Nixonland: America's Second Civil War and the Divisive Legacy of Richard Nixon 1965-72

by Rick Perlstein

Nixon had blamed Burns, and regressed in his rage to childhood: the sensitive son absorbing the anger of a hard-pressed, helpless, small-town independent grocer of particularly bitter disposition. It was meat prices driving inflation, Nixon decided, big supermarkets who refused to pass lower cattle prices on to consumers. “Kick the chain stores,” he said in early February (“kicking” was always the favorite Nixon metaphor when expressing violent moods; a psychobiographer once wondered whether Frank Nixon had kicked Richard as a child). “I think you will find that chain stores who generally control these prices nationwide are primarily dominated by Jewish interests. These boys, of course, have every right to make all the money they want, but they have a notorious reputation in the trade for conspiracy.”