When Hillary Clinton met Richard Nixon for the first time, the nation's 37th president was not impressed, former Nixon adviser Roger Stone reveals.
Nixon found the future secretary of state to be "cold as ice,'' Stone said Wednesday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on
Newsmax TV.
Story continues below video.
Note: Watch Newsmax TV now on DIRECTV Ch. 349 and DISH Ch. 223
Get Newsmax TV on your cable system – Click Here Now
The revelation came as Stone spoke of Clinton's fascinating link to the Watergate scandal that forced Nixon to resign from office 40 years ago.
The Nixon-Clinton connection, Stone said, is that then-lawyer Hillary Rodham was fired from the House's Nixon impeachment committee staff — the so-called Rodino Committee — "for leaking and lying and for denying Nixon due process.''
"She held this grudge for four years. When Bill Clinton became president, President Nixon authorized me to reach out to President Clinton, to try to set up a meeting,'' Stone said.
He said he went through a number of intermediaries, including Clinton confidantes Dick Morris and Paul Begala and Clinton campaign strategist James Carville.
"They kept saying, yes, he is going to be invited, yes, the president is going to reach out to him — but he never did,'' Stone said.
"We found out Hillary repeatedly [was] blocking Nixon from meeting with Clinton. Finally, Clinton overrules her, Nixon and Clinton meet, and they hit it off.
"They both come from poor backgrounds and they both lost governor races. The two comeback kids, as it were. Nixon met Hillary. I said, 'Mr. President what do you think?' He said, 'She's cold, cold as ice."'
Stone — a veteran political consultant and publisher of "The Stone Zone" blog — is author, with Mike Colapietro, of the
"Nixon's Secrets: "The Rise, Fall, and Untold Truth about the President, Watergate, and the Pardon," published by Skyhorse.
He said the stench of Watergate has masked all of Nixon's many great accomplishments.
"Nixon . . . ended the war in Vietnam, brought our troops home, ended the military draft, and opened the door to China, using that to play off against the Russians to get a deep arms controls agreement that saved this country literally billions,'' Stone said.
"He desegregated the schools without violence or bloodshed, he desegregated the trade unions, and he passed the first environmental protection — the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act — and saved Israel in the six-day war . . . He is the greatest friend Israel ever had.
"Now, contrast that with what we have today in Barack Obama, who seems intent on embarrassing and hurting Israel to weaken them so they'll make concessions to the Arabs.''