[Torie]

I don't think Nixon had much psychological energy tied up with Quakers. But then, Nixon was not a religious man. He distrusted Jews as a generalization for cultural, political and aesthetic reasons, not religious ones. (Some of it was just a WASP thing of his many of his generation; I witnessed a very mild form of it myself, with breeding Catholics being of considerably more "concern.") He went to war, and said his Quaker mother understood. There seemed absolutely no mental conflict involved.

What is so amazing is how little psychological energy is tied up in any of this anymore in America. Few give a darn. It just has no resonance or meaning. Now it is down to secular humanist versus evangelical, as the polar tensions of the societal and political square.

I am sure X will have something interesting to contribute on this. Almost all of his posts are interesting.

[x]

Times have changed a lot. Nixon was very much of that older generation that didn't grow up with post-war taboos on ethnic stereotypes.

According to Vanity Fair, though, Felt wasn't Jewish, but of Irish ancestry and no religion. That's more likely, but there still may be at least one more mystery surrounding DT.

It would be funny if Nixon didn't make Felt head of the FBI because Haldeman thought he was Jewish, and he wasn't Jewish.