In "the zone"

"I can take it. The tougher it gets the cooler I get."

Richard M. Nixon, 37th President, 1969-1974

That's what star athletes say...

News conference October 26, 1973 This press conference dealt with the current middle east crisis, involving Russia at that time, and the breaking Watergate scandel and the discovery of Presidential tapes and questions regarding Nixon's knowledge of that event and possible cover-up: Q. -- and a lot of people have been wondering how you are bearing up emotionally under the stress of recent events. Can you discuss that? THE PRESIDENT. Well, those who saw me during the Middle East crisis thought I bore up rather well, and, Mr. Terhorst, I have a quality which is--I guess I must have inherited it from my Midwestern mother and father--which is that the tougher it gets, the cooler I get. Of course, it isn't pleasant to get criticism. Some of it is justified, of course. It isn't pleasant to find your honesty questioned... Those are things which, of course, do tend to get under the skin of the man who holds this office. But as far as I am concerned, I have learned to expect it. It has been my lot throughout my political life, and I suppose because I have been through so much, that may be one of the reasons that when I have to face an international crisis, I have what it takes.