At Camp David on this August night, Nixon was psyching himself up to deliver another “stunner” to the nation. With Haldeman and Weinberger as his rapt audience, Nixon held forth on the future and his role in it. America was leaving an age, begun by FDR, when “we were saying that government should do everything.” Now, said Nixon, he had to find a way to inspire people to have a goal greater than self, or neither the people nor the nation would be great.
