I believe he was only anti-Communist where he believed it would be to his political advantage.
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On what do you base this opinion? Nixon may not have been as conservative as you would like, but you are the first commentator that I have read that doubts his deep antipathy to Communism.
Besides having an R behind his name, the main reason that Nixon was reviled by the media of the time was his successful prosecution of Alger Hiss - a commie darling of the left.
I base it on listening to the tapes. You may disagree, but based on listening to those tapes, Nixon was a man who seemed to be obsessed with power above all else. And I doubt he was as "obsessed" with anticommunism as he was in the 50s by the time of his Presidency, or he wouldn't have Vietnamized or gone to China.
That the media hates someone does not make them a conservative. If that were true, there'd be a hell of a lot more conservatives.