RN

by Richard Nixon

  White Housers still think they can pull the election out for HHH with this ploy; that’s what is being attempted.

  I fired off a battery of orders: have Mitchell check with Kissinger; have Dirksen and Tower blast the moves by the White House; have Dirksen call Johnson and let him know we were on to his plans. I even considered having Harlow fly to Vietnam to talk to General Andrew Goodpaster to get a firsthand military view of the situation there. But I was simply venting my frustration; no matter what I did, Johnson continued to hold the whip hand.

  The initial results of my orders raised some doubts about Harlow’s secret source. Kissinger had not heard anything about Johnson’s plan, and when Ev Dirksen confronted Johnson with the rumor, he denied it with a vehemence that convinced even his skeptical old friend. He said that there was nothing new to report from Paris, and he chided Dirksen for being taken in by such obvious rumors at this stage of his life.

  The next day, October 24, Harlow reported from his source that an agreement had been reached with the North Vietnamese the day before, and that it would be announced shortly. I found this hard to believe, but Harlow emphasized that considering his source, there could be no doubt about the accuracy of the report. If it were true, it meant that the settlement had already been reached when Johnson had told Dirksen that no settlement was even being contemplated.

  In retrospect I cannot fault Johnson for his secrecy, but I was angry at his lack of candor with me. I felt that he should at least have dropped the pretense that he would keep me fully informed. I would not have used this information if our sources had been opposed to Johnson’s policies and were trying to undermine them by talking to us. But they felt that Johnson was using the war to help Humphrey, and that was politics, not policy.

  I immediately decided that the only way to prevent Johnson from totally undercutting my candidacy at the eleventh hour was for me to make public the fact that a bombing halt was imminent. In addition I wanted to plant the impression—which I believed to be true—that his motives and his timing were not dictated by diplomacy alone.

  I knew that Johnson wanted nothing more than to be able to set peace in motion before he left the presidency. If he waited until after the election, the Communists might decide to hold out in order to deal with the new administration. The next ten days might be Johnson’s last chance to redeem his record, and I could not begrudge him the effort. Vietnam had consumed him politically and personally, and negotiating a peace would help him regain much of what he had lost to that conflict.

  I was also convinced, however, that Johnson had additional motives. I knew him well enough to know that everything he did was weighed a second time on a strictly political scale. Moreover, Harlow’s source had made it clear that, contrary to popular impression, the political liaison between Humphrey and the White House was very active. Adept and dedicated partisans such as Clark Clifford and George Ball would see to it that any political benefits to be gained for Humphrey would not be overlooked. I knew that I would be walking a fine line between political necessity and personal responsibility, but I believed that the actions of Johnson and many of those around him were sufficiently political to permit my taking at least some action.

  On October 26, therefore, I issued a statement concerning the peace talks:

  In the last thirty-six hours I have been advised of a flurry of meetings in the White House and elsewhere on Vietnam. I am told that top officials in the administration have been driving very hard for an agreement on a bombing halt, accompanied possibly by a cease-fire, in the immediate future. I have since learned these reports are true.

  I am . . . told that this spurt of activity is a cynical, last-minute attempt by President Johnson to salvage the candidacy of Mr. Humphrey. This I do not believe.

  At no time in the campaign have I found the President anything but impartial and candid in his dealings with the major presidential contenders about Vietnam. . . .

  In every conversation I have had with him he has made it clear that he will not play politics with this war.

  While I believed that Johnson would not go out of his way to help Humphrey unless he were forced to meet a clear-cut partisan challenge, the last thing I wanted to do was to give the President an excuse to get angry with me in public. I hoped to avoid Johnson’s going all out for Humphrey with every resource at the command of the White House.

  There was nothing more I could do. Even though I knew what was coming—had known about it for weeks—the timing and impact were completely in Johnson’s hands.

  At the Madison Square Garden rally on October 31 I responded to the bombing halt announcement in what I considered the only responsible way: “I will say that as a presidential candidate, and my vice presidential candidate joins me in this, that neither he nor I will say anything that might destroy the chance to have peace.” One reporter wrote, “President Johnson gave Richard M. Nixon a trick and Vice President Humphrey a treat for Halloween when he announced a complete halt to the bombing of North Vietnam last night.” The bombing halt unquestionably resulted in a last-minute surge of support for Humphrey. The militant liberals came back to the fold. Even those McCarthy zealots who had pledged never to support Humphrey now had an excuse to vote for him. The bombing halt also undercut one of my most effective campaign issues—the inability of the Democratic leadership to win a permanent peace. Studies made after the election showed that public opinion had been particularly volatile during this period, and the hope that the halt might lead to a peace settlement resulted in massive voter shifts to Humphrey.

  The Democrats’ euphoria was dampened on November 2, when President Thieu announced that his government would not participate in the negotiations Johnson was proposing.

  Thieu’s reaction was totally predictable. He watched American politics no less carefully than did the leaders in Hanoi. Given his disapproval of any bombing halt, and the fact that Humphrey was now talking like a dove, it was scarcely in Thieu’s interest to acquiesce in a bad bargain. By holding back his support, Thieu fostered the impression that Johnson’s plan had been too quickly conceived and too shakily executed.

  On the heels of Thieu’s recalcitrance, I asked Bob Finch to put the word out to newsmen that the prospects for peace were not as advanced as Johnson’s announcement might have made them seem. Providing background in his capacity as an “aide to Richard Nixon,” Finch explained, “We had the impression that all the diplomatic ducks were in position.” Then for the record he said, “I think this will boomerang. It was hastily contrived.”

  Johnson saw the news story with Finch’s comments. He was furious, and he made his displeasure known. Bryce Harlow urged me to call Johnson to calm him down—and I did so Sunday morning, November 3.

  “Who’s this guy Fink?” Johnson asked. “Why is he taking out after me?”

  I said, “Mr. President, that’s Finch, not Fink.”

  He ignored my correction and continued to refer to Finch as “Fink.”

  I pointed out that my public statements on the issue were responsible, but that I had to respond to developments as I saw them. He calmed down, and the rest of our conversation was relatively cordial.

  On the day of Thieu’s announcement, I told a Texas rally: “In view of the early reports that we’ve had this morning, the prospects for peace are not as bright as they looked only a few days ago.” It was Saturday, November 2, less than three days before the election. Bombing halt or no, the campaign had to continue. I decided to treat Johnson’s announcement as a potentially beneficial diplomatic move botched by lack of planning rather than as a straight political ploy. I told my staff to get our spokesmen asking why we didn’t have the agreement worked out with our allies.

  I knew the gap was closing. With the help of hundreds of thousands of dollars in last-minute campaign contributions and loans, Humphrey appeared to be outspending us in television commercials in the week before the election.

  I scheduled a four-hour telethon—two hours for the eastern United St
ates and two for the West—the day before the election. Bud Wilkinson acted as moderator, reading the questions to me as they were phoned in from across the country. Some of my advisers had thought such a costly and tiring effort was not needed, but I overruled them. I remembered 1960 and felt I should do everything possible that might make the difference in a close election. It was my best campaign decision. Had we not had that last telethon, I believe Humphrey would have squeaked through with a close win on Election Day.

  I felt we could not afford to do anything that would augment the advantage that Humphrey was getting from sympathetic treatment in the national media. Whatever the reason—sympathy for his temporary underdog status; preference for his liberal views; or simply his likability—Humphrey benefited from favorable press coverage.

  Though I had sensed this instinctively during the campaign, I had no idea that the favoritism toward Humphrey was so strong until Edith Efron’s carefully researched book, The News Twisters, was released in 1971. In it she documented the number of words spoken “for” and “against” me by reporters on the three networks. She found that the ratios were 11 to 1, 67 to 1, and 65 to 1—all “against.” She did the same thing for Humphrey and found that only one of the three networks showed a larger ratio of “against” than “for,” and that was by a much smaller margin of 6 to 1. She concluded:

  If Richard Nixon is President of the United States today, it is in spite of ABC-TV, CBS-TV, and NBC-TV. Together they broadcast the quantitative equivalent of a New York Times lead editorial against him every day—for five days a week for the seven weeks of his campaign period. And every editorial technique was employed on three networks to render the pro-Nixon side less “forceful” than the anti-Nixon side. Indeed, to speak of “forceful” pro-Nixon opinion is impossible. It does not exist.

  Pat and I voted by absentee ballot in 1968; for once we did not have to get up early to be photographed voting. We got to the airport in Los Angeles before ten o’clock that morning to board our campaign plane, the Tricia. The cabin was decorated with campaign posters and balloons. As I passed by a poster with our campaign slogan, “Nixon’s the One,” I said aloud to no one in particular, “I hope it’s right.”

  As the plane taxied toward the runway, I sank into the chair in my private compartment. I was tired but I felt confident. I knew that the wide gap of the early campaign had closed and that all the polls showed the race was too close to call. But somehow I believed that this year would be different from 1960.

  Although I felt instinctively confident this time, I took the precaution of preparing my family for the worst. I asked Pat, Tricia, Julie, and David to come to my private office compartment. I told them how proud I was of their tireless campaigning. I said that it would be almost impossible for me to lose this election by popular vote. But it could happen, and I wanted them to be prepared just in case. What I really wanted them to be ready for was an electoral stalemate. “If that happens,” I told them, “there won’t be any winner or loser tonight. The election would be thrown into the House of Representatives, and I can’t even guess how we would handle that situation.”

  I was sure that each of them wondered whether I knew something or had seen some poll that had led me to prepare them for losing. In fact, that afternoon a reporter had asked me for a comment on a Harris poll showing Humphrey winning by three points, approximately two million votes. I felt that Harris might have weighted his sample in the metropolitan areas and that Gallup, whose last poll showed me still leading by two points, was more accurate. “Even though it will be extremely close, we can win,” I said. “In fact, I think we probably will. If we don’t win, we’ll simply go on to other projects which, from a personal viewpoint, may give us more satisfaction. And we won’t have the spotlight of the world on us and on every movement that we make.”

  The Tricia touched down at Newark Airport just after six o’clock, and an hour later we were settled into our suite on the thirty-fifth floor of the Waldorf Towers in New York, where we would await the returns. Before I left Pat and the girls in their room, I said jokingly that at least this time we would not have to endure a twenty-four-hour ordeal as we had in 1960. I felt that by midnight or one o’clock Eastern time, when there were sufficient California returns to indicate a trend, we would know for sure.

  While the polls were closing in the East and Midwest, I treated myself to a long hot soak in the huge bathtub. I took my time shaving and dressing, and then I called Haldeman to find out what was happening.

  The first meaningful results were in by 8:45 P.M. They ran roughly 41 percent to 36 percent in my favor. For the next half hour my percentage remained the same, and Humphrey’s moved up to 38 percent.

  Then returns began pouring in. At 9:15 I had a 5 percent lead in New Jersey and a slight lead in Pennsylvania, but I was behind by 2 percent in Texas. Humphrey was walking away with Massachusetts, which was no surprise, but I had fallen hopelessly behind in Connecticut, a state I had hopes of winning. I kept reminding everyone that it was still too early to see any shape in the numbers or percentages.

  When I checked the national returns again at 9:30, Humphrey had moved up another point while I remained at 41 percent. In Maryland I held a 12-point lead. In Pennsylvania, with the cities still out, I was leading by 5 points. With 10 percent of the Texas vote in, I trailed Humphrey by 8 points. I asked Haldeman to check our contacts in New Jersey. He reported: “It’s tight, but we’ll win it.”

  Just after 10 P.M. Humphrey pulled even with me in the national returns. I was shaken by the early returns from Illinois, which gave me 35 percent to Humphrey’s 56 percent and Wallace’s 8 percent. Since I knew that Mayor Daley would, as usual, hold back dozens of Cook County precincts, these figures were doubly disturbing. The news from Ohio was not encouraging either. With 27 percent of the vote in, I trailed Humphrey by three points.

  The network commentators had begun playing with the numbers and speculating about a possible Humphrey upset.

  At 10:15, however, my lead was holding in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and I was reported ahead by 6 points in South Carolina. Ohio had improved: with 30 percent of the votes in, I had gained on Humphrey and trailed him there by only 1 point. The momentum there was in my direction, and since the late votes would be from the rural areas and small towns, I was fairly confident of Ohio.

  At 10:25 I started playing with some possibilities on my notepad. If I won California, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, and Maryland, and added them to my other states, I would have 288 electoral votes—18 more than I needed. Losing Missouri and Maryland, however, would leave me 4 votes shy of winning. These figures did not include the crucial toss-ups in Texas, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, South Carolina, Hawaii, or Washington. My estimate was conservative; but no matter how the numbers were arranged, it was close.

  I thought back to what I had told Pat, the girls, and David earlier in the evening. I had been wrong—once again it was going to be an all-night vigil. I was glad that they were staying in a different room. I had decided to put them in a separate suite and not to meet with them until after I was relatively sure of the outcome. I knew how worried they would be until the winner had been decided, and I did not want to make them feel that they had to keep up a cheerful front for my sake.

  At 10:30 the national results were still the same—Humphrey and I were running neck and neck, while Wallace had 18 percent. I was behind in Missouri, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Ohio and ahead in New Jersey and Maryland, all with 41 percent or less of their votes in.

  At 11 P.M. word arrived that something had gone wrong with the voting tabulation in Dallas and the votes could not be counted until the next day. That was alarming news. I feared that Texas Democrats were fully as capable of stealing votes in 1968 as they had been in 1960, and I told Haldeman to find out what the hell was happening and what we could do about it.

  At 11:30 I asked Murray Chotiner to come in. He had been following the results as closely as I had, and we had arrived at the same
figures. So far I had 231 solid electoral votes. But there were disturbing intimations that the momentum was with Humphrey. By midnight he had moved ahead in the popular vote. A half hour later, NBC showed him leading by about 600,000.

  In 1968, as in 1960, the election was apparently going to be determined by the same key states: Illinois, California, Ohio, Missouri, and Texas. All were close. I was counting on Ohio and California. I had high hopes for Texas, but I knew that Johnson and Governor John Connally had fired up the recalcitrant state Democratic organization to get behind Humphrey, and that made Texas a question mark. Missouri was also going to be a seesaw. Mitchell was confident that Missouri would come through and I had learned to trust his confidence.

  As Ohio and California moved more solidly into my column, the balance seemed to hang on Illinois, where I now had a substantial lead of almost 100,000 votes. But a number of Cook County precincts were still unreported.

  In those early hours of November 6, confident that I had won Illinois and thus the election, I became irritated with Daley’s stubbornness in not releasing the count in Cook County. I called Bryce Harlow and told him to get Larry O’Brien, Humphrey’s campaign manager, on the phone. “Bryce, lay it on the line. Don’t fool around. Tell O’Brien to tell Hubert to quit playing games. We’ve won Illinois, so let’s get this thing over with.” Harlow reached O’Brien’s suite, but either he was not there or would not take the call.

  Just before 3 A.M., for the first time in that long night, I allowed myself the luxury of self-assurance.

  I had won the presidency.

  I called in Bob Finch, Murray Chotiner, John Mitchell, and Bob Haldeman. We reviewed the totals. I told them that I was sure of all the big ones, including California, Illinois, Ohio, and Missouri.

  “Any objections?” I asked.