No expletives to delete in Nixon’s gushing love letters to Pat

Richard Nixon was so smitten by his future bride he pined for her night and day, schemed of romantic getaways – and put it all down in writing.

Decades before the former US president became known as “Tricky Dicky”, Nixon was the one penning nicknames – sweet ones – to his future bride in gushy love notes that reveal a surprisingly soft and starry-eyed side of the man taken down by the Watergate scandal.

Nixon shared the stage with Patricia Ryan in a community theatre production and six of the dozens of letters they exchanged during their two-year courtship will be unveiled on Friday at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in California as part of an exhibition celebrating the 100th birthday of the woman Nixon playfully called his “Irish gypsy”.