In that great Watergate Hotel in the sky, former U.S. President Richard Milhous Nixon is marking his birthday today.  The man who went on to become the 37th President of the United States was born on this date in 1913, in Yorba Linda, California.I mention the late President’s birthday because last fall I stumbled upon a fascinating address the future U.S. chief executive gave in Toronto in 1967. He, was speaking to the Empire Club with his topic being “Asia today.”As we history fans will know, Nixon’s country was then embroiled in the Vietnam War and the former Vice President, who traveled extensively in that part of the world as President Eisenhower’s number 2 a decade before, was known as an expert on these matters. And, Mr. Nixon was only 17 months from being elected President of the United States in November 1968.The Empire Club of the day was lucky to have landed the man from California as a guest speaker. And let’s give credit to Nixon for starting off his Toronto speech of May 24, 1967 with some excellent and humorous lines.“I must say so far my reception has been very warm,” Nixon said, “and I am doubly grateful. I haven't argued with anybody in the kitchen, I haven't been stoned. Although I have been informed that if I accepted some of that Newfoundland "Screech" I would be stoned.”You can read Nixon’s Toronto speech at this link.[caption id="attachment_601188" align="alignleft" width="582"] President Richard Nixon[/caption]Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist.  He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy.  A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.