Richard Nixon: The Last Liberal Republican

Vorperian’s Beyond the Game Interviews Author

In preparing for a show about Watergate’s 50th Anniversary and President Nixon, John Vorperian Host and Executive Producer, Beyond The Game (White Plains Community Media) was turned away from that topic by John Roy Price’s memoir The Last Liberal Republican (University Press of Kansas).

Price’s outlines what has been called Nixon’s surprising social policy. The 37th President was pushing his Cabinet and a Democratic Congress to embrace Universal Basic Income, as well as, National Health Insurance.

“Once learning those hot-button subjects topped White House Domestic Policy meetings, as a part-time historian I had to have John Roy Price, the official note-taker for that council, on the show to share an insider’s view of the blow-by-blow developments,” said Vorperian.

In writing The Last Liberal Republican, Price answered Vorperian that indeed he obtained permission from the National Archives to revisit his paperwork from that era. According to the National Archives they hold over 114 boxes containing over 91,000 pages of records generated by Price.

At the White House in Richard Nixon’s first term, Price, Special Assistant to the President, worked with Daniel Patrick Moynihan to develop domestic policies on welfare, hunger and health. Policies which revised and expanded the Food Stamp program, fostered nutrition and children’s food services into schools which have now given Presidential scholars consideration to rethink Nixon as the last liberal Republican.

Price worked for New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller before joining the Nixon Administration. After that first term, Price later went onto being president and CEO of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh. Now retired he splits his time between Western Pennsylvania and Montana.

This BEYOND THE GAME: Special Edition can be viewed in White Plain Tuesdays 9:30PM, Fridays 9:00PM on Altice 76; Fios 45 or on the internet at www.wpcommunitymedia.org.