Nixon

A disappointing UMBC basketball season took a turn for the worse when center Sonique Nixon was been suspended for academic reasons.Nixon, a 6-foot-8 senior who was suspended by the athletic department late Thursday, hopes to rejoin the Retrievers and complete his final season at UMBC. Nixon averaged 10.6 points and a team-high 8.6 rebounds in UMBC's first seven games. On a team that was making 41.2 percent of its field-goal attempts, Nixon was shooting 55.1.UMBC takes a 1-6 record into tonight's Big South Conference opener at Liberty, having lost six straight since an opening win over Division III Washington College.

WASHINGTON -- A federal judge has barred the National Archives from releasing more of President Nixon's White House tapes until all personal conversations are separated and returned to him.Judge Royce C. Lamberth of U.S. District Court said yesterday the statute authorizing the release of tapes made by Mr. Nixon immediately after the Watergate break-in provided that "purely private material be returned for his sole custody and use." He added: "We are now in 1993. Not one bit of that material has been turned over."

A last-minute bankruptcy filing has saved Nixon's Farm, a Howard County landmark known for social and political gatherings, from a foreclosure auction originally scheduled for today. The Chapter 11 filing in U.S. District Court on Tuesday will allow Randall Nixon to continue operating the 128-acre West Friendship farm his family has owned since 1956, said James A. Vidmar, the Annapolis lawyer representing Nixon and his mother, Mildred. "This just gives us breathing room to get some plan in place to protect this valuable property," Vidmar said.

"Tricky Dick and the Pink Lady," by Greg Mitchell. Random House. 316 pages. $25.This book is essentially a study in character - the bad character of Richard Nixon - and the malevolent tactics that were employed to destroy his opponent in the most notorious Senate contest of this century.Much has been written about the celebrated 1950 battle between Nixon and Democrat Helen Gahagan Douglas, but Greg Mitchell is the first to so thoroughly document just how savage and sordid a campaign it was. The Nixon triumph - actually, an easy victory as it turned out - catapulted the young anticommunist crusader into the front ranks of rising Republican stars destined for greater things.

President Nixon: Alone in the White House, by Richard Reeves. Simon & Schuster. 702 pages. $35. For me to review anything written about President Richard Nixon, I first must set the record straight. I encountered Nixon initially in 1952. I was a young reporter for The Seattle Times, sent to cover Nixon when he came to the Pacific Northwest to campaign for the Eisenhower-Nixon presidential ticket, and I was shocked, frankly, by Nixon's failure to acknowledge his wife, Pat's, presence in public.

Richard M. Nixon's bittersweet association with Maryland included a portentious visit to the Governor's Mansion in Annapolis in 1968 and the ominous moment in 1974 when then-Rep. Paul S. Sarbanes presented one four articles of impeachment to the U.S. House of Representatives.It was a hot June night in 1968 when Mr. Nixon attended a fund-raiser at the Governor's Mansion that had been arranged to create a slush fund for Gov. Spiro T. Agnew. "The Governor's Club," it was called, and annual membership was $1,000 per fat cat.On the mansion steps afterward, Mr. Nixon gave the first hint that Mr. Agnew's career was on the ascent.

It was a matinee crowd. This was apparent by all the gray heads around, for those lucky enough to still have hair. And then there was that 10 minutes of disruption at the show's beginning when stragglers were seated and the hard of hearing yelled to their companions, "Is this the right seat?" as the remainder of the audience shushed them loudly. So began the trip back to 1977, the year that British talk show host David Frost snagged 20 hours of interviews with disgraced President Richard M. Nixon.

In the early 1970s, federal prosecutors in Baltimore trained their sights on Gov. Marvin Mandel, only to discover that they had to shift the cross-hairs from Annapolis to Washington for the man Richard M. Nixon had rescued from what history may well judge as well-deserved obscurity.The new target was Mr. Mandel's predecessor, Spiro T. Agnew. He had been Baltimore county executive and governor. By then he was the vice president. He stands as the most enduring example of Mr. Nixon's involvement with the state of Maryland, an association that stretches back nearly half a century to a small farm north of Baltimore.

With serious talk of impeachment on people's lips for the second time in less than 25 years, leave it to History Channel to show us the context.Beginning today, the cable channel will broadcast 25 hours of the 1974 House Judiciary Committee hearings on charges against Richard Nixon stemming from the Watergate burglary and subsequent cover-up.Besides committee chairman Peter Rodino and Maryland congressman (now senator) Paul Sarbanes, a host of familiar faces can be seen in the 24-year-old footage, including several who could figure prominently in any similar proceedings against President Clinton.

The most noteworthy TV event of the night is "Saturday Night Live," with Kurt Cobain and Nirvana as musical guests. Needless to say, this particular "Saturday Night" is not "Live" at all, but a repeat.* "The American Experience: Nixon." (8 p.m.-11 p.m., WMPT, Channels 22 and 67) -- The life and political career of Richard Nixon, the 37th president of the United States, are assessed by those who knew him best. PBS* "Due South." (9 p.m.-11 p.m., WBAL, Channel 11) -- In this new made-for-TV movie, Paul Gross plays a Canadian Mountie who goes to Chicago, teams with a cop and pulls a Dudley Do-Right variation on "Crocodile Dundee."