1962 defeat and comes from several sources. Gov. Pat Brown [who had defeated Nixon that year] said years later, `We got word at one stage of the campaign that he kicked the hell out of her. Hit her.' A senior Brown aide, Frank Cullen, used the same language, saying he heard Nixon had `beat the hell out of his wife' after his defeat."

`Never Met Summers'

Brown, who was defeated by Ronald Reagan in 1966, died in 1996. But Cullen, who worked for Brown from early 1962 until his death, is alive and well, lecturing, writing and guest-hosting a radio talk show in Southern California.

"I never met this guy Summers, never heard of him or his book, and only went out to buy it after I got your message," Cullen told me. "And I'm furious! I have never said anything like that and I don't know where he got it from."

Although the Summers book is footnoted, there are no footnotes attached to either the Brown or Cullen quotes to indicate where the author got them.

Cullen, a lifelong Democrat who said he first went to work for Brown during his 1962 reelection campaign because "I felt Nixon was evil," told me, "Pat Brown must be spinning in his grave over that passage attributed to him. I worked closely with the man for 34 years and I could not imagine him saying anything like that. Even when it came to opponents-Nixon, Reagan, whoever-he would never repeat personal hearsay."

Cullen added that although Nixon and Brown were bitter opponents in 1962, they reconciled nine years later. At that time, then-President Nixon offered the former California govenor the chairmanship of a committee that welcomed the People's Republic of China Table Tennis team to the United States. Nixon later appointed Brown to the FDR Memorial Commission. Their relationship, said Cullen, was cordial for the rest of their lives.