I said that it just is not possible in politics for a Vice President to “chart out his own course,” and that if Eisenhower did not want me on the ticket I was damned if I was going to fight to stay on it. “It’s up to him if he wants me,” I said. “I can only assume that if he puts it this way, this must be his way of saying he’d prefer someone else.”
Len Hall tried to calm me down. “That’s not what he meant at all,” he said. “Damn it, Dick, you and I have talked about this a hundred times if we’ve talked about it once. We all know that if this was anyone else it’d be different. But this is Ike, and you can’t apply the kind of politically sophisticated standards to him that you do to anybody else.”
I agreed to withhold any announcement for at least a few weeks. I later found out that about this same time Eisenhower himself had become unhappy with the way the story had developed and held several meetings in an effort to decide what he should do. Charlie Jones, president of Richfield Oil, told me about a small stag dinner at the White House during this period at which Eisenhower raised the question of the vice presidency. Some of the guests said that they thought he should make a change. They argued that if there was any possibility that I might lose Eisenhower any votes he should drop me like a hot potato. Jones was Eisenhower’s contemporary and had been his friend for many years; he was one of the few who still called him Ike. After my critics had had their say, Jones looked across the table and said, “Ike, what in the hell does a man have to do to get your support? Dick Nixon has done everything you asked him to do. He has taken on the hard jobs that many of your other associates have run away from. For you not to support him now would be the most ungrateful thing that I can possibly think of.”
On March 13, the first primary election of the 1956 campaign was held in New Hampshire.
That night Pat and I were having dinner with Alice Longworth. When we arrived at her big Victorian house on Massachusetts Avenue, she met us at the top of the stairs and said, “Have you been listening to the radio? There is a write-in for you in New Hampshire.”
Mrs. Longworth could never resist anything political, and we were rushed through dinner. As we sipped coffee and listened to the radio in her drawing room filled with animal skins and photographs and other mementos of her father, I learned that my write-in vote was the big story of the New Hampshire primary.
Eisenhower could be well satisfied with the 56,464 voters who had gone out to mark the box next to his name on the ballot. But the big surprise was that almost 23,000 voters had written in my name on their ballots. I was elated, and I wondered what effect the news would have on the President.
When Eisenhower was asked about the New Hampshire results at his next press conference, he inched as near to an outright endorsement as he possibly could.
Well, I will make this comment: apparently there are lots of people in New Hampshire that agree with what I have told you about Dick Nixon. . . .
Anyone who attempts to drive a wedge of any kind between Dick Nixon and me has just as much chance as if he tried to drive it between my brother and me. . . .
I want to say again what I said last week or a week before; I will say it in exactly the terms I mean: I am very happy that Dick Nixon is my friend. I am very happy to have him as an associate in government. I would be happy to be on any political ticket in which I was a candidate with him.
Now, if those words aren’t plain, then it is merely because people can’t understand the plain unvarnished truth.
I have nothing further to add.
Then, midway through a news conference on April 25, Eisenhower was asked, “Some time ago, Mr. President, you told us that you had asked Vice President Nixon to chart his own course and then report back to you. Has he done this?” Eisenhower replied, “Well, he hasn’t reported back in the terms in which I used the expression that morning, no.”
When I heard about this exchange, I knew the time had come to act. The more I thought about it, the more I was convinced that I could not get off the ticket without hurting Eisenhower more than helping him. I knew there would be no way to explain my leaving the ticket that would convince large numbers of party workers that I had not been dumped. These people were more my constituency than Eisenhower’s and if they felt I had been treated badly they might decide to sit out the election.
Eisenhower had learned a great deal about politics since 1952, but he still did not like or understand those he called the “conservative party hacks” in Congress and in local Republican organizations throughout the country. He felt that they had no other place to go. But Eisenhower needed more than just their votes. He needed their wholehearted organizational support.
I disagreed with the premise that Eisenhower could pick up substantial votes from Democrats and independents by dropping me. Eisenhower now had a four-year record to run on and, particularly on economic, foreign policy, and internal security issues, that record was basically conservative. Stevenson would be the choice of liberals who preferred a softer line.
Early the next morning, April 26, I called the White House and said that I would like to see the President. That afternoon I sat across the desk from him in the Oval Office. “Mr. President,” I said, “I would be honored to continue as Vice President under you. The only reason I waited this long to tell you was that I didn’t want to do anything that would make you think I was trying to force my way onto the ticket if you didn’t want me on it.”
Eisenhower said that he was glad I felt that way and that he had wondered why I had taken so long to say so. He picked up the phone and asked for Jim Hagerty.
“Dick has just told me that he’ll stay on the ticket,” he told Hagerty. “Why don’t you take him out right now and let him tell the reporters himself. And,” he added, “you can tell them that I’m delighted by the news.”
Eisenhower’s imprimatur was enough to silence my potential opposition and bring his own White House staff in line—at least temporarily. Three weeks later, I received another unexpected boost when 32,878 voters wrote in my name on their ballots in the Oregon primary.
With the question of the ticket apparently settled, I expected smooth sailing until the convention. But a few weeks later Eisenhower was in the hospital being operated on for ileitis, and the whole question of his candidacy was superseded by concern about whether he would be able to complete his first term.
Jim Hagerty called me just before the operation began at about 2:30 A.M. on June 8. He told me that the President had just been put under anesthetic. “I know that this is really an unnecessary precaution,” he said, “but I knew you would want to be ready in the unlikely case that any crisis arises in the next few hours, or, God forbid, that anything goes wrong with the operation.”
Eisenhower recovered from the operation so quickly that there was never much doubt that he could complete his term. But the confidence that had grown up since his recovery from the heart attack was dealt a serious blow, and once again there was speculation about his running in November. Doubt rekindled presidential aspirations in some Republican breasts, and the fact that an eleventh-hour decision by Eisenhower not to run would make me the front-runner for the nomination resurrected the desire to “dump Nixon.”
In the summer of 1956 Harold Stassen was at the height of his public stature as Eisenhower’s “Secretary of Peace.” As the President’s Cabinet-level Adviser on Disarmament, Stassen was prominent and popular because of his conduct of the delicate Geneva disarmament talks with the Soviets.
Stassen had been among the first to call me in the days immediately following Eisenhower’s heart attack the previous September pledging his support for the presidential nomination. But on July 20, 1956, he told Eisenhower that he had commissioned a private poll that showed I would lose more votes for Eisenhower than many other possible running mates, most particularly Governor Christian Herter of Massachusetts. Stassen thought Herter should be Eisenhower’s running mate. Eisenhower later said that he found this proposal “astonishing”—not least beca
use he knew that a week earlier Len Hall and Jim Hagerty had received a tentative agreement from Herter to place my name in nomination at the convention.
Eisenhower told Stassen that he was not going to dictate to the convention. Stassen asked if Eisenhower would mind if he tried to convince me to withdraw. “You are an American citizen, Harold,” Eisenhower said, “and you are free to follow your own judgment in such matters.”
Stassen thanked Eisenhower and left the White House. He called some of his supporters and told them that Eisenhower had said he supported an open convention. He then called Herter and told him that the President had been very interested in what he had to say and had authorized him to talk to Len Hall and me and to give us the benefit of his conclusions about the vice presidency. Stassen was clearly doing his best to edge all of us—Eisenhower, Herter, and me—to a confrontation. Three days later, on Monday, July 23, I received a letter from Stassen. In it he said: “I have concluded that I should do what I can to nominate Governor Chris Herter for Vice President at the coming convention. I sincerely hope that after careful reflection during the coming weeks you will conclude to join in supporting Chris Herter.”
That afternoon Stassen called a press conference and announced his support for Herter’s candidacy. Many supporters urged me to shrug off Stassen’s effort as a clownish and transparent power play. But I knew that Stassen was a clever man and, except when blinded by ambition, a very able one. My concern was that if Stassen managed to raise doubts among the convention delegates in San Francisco about what Eisenhower really wanted, he might be able to create the kind of dangerously fluid situation in which the convention could be stampeded before the delegates realized what was happening. There were several potential vice presidential candidates eagerly waiting in the wings for just such a situation.
Eisenhower had left for an official visit to Panama immediately after his meeting with Stassen. He was furious when Stassen’s press conference knocked his trip out of the headlines, and he authorized a curt statement: “The President pointed out to Mr. Stassen that, while he had every right as an individual to make any statement he so desired, it was also equally obvious that he could not make such a statement as a member of the President’s official family.” A few days later Sherman Adams informed Stassen that he would have to take a leave of absence from the White House staff if he intended to pursue his present course.
When Eisenhower arrived back in Washington things moved quickly. Herter called Sherman Adams to find out Eisenhower’s real opinion of what had been happening. Adams told him that Eisenhower held him in very high esteem. If he wished to be a vice presidential candidate, that would be a matter of his own choosing, although Eisenhower had expected that in a second term he might be able to help in the international field and had already talked to Dulles about this possibility. That would not be possible, however, if Herter decided to run for Vice President. Herter said that he thought he would continue with his plans as they had stood prior to Stassen’s press conference and arrange to place my name in nomination. He thought that would cut off any further attempts to make him Vice President.
Adams replied, “All right, let’s consider it settled that way,” and the Stassen bubble was burst less than twenty-four hours after it surfaced.
Herter telephoned Hall to tell him that he would nominate me, and Hall informed me of the news. Stassen was undeterred. He blithely told a press conference that the fact that Herter had been asked to nominate me was itself a confirmation of his very strong standing in the party. The next morning Herter held a press conference in Boston and formally endorsed me for the nomination.
On August 22, the day on which the convention was to select the vice presidential nominee, Stassen arrived at Eisenhower’s suite at the St. Francis Hotel for an appointment with the President. He found himself confronted by Len Hall and Sherman Adams. Stassen produced a letter he planned to discuss with Eisenhower. It was an ultimatum addressed to Hall as Republican National Chairman, demanding that the nomination for Vice President be postponed until the next day.
Adams told Stassen that he could see Eisenhower only if he agreed beforehand to second my nomination and limit his conversation to informing the President of his agreement. Stassen finally seemed to get the message and agreed to accept these terms. Immediately after their meeting, Eisenhower held a televised news conference to announce: “Mr. Stassen called to see me a few minutes ago. . . . He said this morning that after several days here, he had become absolutely convinced that the majority of the delegates want Mr. Nixon. . . . He thought in order to get his own position clear before the convention and the American public, he was going to ask the convention chairman for permission this afternoon to second . . . the nomination of the Vice President, Mr. Nixon, for renomination.”
While Eisenhower was making his announcement in San Francisco, I was four hundred miles away in Whittier. Early that morning I had learned that my father had suffered a ruptured abdominal artery and was not expected to live. He had rallied a little by the time we got to Whittier, and I was able to talk with him even though he was in great pain and in an oxygen tent. He said that he was feeling much better and insisted that I get back to San Francisco. Flashes of his old temper broke through the pain and medication as he said, “You get back there, Dick, and don’t let that Stassen pull any more last-minute funny business on you.”
That afternoon I watched the convention on TV in my parents’ living room and saw Chris Herter place my name in nomination. Half an hour later the curtain finally came down on the “dump Nixon” movement when I was renominated by a vote of 1,323 to 1.
The following morning the doctor said my father was much better; he was certain the thrill that came with my renomination was a major factor in his improvement. When I suggested canceling my acceptance speech to stay with him, he practically blew his top. So Pat and I returned to San Francisco and that afternoon, with some valuable help from my old friend Father John Cronin, I finished my acceptance speech just minutes before we had to leave for the convention hall.
We returned to Washington after the convention, but a few days later I was called back to California because of my father’s illness. The doctor told me that it was only his determination to see me defeat Stassen and be renominated that had kept him alive this long. Now his condition was rapidly worsening. He knew that the end was near, so he gave my mother instructions for his funeral and asked to be allowed to die at home rather than in the hospital. He died at 8:25 P.M. on September 4, 1956.
After the drama of the preliminaries, most of the 1956 campaign was relatively tame. Eisenhower invited several hundred party leaders to a picnic at his farm in Gettysburg to kick off the campaign. Stevenson had already opened his with a stinging attack on the Eisenhower administration as a “ruthless” government “with a false front.” Eisenhower, always thin-skinned about criticism and especially resentful of Stevenson, was furious and wanted to hit back. He phoned me on the morning of the picnic, and my note of our conversation shows the way he worked when he wanted something political done:
The President called me this morning and he said, “Look, you are going to speak up there at Gettysburg today.”
He said, “Of course, everybody is now noting that you are talking the new high level. However, I think today you ought to take notice of some of these attacks that have been made on the administration and on me.” He said, “I think that when Stevenson calls this administration racketeers and rascals, when they say we are heartless in dealing with the problems of the people and the problems of the farmers, when they say we have no peace and no prosperity, I want them to be called on it. I would like for you to do so and if you have to praise me that will be okay. I, of course, will be a little embarrassed by that but I know you have to do it to answer. I suggest something along the lines: Do you want to go back to war in order to have prosperity under the Democrats? After all, there were 9 million unemployed in 1939 before World War II, and also a great number before the Kor
ean war.
I told him I agreed that Stevenson was swinging very wildly. He said, “Of course, it isn’t necessary to attack him personally but we should point out that he is wrong.”
I then talked to Brownell and he said, “I don’t think we could win with a so-called high level campaign. It has to be fair but you have to take the opposition on. It has to be hard-hitting.”
There was warm sunshine that afternoon as Eisenhower played host at his farm. Everyone gathered in a big tent set up on the lawn for the speeches. I followed Eisenhower’s instructions and sank some solid barbs into Stevenson and the Democrats. Then he got up and began his speech by praising me. He said: “There is no man in the history of America who has had such a careful preparation as has Vice President Nixon for carrying out the duties of the presidency, if that duty should ever fall upon him.”
Eisenhower came out to National Airport on the morning of September 18 to see Pat and me off on our first campaign swing. He said that this campaign should be based on the administration’s record, and that there was no need to indulge in “the exaggerations of partisan political talk.” In 1948 Harry Truman had campaigned to cries of “Give ‘em hell.” Eisenhower’s parting admonition in 1956 was, “Give ‘em heaven.”
I followed this advice for the first two days of the campaign. The press corps was stupefied, and the Republican audiences disappointed, when I delivered serious, low-key speeches without any of the tough campaign rhetoric both groups looked forward to hearing from me. As Stevenson’s attacks on Eisenhower and me grew increasingly shrill and irresponsible, I knew that it was only a matter of time before I would have to go on the offensive against him.
We arrived in Eugene, Oregon, for a big rally, and I gave my “give ‘em heaven” speech. Once again I could tell that the audience felt let down. It was midnight before I went to bed, but I couldn’t get to sleep. Around 5:30 in the morning I got out of bed and went into the living room of our suite to work on some hard-hitting additions to my basic speech. Suddenly I felt as if a great weight had been lifted from me. I had not realized how frustrating it had been to suppress the normal partisan instincts and campaign with one arm tied behind my back while Stevenson bombarded us with malicious ridicule and wild charges. I went over to the grand piano in one corner of the suite and began playing Brahms’s Rhapsody in G. I had just launched into Sinding’s “Rustle of Spring” when Pat came in and said, “What on earth are you doing? Dick, you’ll wake up the whole hotel—it isn’t even 7:30 yet.”
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