Nixon was a "complicated" man, with a "complicated" presidency. I personally think the guy did a lot of rotten shit, although through the course of time, I have come to view him more with pity rather than contempt. He was a deeply unhappy and insecure man with (it seems to me) few, if any, real friends.
Reading this article, I get the sense of his pragmatic realism, especially in light of a country which was at-the-time engaged in a very costly war, and a nation riven with socio-economic strife. (It is a good thing those days are behind us).