Love letters written while Nixon and his future wife Pat were still dating show that before he rose to power in the White House and fell from grace during Watergate, he was just another man in love.
Those love letters will be unveiled Friday at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, Calif. as part of an exhibit celebrating the 100th birthday of the former first lady who died in 1993.
In Nixon's letters he recalls their first meeting in flowery prose and daydreams about their future together. He refers to the former Patricia Ryan as his "dearest heart."
Nixon says, "Every day and every night I want to see you and be with you. Yet I have no feeling of selfish ownership or jealousy." Nixon writes, "Let's go for a long ride Sunday; let's go to the mountains weekends; let's read books in front of fires; most of all, let's really grow together and find the happiness we know is ours."
Eighteen years after his death, the love letters offer a tiny window in a fiercely private side of Nixon that almost no one ever saw.
