When you learn that an American president is just a little weirdo like the rest of us, that can come as either a terrifying realization or a reassuring one. I choose the latter, because I find it far better to never put these guys on a pedestal; they’re as fallible and disappointing as the rest of us.
In the case of Richard Nixon, he was a deeply paranoid human being, which is somehow one of the nicer ways to describe the man. He was cold, calculating, and ruthless in his pursuit to destroy his enemies, both real and imagined.
And one of those mortal enemies, apparently, was prescription pill bottles.
Richard Nixon vs. the Press, Democrats, and Allergy Pill Bottles
In Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s 1976 book The Final Days, they detail the last stretch of Nixon’s presidency before he would resign in disgrace. But one of the most salacious nuggets – to me at least – was that Nixon was really just kind of a dope. He had great difficulty mastering the art of opening cardboard boxes and was “almost totally lacking in mechanical ability and was not well coordinated physically.” Advisor Steve Bull was often the person tasked with getting Nixon out of such precarious situations.
According to Woodward and Bernstein:
“Once, the President had called [Bull] in to open an allergy-pill bottle, which Nixon had been struggling with for some time – the childproof type of bottle, with instructions saying “Press down while turning.” The cap had teeth marks on it where Nixon had apparently tried to gnaw it open.”
There were so many other things that happened during Nixon’s presidency that would reveal him to be a deeply psychotic individual, but here was a man who once said he could “go into my office and pick up the telephone and in 25 minutes 70 million people will be dead” just completely defeated by the childproof lid of a pill bottle.
Really makes you think about the system we’ve chosen for ourselves, doesn’t it?
Nixon’s Annual Bout With Hay Fever – Allegedly
Like millions of Americans, Richard Nixon dealt with seasonal allergies, also known as hay fever. The president once described himself as being part of the “sneezing minority,” explaining that allergies were the reason his eyes looked swollen when taking a picture with the House Ways and Means Committee.
Or, at least Nixon claimed to deal with seasonal allergies. The interesting wrinkle here is that senior White House physician Dr. Walter Tkach claimed Nixon never had allergies at all. “I’m not going to argue with him anymore,” Dr. Tkach once said. “In all the years I’ve known him, he’s never been known to have hay fever.”
Not quite sure what that’s all about, but hey, this is Nixon we’re talking about. For all we know, Nixon thought Tkach was a Communist spy and was just trying to throw him off.
Nixon also told Dr. Tkach that the affliction was known in California as “walnuts,” which the physician had never heard of. In his time as Nixon’s physician in the White House, Dr. Tkach did at least treat the president for for viral pneumonia and phlebitis. Tkach served under three administrations, as an assistant during Eisenhower’s eight years and during the first eight months of the Kennedy administration.
