He had instincts one could call conservative, but reflexive reactions that were liberal. He wanted to leave his mark and become a man of history, and believed that, given the chance, he could make a mark in foreign policy.

He once told me about picking a national security adviser: ”I don’t want someone I have to teach. I want someone who can teach me”… Nixon would not reject out of hand someone who hade trashed him if that someone hade talent and ideas and might experience a late vocation.

– Patrick J Buchanan, The Greatest Comeback. How Richard Nixon Rose from Defeat to Create the New Majority, 2014.