YORBA LINDA, Calif. -- Richard Milhous Nixon, dominant, divisive and accomplished 37th president of the United States, was laid to rest yesterday behind the house his father built at the beginning of a century his son did so much to shape.
Twenty years after he resigned the presidency in disgrace, Mr. Nixon was eulogized by President Clinton in the presence of all four living ex-presidents.
Mr. Clinton sounded the theme of reconciliation that dominated the 75-minute funeral, calling yesterday a "day for his family, his friends and his nation to remember President Nixon's life in totality. To them, let us say, 'May the day of judging President Nixon on anything less than his entire life and career come to a close.' "
Speaking for his country, Mr. Clinton added, "On behalf of former Presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George Bush, and on behalf of a grateful nation, we bid farewell to Richard Milhous Nixon."
It was an extraordinary day of reconciliation. Strong men cried eulogizing Richard Nixon. Proud men expressed humility. Partisan men laid aside old wounds.
Henry A. Kissinger, who served as Mr. Nixon's secretary of state, appeared to choke back tears as he led the audience of 2,800 invited friends, family, colleagues and former adversaries in saying "goodbye to our gallant friend. . . . He stood on pinnacles that dissolved into precipice. He achieved greatly, and he suffered deeply, but he never gave up."
Quoting from Shakespeare, Mr. Kissinger added, "He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again."
Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole predicted that "the second half of the 20th century will be known as the Age of Nixon."
The Kansas senator, a stoic who has carried his World War II injuries for 50 years without complaint, broke down in tears as he concluded his eulogy.
This was the first funeral of a sitting or former U.S. president since Lyndon B. Johnson was buried in January 1973. It was, in many respects, a celebration of American democracy as well as the funeral for an 81-year-old statesman.
After the eulogies, the Air Force's 338th Fighter Wing did the traditional flyover. The U.S. Navy Ceremonial Guard fired four 105 mm howitzers in a 21-gun salute that reverberated through the grounds.
Mr. Nixon's body was carried to the grave by a military guard while the Marine Band played "The Star-Spangled Banner."
After a rifle company fired a second 21-gun salute and a Marine bugler played "Taps," the American flag that draped Mr. Nixon's mahogany casket was folded and handed to his eldest daughter, Tricia Nixon Cox.
His body was then committed to a grave of soft California dirt in a rose garden next to his wife Pat, who died nine months ago.
"Dick Nixon's heart, shaped by the grit and mores of this town, never left California," said California Gov. Pete Wilson, who described himself as "an eager young advance man" of 29 who once sought out Mr. Nixon's advice.
The service took place at the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace here, the most-visited of the presidential libraries, on a blustery Southern California evening.
It began with several pieces by the Marine Band, including "America," and "Hail to the Chief." The Rev. Billy Graham opened the service with a prayer for Mr. Nixon; a Navy chorus then sang a rendition of "Battle Hymn of the Republic" so rousing that it brought a smile to the face of Julie Nixon Eisenhower, the former president's younger daughter.
Outside the 9-acre compound, which includes the house Mr. Nixon lived in as a boy, passers-by were still trying to move nearer the funeral, which was closed to the public. In the previous 26 hours, some 40,000 people, most of them from Southern California, filed by Mr. Nixon's closed casket.
At the funeral last night, dignitaries and old friends came from around the world. The size of the guest list provided testimony to the reach of Mr. Nixon's influence -- and to the length of time he was on the world scene.
The four living ex-presidents sat in the front row, with their wives and with Mr. Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton.
On the other side of the aisle, also in the first row, were Mr. Nixon's daughters and their husbands, his four grandchildren and his sole surviving sibling, his brother Edward.
Former Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, who quit the office in a plea bargain, was also here, in a reconciliation of sorts. Mr. Agnew confided to his former speechwriter, William Safire, who also was a guest at the event, that he and Mr. Nixon had not spoken since Mr. Agnew's forced resignation in 1973.
Chaim Herzog, former president of Israel, made the trip. So did Edward Heath, former prime minister of England. Some 87 nations were represented, library officials said.
Mr. Nixon visited a fair number of those countries as vice president, president and later as a kind of elder statesman without peer. While Mr. Nixon was in power, some of the countries that sent delegations, such as Latvia, existed only in the hearts of freedom-loving Latvians and fierce Cold War geopoliticians such as Mr. Nixon.
Mr. Kissinger painted the portrait of America's foreign policy when Mr. Nixon assumed the presidency in 1969.
A half-million Americans were engaged in combat in Southeast Asia, "a place as far away from the United States as it was possible to be," he said.
The nation had no relations with China, the world's most populated country, and no arms talks with the Soviet Union, its nuclear rival. Most Muslim countries had broken diplomatic relations with the United States.
Mr. Nixon, said Mr. Kissinger, "held fast to his basic theme: that the greatest free nation in the world had a duty to lead and no right to abdicate."
Added President Clinton, "He came to the presidency at a time in our history when Americans were tempted to say, 'We had had enough of the world. Instead, he knew we had to reach out to old friends and old enemies alike. He would not allow America to quit the world."
Other speakers, including Mr. Clinton, spoke about Mr. Nixon's less-acclaimed domestic policy achievements, including launching the war on cancer and ushering in an era of environmental protection.
And everyone spoke of his resilience, his absolute refusal to accept defeat.
Mr. Nixon had "the quality that great fighters have," said Governor Wilson. "They call it heart. Heart is what let Richard Nixon climb back into the ring, time and again, when almost anyone else would have thrown in the towel. . . . To him . . . the only disgrace was to quit. And he never did."
Although the theme of the ceremony was redemption, the guest list itself was a partisan reminder of a dark day in American politics, when the Constitution was under assault -- from inside the White House.
Although there were only veiled references to the Watergate scandal that brought Mr. Nixon down, former White House tough guy Charles E. Colson was here. He once said he'd "step over his grandmother" to help the president. Instead, he went to prison and now runs a Christian ministry.
The most notorious of the Watergate defendants, G. Gordon Liddy, came, too. He was head of the infamous White House "plumbers unit." After serving his prison sentence, Mr. Liddy dabbled in acting and writing and is now host of a radio talk show in Washington.
About 45 minutes before the service began, Mr. Liddy, distinctive because of his shaved head and trademark bushy black mustache, had a solitary moment as he sat alone in the rows of chairs, his famous steely gaze focused, it seemed, on something far away.
Former Attorney General Elliott Richardson, who resigned rather than fire the Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox, was also on hand.
Governor Wilson referred to the Watergate scandal obliquely by praising Mr. Nixon for the constitutional crisis he did not precipitate -- his decision not to call for a recount in the 1960 presidential election that some Republicans still consider the result of vote fraud.
George S. McGovern, the Democratic party's 1972 nominee -- and the biggest target of the Watergate affair -- didn't feel the need for revisionism. After all this time, he just felt the need to forgive.
"I made my peace with him years ago," Mr. McGovern said aboard Air Force One, where he rode with various members of the Clinton and Nixon cabinets invited by Mr. Clinton. "I am going to miss him."
Alexander M. Haig, former Nixon chief of staff, was on Air Force One, too.
Asked if he thought it "strange" to be among the Democrats, Mr. Haig noted that he'd worked with Clinton administration Defense Secretary William J. Perry for four years and that current National Security Adviser Anthony Lake also worked under him in the White House.
Asked about the Nixon legacy, Mr. Haig spoke instead about Mr. Nixon the man.
"He was a family man first and foremost," Mr. Haig said. "Many people never grasped the depth of it. Indeed, I felt last spring at Pat Nixon's funeral, I said to my wife, 'Richard Nixon won't last much longer without her.' That's simply the way it was."
EULOGIES
Excerpts from the eulogies and sermon at Richard Nixon's funeral
HENRY A. KISSINGER
During the final week of Richard Nixon's life, I often imagined how he would have reacted to the tide of concern, respect, admiration and affection evoked by his last great battle. His gruff pose of never paying attention to media comment would have been contradicted by a warm glow and the ever-so-subtle hint that another recital of the commentary would not be unwelcome. And without quite saying so, he would have conveyed that it would mean a lot to him if Julie and Tricia, David and Ed were told of his friends' pride in this culmination to an astonishing life. . . .
When I learned the final news, by then so expected yet so hard to accept, I felt a profound void. . . .
He drew strength from a conviction he often expressed to me: "The price for doing things halfway is no less than for doing it completely, so we might as well do them properly."
BOB DOLE
To tens of millions of his countrymen, Richard Nixon was an American hero, a hero who shared and honored their belief in working hard, worshiping God, loving their families and saluting the flag.
He called them "the silent majority." Like them, they valued accomplishment more than ideology. They wanted their government to do the decent thing, but not to bankrupt them in the process. They wanted his protection in a dangerous world, but they also wanted creative statesmanship in achieving a genuine peace with honor.
These were the people from whom he had come and who have come to Yorba Linda these past few days by the tens of thousands, no longer silent in their grief.
The American people love a fighter, and in Dick Nixon they found a gallant one.
GOV. PETE WILSON
It's hard to imagine a world without Richard Nixon. For half a century, he played a leading role in shaping the events that have shaped our lives. It's not just that he served for three decades in high office, it's not just that he garnered more votes than any candidate in American history. It was because his intellect, his insight and his indomitable will could not be ignored. . . .
PRESIDENT CLINTON
President Nixon's journey across the American landscape mirrored that of his entire nation in this remarkable century. His life was bound up with the striving of our whole people, with our crises and our triumphs. . . .
He gave of himself with intelligence and energy and devotion to duty, and his entire country owes him a debt of gratitude for that service.
. . . May the day of judging President Nixon on anything less than his whole life and career come to a close.
THE REV. BILLY GRAHAM
I think most of us have been staggered at the many things he accomplished during his life. His public service kept him at the center of the events that have shaped our destiny. This week, Time magazine says that "by sheer endurance he rebuilt his standing as the most important figure of the post-war era." During his years of public service, Richard Nixon was on center stage in our generation. . . .
However, there was another more personal, more intimate and more human side to Richard Nixon -- that his family, neighbors and friends that are gathered here today would know. It was a side many did not see. . . .