Another More Curious Portrait

David Douglas Duncan, Bougainville, Solomon Islands, February 1944.

So why "curious"? The photographer was one Lt. Richard M. Nixon*.

Mike
(Thanks to Lachlan Young)

*Who was a distant cousin of mine. <—That's the smallest type I can use.

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The photo in this post comes from this book:

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Jon Porter: "Interesting photo. Duncan references his Bougainville meeting with Nixon in Self Portrait: U.S.A. It opened the door to an exclusive photo op with Nixon at the '68 convention."

Comments

[hugh crawford]

Via Henry Howland?
So that makes you cousins with Franklin D. Roosevelt, Gerald R. Ford, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, Winston Churchill, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Joseph Smith, Humphrey Bogart, Marilyn Monroe, Johnny Carson, Alec Baldwin, Benjamin Spock, and um Sarah Palin?

[Mike Johnston]

Hugh,
No, through a some-number-of-greats grandmother named Hannah Milhous. That was also the name of Nixon's mother, but it was an earlier Hannah whom I'm descended from.

Mike

[hugh crawford]

Oh right, you are a William Bradford descendant, well that gets you George Eastman instead of the Georges Bush then.

[Steve Pritchard]

There will be no whitewash...in Waukesha.

[Hans Muus]

Typical U.S. W.W. II soldier I'd say: rifle in the right hand, smartphone in the left...

[Softie]

I'm about as Nixon-obsessed as Harry Shearer, so this shot is interesting to me: Nixon separated DDD from the background with the hat, and saved an awkward cut-off-at-the-knees portrait with a gun. Not a great shot, but I've seen much worse.

Plus, it's proof that Nixon could operate a camera, which explains so much about Gordon Liddy's large photographic expenditures later in Nixon's career.

[The Lazy Aussie]

Well it seems like he knew what he was doing. What was he using?

[Will Duquette]

Mike, have you read George McDonald Fraser's book _The Steel Bonnets_? It's a history of the Anglo-Scottish Border in the century leading up to the unification of England and Scotland under James I, and apparently it was a really wild place. I mention it because he begins the book reflecting on a picture of Nixon's inauguration in which were three men with Border family names: Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, and Billy Graham. Perhaps your family hails from that part of the world as well?

[Mike Johnston]

"Perhaps your family hails from that part of the world as well?"

Well, if you go back far enough. Clan Johnstone (Johnston is just an alternate spelling) is from Annandale, as I understand it.

Mike

[Frank P]

You should be proud of your Nixon association Mike, he was one of our most progressive and liberal presidents - the EPA, Dept of Education, China, Price and Wage Controls - a far more radical agenda than what Obama has attempted. And he lied and cheated no more than any of the others, certainly far less than our "popular and heroic" presidents.

[David Bostedo]

Annandale? Virginia?

[No, Scotland. --Mike]

[Richard Parkin]

Re:Will Duquette's comment "...unification of England and Scotland under James I". Strictly the unification of the Crowns of England and Scotland in 1603, the states were unified much later in 1707.

[Will Duquette]

Re: Unification of England and Scotland: I stand corrected. Fraser's book comes to an end around 1603, because the border got much more peaceful at that point.

[John Ironside]

Mike, have you seen this map of the distribution of your surname? It was still quite localized in the UK in 1881:
<http://gbnames.publicprofiler.org/Map.aspx?name=JOHNSTON&year=1881&altyear=1998&country=GB&type=name>

[Gavin McLelland]

Mike. Just in case you didn't know the Johnstones had a serious feud with the Maxwells and a side feud with the Armstrongs. Though the managed to avoid a feud with the Graham's - nearly everybody fell out with them.

Gavin - from the Borders

[Howard Mager]

Nixon's Graham nemesis was Katherine.