Former President Richard Nixon was described as stable Tuesday after suffering a stroke that aides said left him unable to talk.
The 81-year-old Nixon was stricken at his home in Park Ridge, N.J., while getting ready for dinner Monday night and was taken by ambulance to New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, said his spokeswoman Kathy O'Connor.His daughters, Tricia Cox and Julie Eisenhower, and the Rev. Billy Graham, a longtime friend, rushed to his bedside. His wife, Pat, died in 1993.
Nixon was in intensive care and his condition was described as stable. Kim Taylor, another Nixon spokeswoman, said Tuesday morning that he was "awake, alert and attentive" but unable to speak.
Nixon's doctors would not give a prediction on his prospects until 24 hours after the stroke, Taylor said.
The Daily News quoted an unidentified emergency-room worker as saying Nixon, wearing an oxygen mask, waved to companions as they visited him in the emergency room.
At the same hospital is Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, whose husband defeated Nixon in the 1960 presidential election. The former first lady, who has cancer of the lymph system, is recovering from surgery for a bleeding ulcer.
Strokes - damage to part of the brain caused by insufficient blood supply - are the third leading cause of death in the United States. They strike about 500,000 people annually, killing one-third. Speech problems and one-sided weakness or paralysis are common effects of a stroke.
Nixon was the nation's 37th president. He served from Jan. 20,
1969, to Aug. 9, 1974, resigning amid the Watergate scandal and becoming the only president to leave office.
He came to the presidency after nearly a quarter-century as a Republican officeholder - congressman, senator, and vice president under Dwight Eisenhower.
Despite Watergate, world leaders have received Nixon in retirement as an elder statesman. He has traveled extensively and made his thoughts on foreign policy known through books, articles and speeches.