He was born to a Quaker mother named Hannah and a Methodist father named Francis, but the father eventually switched and became a Quaker as well. And Richard's mother was not just a bit of a Christian, she was a true believer. Maybe she was even a little bit more. Maybe she received some words of prophesy in her life.

She told Richard as a young man that he was going to grow up and be someone very special someday, and that he would do something very important for Israel. That's a pretty odd thing for a mother to say, but Richard was raised a believer, and he attended a Quaker church even in the last years of his life.

Yet he was a guys guy (whether for good or bad, who knows?) He fit in well among his more worldly peers. He was athletic. He was excellent academically, and could have skipped the war when he graduated, both because of going to college, and being a Quaker. Yet he accepted the possible injury and worse of war, and enlisted in the Navy as an officer.

And he played poker so well aboard ship that he was able to fund some of his later campaigning with money he won and stockpiled during his Navy years. He eventually got out of the military as a Lieutenant Commander.

And a Quaker in politics? There are the backroom deals, the plots against your opponents, the slippery words you use when framing your position on inflammatory and divisive political issues, the courting of 'not so pure' campaign contributors. We all know at least a little about politics. No matter how clean you are when you jump into a sewage pond, you're not going to be much cleaner than the others you're swimming with once you're in there. Yet, nations need leaders, and politics has always been the same.

He was a lawyer for a while, and worked representing oil companies quite a lot. 'Lawyer'.... 'big oil companies'....how do you combine those things with a good Quaker life and still be successful? Yet he told friends he disliked doing divorce cases because it embarassed him deeply when he had to listen to female clients discuss their infidelities.

And in the end, he was both disliked and loved, as you might expect such a man to be. Though he eventually got all of our US troops out of Viet Nam, he was widely protested for involving us so deeply in the Viet Nam war. But he had inherited that war.

He reached out a hand to China, and the American ping pong team went there and broke the ice for a series of contacts between the US and China which resulted in much friendlier relations between our nations. And China's new 'friendship' with us led the Soviet Union to believe that better relations (and the policy of 'Detante') were in their best interests. This began to deescalate world 'super power' tensions greatly. Nixon was key in this, and it was big. But if you ask any average American what they associate with the name Richard Nixon they will probably say 'Watergate'.

Watergate was a political scandal in which Nixon allowed his Republican Party henchmen to break into the Democratic National Commitee's office space at the 'Watergate Hotel', at night on June 17, 1972, to steal info on Democratic campaign strategies. Nixon was a Republican.

The henchmen were caught, and Nixon lied and denied. But upon investigation and impeachment, the evidence was pretty clearly against him, and on audio tape as well. He was eventually forced to resign under threat of an impeachment conviction, on Aug 9, 1974. He was the first and only US president to resign in shame in this manner.

So he was called a great politician, and a bad politician, and the same could perhaps be spoken of him as a man, yet somehow, through it all, he remained some sort of Quaker and Christian - so I guess to summarize it, he was like most of the American Christians he represented: flawed, but convinced of who Jesus is, and he knew Jesus was his Lord, and that he was dependent on Jesus for salvation.

In 1973, the Yom Kippur War broke out between Israel and surrounding nations. Golda Meir was leading Israel, and this war started out very poorly for Israel. Their enemies had them out-gunned and out-supplied. Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the Israeli year, and all things stopped then - people went home to be with family.

Egypt and Syria, backed by the resources of 9 Arab nations, attacked unexpectedly. There had been talk of attacks by Egypt and Syria. And troop movements too. But the talk and border movements of troops, and other such military movements had gone on so long that people were somewhat used to them, and Israel dropped their gaurd. The Israeli government actually did get wind of a real attack, but only hours before it happened. Little could be made ready in so short a time, and Israel might have alienated any potential help from other countries if they had made a pre-emptive strike. So they just waited out those couple of hours to see what would develope. On Oct 6, 1973 they were attacked.

Israel had been poorly prepared to face such a war. On the Golan Heights where they were attacked, Israel had around 180 tanks with which to face 1400 Syrian tanks. In the Suez Canal region where they were also attacked, near Egypt, 430 Israeli troops faced 80,000 Egyptian troops.  All those numbers are soft, but probably pretty close.

It looked like Israel would be over run without help, and they were praying to God for just that very thing in Israel: a lot of help fast! While they prayed they fought bravely.

Europe might have helped Israel except that the Arab nations were suggesting a possible oil boycott of Europe if that happened. That wasn't something Europe cared to endure.

In the US, famed negotiator Henry Kissinger (the US Secretary of State and a Jewish person himself), was actually advising the President to hold back on immediately helping Israel. He'd had a rocky relationship with the somewhat inflexible Golda Meir. Perhaps that is why he is quoted by some as having said that the U.S. should let Israel 'bleed a little.' That sounds cold, especially towards God's people, but apparently the situation was that that he felt Israel had been a little difficult to deal with politically, and maybe he thought they could use a little humility?

After only the second day of the war Israel's strategic situation was so bad that Golda's brave General named Moshe Dyan (a famous hero of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war) was worried enough that he was suggesting they discuss whether Israel might be best served by pulling back, perhaps even surrendering.

But Prime Minister Golda Meir was a resolute woman, no shrinking violet, and did not listen to that advice, though - from a strategic point of view - it might actually have been fairly prudent advice from Moshe, given Israel's military predicament. But Golda did allegedly have 13 nuclear weapons of the 20 kilo-ton size readied for use, and she directed her personal physician to ready a lethal concoction for her, in case she was captured. Amazing, huh?  Things were very much "on the brink".

Soon later, at 3:00 A.M. one night, as Nixon slept, a phone call was put through to him in his bedroom from Israel - from Golda.

She spoke to him plainly of their desperate situation. She must have been under crushing pressure to find a way for her nation to survive, as they really were being over run. At one point she said that if they didn't receive help from the U.S. immediately, her government might have to flee into exile.

Imagine, God's people being beaten by their enemies in this modern age when He has told them through the ancient prophesies concerning the future regathering that they would be wholly defeated no more and never again. Could those prophesies be wrong?

Golda needn't have worried, however. Because though it was Golda Meir talking, and Richard Nixon listening, it is God who rules all things. Nixon had spoken to Golda before. He knew her voice. He was quite familiar with it. But it is reported that Richard Nixon told certain people that it was not the voice tones of Golda that he heard in his ear, but that the words were spoken in the loved and familiar voice of his mother, Hannah, who had died more than 6 years earlier in 1967.

I've read that he didn't hear her voice figuratively speaking - as in to say because it made him remember the words his mother had once spoken about how he would one day become an important figure, and would aid the Jews in Israel. (He would probably have been reminded of that too, of course!) But no - it was his mother's actual voice that he heard over the phone.

His promises to Golda were immediate, and when he hung up, he dialed up the Commanders at the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, and told them to get started.  He didn't say 'start preparing'...he told them he wanted it there now!! 

In very short order Operation Nickel Grass bgegan.  Over 800 US supply missions brought more than 50 aircraft and in excess of 27,000 tons of munitions and other supples to Israel.

Though already involved in the Watergate Scandal that would end his Presidency, Nixon probably made as important a move as any in his Presidency on that very night.  And if someone were to say that it was one of the most important commands ever given by any American President...ever...I could understand that viewpoint fully.  God the Father's chosen people were in the most dire of situations, survive or be wiped out so far as Earthly powers could determine the matter, and it was time for nations to declare whether they were playing politics or fearing God's wrath should they stand idly by while the declared apple of God's eye was harmed, even destroyed.  

And to put it briefly, that aid helped turn the tide of that war. Israel had soon taken the upper hand in the conflict, and her opponents Egypt and Syria were in an embarassing pickle. The UN Security Council quickly drafted a 'cease hostilities' resolution - Resolution 338. Even back then they would gladly sit silent whenever Israel was attacked, but howled like terrified watchdogs whenever Israel got the upper hand on her attackers. Israel, who had broken through into Egypt, isolated the Egyptian 3rd army, and stood poised to destroy it, was halted by the resolution just in time to save her enemies. The Syrians had done no better when it was all said and done.

The fighting was basically over on Oct 26, 1973. Israel had been hurt badly, but emerged victorious. And in all the years since then, only a relative few have ever heard about the interesting call between Richard Nixon, Golda Meir, and God.

One source of this account is Bill McKay's book "Against All Odds:  In Search of A Miracle."  At times that could be obtained through John Hagee ministries in book or C.D. form.  Perhaps still.