This is very interesting:
Newly discovered 1959 letter: Nixon feared American racism would drive world into the arms of the Russians

The 1959 letter was written on official Office of the Vice President stationary and was addressed to Mrs. M. S. Richardson in La Grange, North Carolina on the subject of school integration.

In the letter, Nixon made the case that domestic American racism could help the Russians win the Cold War.

“I am deeply concerned with the impact of racial division in terms of world power,” Nixon wrote. “Most of the people of the world belong to the colored races. They deeply resent any slurs based on race.”
“If we of the United States are considered racists, then we may lose to the Communist camp hundreds of millions of potential friends and allies,” Nixon explained. “That would leave us disastrously isolated in a hostile world.”
*snip*
Between his unsuccessful 1960 presidential campaign and his successful 1968 presidential campaign, Richard Nixon famously embraced the “Southern Strategy” of exploiting racial divisions for reasons of political expediency.
Last year, the New Republic published a piece explaining how decades of Republicans embracing a Southern Strategy led to Donald Trump’s domination of GOP primaries.

As I’ve mentioned before, the late unlamented Phyllis Schlafly first came to national prominence when she led a conservative “revolt” against the civil rights plank of the Republican platform at the 1960 GOP convention. Nixon learned the lesson and sold out his own principles with the Southern Strategy in 1968. That takes us in a direct line to the election of Trump in 2016.