The Watergate Scandal in United States History (2 page)

Nixon conceded nothing. He tore into Voorhis with incredible ferocity. The result was an extremely dirty campaign against the Democrat.

The United States and its allies had just defeated Germany and Japan. Now a new powerful enemy arose. The Soviet Union (Russia and its neighboring “republics”) had overrun Eastern European nations during the war. Millions of Americans feared that the communist power sought to take away their property and enslave them as well.

Nixon played upon this fear. During the candidates’ first debate, Nixon claimed that a group falsely accused of communist ties supported the Democrat. He kept Voorhis on the defensive for the rest of the campaign. “Of course I knew Jerry Voorhis wasn’t a communist,” he admitted later, “but I had to win.”
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He got help from the newspapers. The
Los Angeles Times
refused to print anything about Voorhis, while giving Nixon favorable coverage. Nixon won by sixteen thousand votes.

Freshman Congressman Richard Nixon was assigned to the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC). The HUAC was perhaps the most controversial committee in Congress. Its friends claimed it helped protect the nation from communists and other threats. Its foes claimed it went on “witch hunts” and violated people’s civil rights.

In 1947 the HUAC held hearings on communists in the United States government. One of the people who testified was Whittaker Chambers, an admitted former communist. The poorly-dressed Chambers hardly made a good impression. “Everything about him looked wrinkled and unpressed,” Nixon later recalled.
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Chambers named several former communists in the government. One of them was Alger Hiss, director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Tall, dapper Hiss appeared before the committee. He denied all charges. He said he did not know Chambers. Most of the committee members were willing to ignore Chambers’s charge, but not Richard Nixon. Through dogged questioning, Nixon got Hiss to admit that he knew Chambers.

Later, Chambers led reporters to a pumpkin patch near his house. He reached inside a hollowed-out pumpkin and pulled out rolls of microfilm. They contained documents that former State Department employee Hiss had passed on to him during their communist days. The typing on the “pumpkin papers” matched that of Hiss’s wife’s typewriter. Chambers proved that Alger Hiss was a former communist spy. Richard Nixon, because of his persistence in the case, became the most famous congressman in the nation.

Some questioned whether Nixon’s pursuit of Hiss stemmed from true opposition to communism. HUAC Chief Investigator Robert Stripling claimed “Nixon had his hat set for Hiss. He was no more concerned whether Hiss was a [communist] or a billygoat.”
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It made no difference. Nixon played his fame into a 1950 race for the United States Senate.

Congresswoman and former actress Helen Gahagan Douglas was his opponent. Nixon tried the same tactics against her that worked against Voorhis. Nixon spoke against the “red” (communist) menace. He had no more proof that she was a communist than he had that Voorhis was. Nevertheless, he called her the “pink lady” and claimed she was “pink right down to her underwear.” Nixon forces circulated the “pink sheet.”
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This brochure, on pink paper, listed Douglas votes that coincided with those of a New York congressman believed to be a communist sympathizer. Douglas was not universally popular among Democrats, and Nixon worked for Democratic support. He won the election easily.

Not everyone approved of Nixon’s methods. A writer from the
Independent Review
gave him a name that stuck—“Tricky Dick.”
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The criticism made little difference. Richard Nixon was not climbing the political ladder; he was leaping up it.

The “Checkers” Speech

In 1952 Democrats had served as presidents for twenty years. Even so, the party appeared vulnerable. General Dwight D. “Ike” Eisenhower, commander of the World War II D-Day invasion of Europe, was the Republican candidate. For many the choice appeared obvious. How could anyone vote against the man who had saved the free world?

Republicans needed a running mate for the popular former general. Eisenhower himself showed little interest in politics. Republican leaders, seeking to “balance the ticket,” chose Nixon to run with him. “Ike” was old; Nixon was young. Ike was an easterner, then living in New York City; Nixon was a Californian. Eisenhower’s political views were moderate; Nixon’s were more conservative. Republicans hoped these opposites would attract as many votes as possible.

The campaign rolled smoothly until mid-September. Then on September 18,
The New York Times
ran a headline that read “Secret Nixon Fund.” The paper’s story said that a group of California businessmen had donated more than $18,000 to pay for Nixon’s campaign expenses.

There was nothing secret or illegal about this fund. Several other politicians, including Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson, had such funds. Yet Eisenhower, who had attacked Democratic corruption throughout the campaign, did not want a hint of scandal. He refused to speak on behalf of his running mate. Pressure mounted for Nixon to resign from the ticket.

He refused to do so. Instead, he arranged for a half-hour television program to explain the fund. Fifty-eight million viewers, the largest television audience in history to that time, tuned in to see what he would say. “This broadcast must not be just good. It must be a smash hit,” Nixon said.
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Nixon waded through every detail of his finances. He accounted for every penny. He said his family was not rich. He told viewers that his wife Pat “doesn’t have a mink coat, but she does have a respectable Republican cloth coat.”
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He concluded by saying that a contributor gave their family a cocker spaniel puppy named Checkers, “and regardless of what they say about it, we’re going to keep it.”
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Nixon urged viewers to phone or telegraph the Republican National Committee to let the committee know if he should stay on the ticket.

Nixon liked to refer to it as the Fund Speech. Almost everyone else remembered it as the Checkers Speech. Either way, the response was overwhelming. Thousands of cards, letters, and telegrams poured in, praising the wholesome Nixon family. Eisenhower might not have wanted Nixon as a partner, but now he had no choice. “You’re my boy,” he proclaimed.
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Eisenhower and Nixon won by a landslide in 1952.

Vice President Nixon

Few vice presidents were busier in office than Richard Nixon. He traveled around the country and the world. He campaigned in 1954 on behalf of Republican candidates. Yet in 1956 Eisenhower wanted to dump Nixon as his running mate.
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He offered the still-young Nixon any office in the Cabinet except secretary of state. Nixon refused. If he were to step down, someone else would be next in line for the presidency.

Eisenhower’s second term proved adventurous. Heart attacks and bowel illnesses troubled the elderly president. Nixon served as acting president while Eisenhower was hospitalized. He handled the responsibilities well. A 1958 goodwill trip to South America nearly ended in tragedy. A mob attacked Nixon’s car in Caracas, Venezuela. The vice president and his party barely escaped with their lives. During a 1959 visit to the Soviet Union, Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev engaged in a shouting match. Both raised their voices at each other, but each claimed it was a friendly discussion.

The Great Debate

John F. Kennedy, a young senator from Massachusetts, won heated primary elections and the 1960 Democratic presidential nomination. Lyndon Johnson, the powerful Senate leader from the state of Texas, accepted the vice-presidential nomination. Richard Nixon won unanimous approval at the Republican convention.

This began one of the most spirited and energetic campaigns in American history. Kennedy and Nixon drew up nonstop schedules. Nixon promised to visit all fifty states. A late August knee injury made Nixon’s vow seem foolish. The Republican spent two weeks in the hospital.

The still-popular Eisenhower offered little help. A reporter asked him to name a major contribution Nixon had made to his presidency. Ike replied, “If you give me a week, I’ll think of one.”
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Although trailing in the polls, Nixon felt confident. The candidates had agreed to a series of televised debates. Advisors told him the debates were a bad idea, because they would give the lesser-known Kennedy publicity. Yet Nixon knew he was an excellent debater, and the Checkers Speech had shown he could do well on television.

John Kennedy relaxed on September 26. He sunned himself on the roof of his Chicago hotel. Nixon, meanwhile, kept up a frantic schedule of appearances. He re-injured his knee. Just before the debate, Kennedy strolled into the television studio. Nixon limped into it.

What the candidates debated was not memorable, but the unusual results were. Most who listened to the debate on the radio thought Nixon came out ahead. Those who saw it on television gave a different story.

Kennedy looked young and tanned. “I have never seen him looking more fit,” Nixon recalled.
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Those who saw Nixon saw something else. The Republican winced from his knee problem. He looked pale and haggard. After the debate, his mother asked if he was ill.

By election day it was too close to call. When election night ended, the outcome was still uncertain. Kennedy finally won by only 119,000 votes out of more than 69 million votes cast. He took 303 electoral votes to Nixon’s 219.

Republicans claimed election irregularities in Illinois, Texas, and Missouri. If electoral votes from these states went to Nixon, the total would give him the election. Nixon refused to contest the states. “[He] decided it would disrupt the country too much were he to contest,” said aide Herb Klein. “It would take a long time, and leave the country in turmoil.”
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After the election Nixon wrote a political autobiography titled
Six Crises.
There would be many more crises in his future.

“You Won’t Have Nixon”

Two years later Richard Nixon ran for governor of California. The campaign itself was less historic than what happened when he lost on election night.

At first, defeated candidate Nixon declined to answer questions. Finally he met reporters. “I have no complaints about the press coverage,” he said. “I have never complained about it.”
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Then he proceeded to complain about how the press had covered the election. For more than fifteen minutes, he rambled on about politics, unfair coverage of him by the media, and anything else. Some reporters thought they were watching a nervous breakdown take place before their eyes.
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Nixon concluded:

One last thing . . . For years you’ve had a lot of fun . . . You’ve had the opportunity to attack me. . . . Just think how much you’re going to be missing. You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.
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Nixon Returns

Nixon and his family moved to New York City in 1963. There he met a prosperous attorney named John Mitchell. He and Mitchell became friends, and Nixon took a job at Mitchell’s law firm. For the first time in his life, Richard Nixon was becoming wealthy.

In 1964 Nixon campaigned for Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater. Two years later he spoke throughout the country to support Republican political candidates. Hundreds, if not thousands, of Republican officeholders owed him favors. In 1968 he called in those favors. Nixon beat two opponents for the Republican presidential nomination. Then he sat back and watched the Democrats destroy themselves.

President Richard Nixon

For nearly a generation the Vietnam War had split the nation. France had colonized the Southeast Asian country, but communist-backed rebels ousted them. A 1954 treaty gave communists the northern half of the country, while an American-backed government held the south. Both sides wanted full control of the country. They fought a civil war for that rule.

American involvement in the war grew. President Kennedy sent “advisors” (actually military troops) to Vietnam. When Lyndon Johnson became president following Kennedy’s 1963 assassination, the war expanded. In 1964, after communist forces supposedly sank U.S. ships in the Gulf of Tonkin, Johnson got congressional approval to build up the war.

By 1968 the communist-backed North Vietnamese were advancing into the south. What would the United States do? Some Americans favored all-out military force to destroy the North Vietnamese. Yet as American casualties grew, an increasing number favored withdrawing all troops.

Johnson, stung by antiwar criticism, decided not to seek re-election. Only one Democrat, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, brother of the late president, might have received support from both pro-war “hawks” and antiwar “doves.” However, an assassin had killed him on June 5. The Democratic nomination was up for grabs.