Is it believed Nixon understood the literal meaning of his words? He was very clever, but did that extend to quantitative domains? The suggestion seems to be

Is it believed Nixon understood the literal meaning of his words? He was very clever, but did that extend to quantitative domains? The suggestion seems to be "yes", and that he was playing a game of telling a literal truth that was not however the good news 99.9% of the electorate would take it to be.