Six Crises

by Richard Nixon

  What had happened during the past week had not shaken my faith in Eisenhower. If, as some of my associates thought, he appeared to be indecisive, I put the blame not on him but on his lack of experience in political warfare and on the fact that he was relying on several equally inexperienced associates. I could see his dilemma. He had been a winner all his life and now his task as a candidate was to win again in a new arena where, as inexperienced as he was, he had to judge the voters’ mood to decide whether or not I should be asked to stay on the ticket or resign. He had to win the election before he could lead the country. And his friends and associates, whom he trusted, were telling him that he might lose unless he got rid of me.

  I recognized, however, that my personal decision had to be based on my own analysis of the facts as I saw them and politics as I knew it to be. If I were to resign from the ticket it would be an admission of guilt, Eisenhower might well lose the election, and I would forever afterwards be blamed for it. I decided that I had to do everything within my power to stay on the ticket—with honor. Having made that basic decision, I finally went to bed at about five in the morning and slept better than I had since the night the train pulled out of Pomona four days before.

  Now the most difficult phase of the crisis was over—that agonizing period when I had to make the decision to fight the battle or to run away. Ahead of me were still three days of almost superhuman effort: preparing for the battle and then the battle itself, a half-hour broadcast in which the slightest mistake might spell disaster for me, my family, and my party.

  But as I had learned in the Hiss case, the period of indecision, of necessary soul-searching was the hardest. Now the emotions, the drive, the intense desire to act and speak decisively which I had kept bottled up inside myself could be released and directed to the single target of winning a victory.

  That Sunday was scheduled as a day of rest, with only one non-political speaking engagement on the calendar. However, it turned out to be another long day of ordeal, capped by another key decision. At about ten o’clock, Pat Hillings brought in the latest accumulation of wires and letters. The overwhelming majority urged me to stay on the ticket. But Harold Stassen, in a three-hundred-word telegram, advised me to offer my withdrawal from the race. He even spelled out a suggested text for my withdrawal message and stated that if my offer was accepted, Earl Warren should be named to step in. This, he said, “will also strengthen you and aid your career.” As I read the wire, I realized how fickle fortune can be in politics. It was just eight months before, when Stassen had been seeking the presidential nomination himself, that he had called on me in my office in the Senate Office Building and urged me to support him for the nomination. He suggested that, if I could swing part or all of the California delegation behind him, that might start a bandwagon rolling and, under the circumstances, I would be “an ideal running mate” on his ticket.

  Stassen’s influence in the country at that time was still considerable. I realized his opposition was a severe blow. Yet, at times like this when my situation was desperate, little things can have as much effect as big ones. Tom Bewley, my former law partner, and John Reilly, who, as a former director of Rotary International, was one of our home town’s most prominent citizens, flew up from Whittier to Portland to see me. They came into the suite for only a minute. “We just flew up to tell you,” they said, “that all the folks back in Whittier are behind you 100 per cent.”

  When they left the room, I had a lump in my throat. Whittier at that time had no more than about ten thousand registered voters. What the people there thought didn’t mean too much when the votes of sixty million in the country would determine the election. But acts of such thoughtfulness are so rare in political life that they have a meaning far beyond their significance in the ballot box.1

  All afternoon, I talked with my staff about the alternatives we had for a television program. By this time, several commercial sponsors had offered to put me on for a half-hour without interruption, but we still felt that commercial sponsorship was not proper. Late in the afternoon I received a telephone call from Governor Dewey which was to have great influence on the format of the program.

  “I think you ought to go on television,” Dewey told me. “I don’t think Eisenhower should make this decision. Make the American people do it. At the conclusion of the program, ask people to wire their verdict in to you in Los Angeles. You will probably get over a million replies, and that will give you three or four days to think it over. At the end of that time, if it is 60 per cent for you and 40 per cent against you, say you are getting out as that is not enough of a majority. If it is 90 to 10, stay on. If you stay on, it isn’t blamed on Ike, and if you get off it isn’t blamed on Ike. All the fellows here in New York agree with me.”

  The idea of leaving the decision to a vote of the television audience did not appeal to some of the members of my staff. They feared a concerted campaign might be put under way to “stack” the replies against me. But I had great respect for Dewey’s political judgment, and I was trying to think of how his suggestion could be implemented when I left the hotel for my evening speaking engagement at the Portland Temple Club. There I put the fund furor out of mind and tried to lay to rest before a large and receptive audience one of the most malicious smears which had developed against me after my participation in the Hiss case: that I was anti-Semitic.

  I arrived back at the hotel at around nine o’clock. We continued our discussion with regard to the broadcast. Chotiner insisted that the National Committee should sponsor the broadcast. He said, “They already have scheduled two nationwide broadcasts for the vice presidential candidate. What they have to realize is that this broadcast is just as important to the success of the campaign as the two they have regularly scheduled.” This proved to be the understatement of the 1952 campaign!

  While we were discussing the broadcast, Rose Mary Woods, my private secretary, came into the room and said, “General Eisenhower is on the phone.” I was sitting on the couch with my legs propped up on the coffee table. I braced myself mentally for his decision and picked up the telephone. “Hello, General.”

  “Hello, Dick.” His voice was warm and friendly. “You’ve been taking a lot of heat the last couple of days. I imagine it has been pretty rough.”

  I replied that the last four days had indeed been rugged.

  “You know, this is an awfully hard thing for me to decide,” he said. “I have come to the conclusion that you are the one who has to decide what to do. After all, you’ve got a big following in this country and if the impression got around that you got off the ticket because I forced you to get off, it is going to be very bad. On the other hand, if I issue a statement now backing you up, in effect people will accuse me of condoning wrongdoing.” He said he had had dinner with some of his friends that night, and they were in disagreement as to whether I should stay on or get off. But they all agreed that I ought to have a chance to tell my story to the country.

  “I don’t want to be in the position of condemning an innocent man,” he said. “I think you ought to go on a nationwide television program and tell them everything there is to tell, everything you can remember since the day you entered public life. Tell them about any money you have ever received.”

  I asked him, “General, do you think after the television program that an announcement could then be made one way or the other?”

  He replied, “I am hoping that no announcement would be necessary at all, but maybe after the program we could tell what ought to be done.”

  “General,” I answered, “I just want you to know that I don’t want you to give any consideration to my personal feelings. I know how difficult this problem is for you.” Then I added: “But there comes a time in matters like this when you’ve either got to fish or cut bait. I will get off the ticket if you think my staying on it would be harmful. You let me know and I will get off and I will take the heat, but this thing has got to be decided at the earliest possible time. After the television
program, if you think I should stay on or get off, I think you should say so either way. The great trouble here is the indecision.”

  But one of Eisenhower’s most notable characteristics is that he is not a man to be rushed on important decisions. “We will have to wait three or four days after the television show to see what the effect of the program is,” he insisted.

  We talked on about the campaign and the crowd reactions and he ended the fifteen-minute conversation, our first since the fund episode began, by saying, “Well, Dick, go on the television show. Good luck and keep your chin up.”

  I informed the members of my staff who were in the room of the substance of the conversation and we went to work. In the next ninety minutes, we were in touch with Sherman Adams, Art Summerfield, and Bob Humphreys, of the National Committee staff. We finally got word that the National Committee and the Senatorial Congressional Campaign Committee had pledged the $75,000 necessary to buy a half-hour of prime evening time for Tuesday, just forty-eight hours away. We decided that the broadcast should originate from Los Angeles. While my staff worked out the broadcast arrangements, I sat alone in my room and, writing on the large lined yellow legal pads which I used for outlining my speeches, I reconstructed my conversation with Eisenhower and tried to evaluate it.

  I could appreciate the terrible dilemma which confronted him. From a personal standpoint, he did not want to force me off the ticket. On the other hand, as the nominee of the party he had the responsibility to win the election. The way he had resolved the dilemma was to put the responsibility on me. I should go on television and present my side of the case, completely and accurately. But even then he might not make a decision one way or the other. It was up to me to decide whether I should stay on or get off the ticket.

  I decided then and there to assume that responsibility completely and without any compromise. If I considered the broadcast a success, I would stay on the ticket. If I thought it was a failure, I would get off. Now everything was up to me, the challenge was clear, and I must prepare to meet it.

  My first assignment was to inform the press of the decision. The newsmen covering my campaign were alerted at 11:00 P.M. to stand by for a press conference, my first since the fund crisis started. Jim Bassett, who had handled a very difficult assignment in those last four days, made several trips to the press room telling the reporters to stand by, while in my suite we made final arrangements to cancel my campaign tour so that I could fly to Los Angeles to prepare for the broadcast.

  It was after 1:00 A.M. when I walked into the press room. I could sense the tension. The reporters must have expected a definite announcement—either that I was resigning or not resigning. I thought I might as well have a little fun on such a deadly serious occasion.

  “I have come down to announce that I am breaking off—” I paused deliberately. There was an audible gasp in the room. Clint Mosher of the San Francisco Examiner almost jumped out of his skin. I laughed for perhaps the first time that day and began again. “I have come down to announce that I am breaking off my campaign trip tomorrow for the purpose of going to Los Angeles to make a nationwide television and radio broadcast.” Mosher asked, “Senator, does this mean that you are going to stay on the ticket?” I replied, “This means I intend to continue the campaign tour. I have no further comment.” This was a truthful answer because, whether I was on or off the ticket, I intended to continue to campaign for Eisenhower’s election. But the result of this reply, which was not unexpected as far as I was concerned, was to create increasing suspense about what I would do on the TV broadcast.

  Flying from Portland to Los Angeles, I hoped to catch up on some much-needed sleep. But I could doze only intermittently. My body needed rest but my brain was churning with ideas.

  A new tension was now building up—the tension that precedes battle when all the plans have been drawn and one stands poised for action. This speech was to be the most important of my life. I felt now that it was my battle alone. I had been deserted by so many I had thought were friends but who had panicked in battle when the first shots were fired.

  I realized I had to take my case to the people and convince them of my honesty and integrity. The public reaction to my speech would determine whether or not I was a liability to the Republican ticket. If I failed, I decided that I would get off the ticket and take all responsibility for doing so. And I went even further in my own thinking as to what I had to accomplish through the broadcast. I must not only remove any liability I might be to the ticket, I must become a positive asset. I had decided that unless I could attain both these objectives I would resign.

  To attain these objectives, I knew I had to go for broke. This broadcast must not be just good. It had to be a smash hit—one that really moved people, one that was designed not simply to explain the complicated and dull facts about the fund to the people, but one that would inspire them to enthusiastic, positive support.

  As far as content was concerned, I recognized that the speech had to meet three requirements.

  First, I must answer the immediate attack that was being made on me by explaining and defending the fund.

  Second, I must ward off future attacks along the same lines so that any further allegations that I had profited financially from my public service would fall on deaf ears.

  Finally, I felt I had to launch a political counterattack to rally the millions of voters in my television audience to the support of the Eisenhower ticket. I knew this television audience would probably be the largest of the campaign and I was not going to allow this opportunity to pass without using it to full advantage to get across to millions of people who would never attend a political meeting the reasons why I felt the nation needed Eisenhower’s leadership.

  My only hope to win rested with millions of people I would never meet, sitting in groups of two or three or four in their living rooms, watching and listening to me on television. I determined as the plane took me to Los Angeles that I must do nothing which might reduce the size of that audience. And so I made up my mind that until after this broadcast, my only releases to the press would be for the purpose of building up the audience which would be tuning in. Under no circumstances, therefore, could I tell the press in advance what I was going to say or what my decision would be.

  Unable to sleep on the plane, I took some of the picture post cards from the pocket of the seat in front of me and began to jot down my first notes for the speech. My remark in Eugene, Oregon, about Pat’s cloth coat came to mind, and I marked it down as a good reminder of the mink coat scandals which were plaguing the Truman Administration.

  I thought of General Eisenhower’s suggestion that I disclose any gifts, financial or otherwise, I had received while I had been in public office. I remembered that right after the nomination, a Republican supporter in Texas had learned that our daughters wanted a puppy and had sent us a four-month-old, black and white pedigreed cocker spaniel—“born in Texas, from a long line of cocker spaniels that were particularly gentle and good with children.” Thinking back to Franklin Roosevelt’s devastating remark in the 1944 campaign—“and now they are attacking poor Fala”—I decided to mention my own dog Checkers. Using the same ploy as FDR would irritate my opponents and delight my friends, I thought.

  The Democratic attack on my need for a political fund came to mind. “If a fellow can’t afford to be a Senator, he shouldn’t seek the office,” Stephen Mitchell, the Democratic National Chairman, had said. The implication was that only rich men could afford to run for and serve in government. I thought of a Lincoln quote and jotted it down: “God must have loved the common people, he made so many of them.”

  For most of the flight I tried to think of a way I could carry out Eisenhower’s suggestion, “Tell them about everything you have ever received from the time you entered public life.” It was on this trip from Portland to Los Angeles that I decided the only way to blunt future attacks on my honesty was to lay out for everyone to see my entire personal financial history from the tim
e I entered public life to the present. This was to prove to be the most difficult part of the broadcast, both to prepare and to deliver. It had to be absolutely accurate, and consequently, it entailed round-the-clock research of all my records, including income tax returns, bank accounts, and property transfers.

  Even more difficult was the decision to discuss such purely private matters before millions of people who were complete strangers to Pat and to me. In the twelve years of our married life we had never acquired much in the way of the world’s goods, but this had never concerned us. Our interests were in other directions. The fact that we might not have the latest model car, the most fashionable clothes, or the biggest house in the block, was never a source of embarrassment or envy. But both Pat and I had perhaps what some might describe as an overdeveloped sense of privacy. What we owned and what we owed was our own business and nobody else’s. We had worked hard to earn what we had. We had bent over backwards since coming to Washington in 1947, paying our own way, refusing to accept favors we could not reciprocate, not just because we wanted to avoid any possibility of attack politically but because we both had a stubborn streak of independence and deeply disliked being under obligation to anyone. We had received no credit for this simply because we did not want any and had not asked for it.

  “Why do you have to tell people how little we have and how much we owe?” Pat asked me as I was making my notes for the broadcast.