
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, April 24, 1994                   TAG: 9404240103
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: From the Los Angeles Times and The Chicago Tribune
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

NATION MOURNS EX-PRESIDENT

In a testament to the healing power of time, America on Saturday presented Richard Nixon with a garland of eulogies from old friends and rivals, chiefs of state and average citizens, who remembered him in terms far more fond than those heard during his stormy political career.

President Clinton declared Wednesday "a national day of mourning," and encouraged Americans to assemble "in their respective places of worship to pay homage" to Nixon's memory. He ordered the U.S. flag displayed at half-staff at all federal buildings, including overseas embassies, for 30 days.

Outpourings of good will and grief seemed to signal the success of Nixon's final campaign: He spent the last two decades of his life trying to rehabilitate his reputation by writing, giving speeches, making foreign trips, and offering private advice to those who followed him as chief executive.

"Leaders in statecraft and students of international affairs will long look for guidance to President Nixon's tremendous accomplishments," Clinton said. "He suffered defeats that would have ended most political careers, yet he won stunning victories that many of the world's most popular leaders failed to attain."

Nixon's death elicited words of sympathy and compassion from many of the prominent figures of his time.

George McGovern, who Nixon defeated in the 1972 presidential election, told CNN that while most plaudits focus on Nixon's successes in foreign affairs, "he was pretty good on domestic policy as well. We sometimes forget that."

Radio and TV stations logged hundreds of calls Saturday, largely from people who praised Nixon. One caller to CNN who described herself as "a '60s radical" said she had been crying all day in grief for "a worthy adversary."

In China, where newspapers regularly called Nixon "the god of plague and war" during the Vietnam War, President Jiang Zemin and Premier Li Peng praised Nixon as a politician with "strategic long-term vision and political courage" who "opened the door for a new era in Sino-American relations."

Perhaps the most surprising official reaction Saturday came from Vietnam, the country against which Nixon unleashed a major bombing campaign in a vain attempt to win the war, and Cambodia, which had managed to stay out of the Vietnam War until he dragged it in.

"May he rest in peace," a Foreign Ministry spokesman in Hanoi said.

by CNB