TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/election/60elect/60elect.06a

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                                                                                October 6, 1952

THE CAMPAIGN

The Trial & The Acquittal



     The Trial

     In the three-room suite on the fifth floor of Los Angeles'
Ambassador hotel, the tension grew with each turn of the second
hand. At 6:30 that Tuesday night, Dick Nixon was to face the
television cameras to explain to the nation why he had drawn on an
$18,000 private fund to pay some of his political expenses as a
U.S. Senator. Telephone calls poured into the hotel from G.O.P.
bigwigs across the nation: some told him to fight, others told him
that for the good of the party he must resign. Three hours before
his broadcast Nixon sent his advisers away and ordered his
telephone cut off. "I don't want to talk to anybody," he snapped
as he closed his door.

     The fact that weighed most heavily on Dick Nixon was that he
was a man on trial, and strictly on his own. At stake were the
campaign chances of the Republican Party, and his own political
future. He had expected that Ike Eisenhower would make it clear to
the nation that he was 100% behind Nixon. Ike had not done so. It
was up to Nixon to clear himself with the people by presenting
facts & figures. Until he did, Ike would not give him complete
vindication.

     Just before 6:30 Nixon sat down behind a desk in an NBC
television studio in Hollywood, a sheaf of papers at his elbow. He
had no written script, and the television crews were so uncertain
of his plans that they warmed up two extra cameras in case he
should walk out of range of the primary camera. Nixon's wife Pat
sat in an armchair a few feet from the desk. When the announcer
cued Nixon to start talking, not even Pat knew precisely what Nixon
was going to say.

     The Accounting. "My fellow Americans," said Nixon, as his
earnest face loomed up on the nation's TV screens, "I come before
you tonight as a candidate for the vice presidency and as a man
whose honesty and integrity has been questioned." His voice was
level and he showed no sign of the strain.

     Was it "morally wrong" for him to have drawn on the $18,000
fund for political expenses? No, said Nixon, since the 76
contributors asked no special favors, expected none and got none.
The fund was not really secret at all. And "not one cent of the
$18,000, or any other money of that type, ever went to me for my
personal use. Every penny of it was used to pay for political
expenses that I did not think should be charged to the taxpayers
of the U.S."

     Nixon's voice took on a compelling note of seriousness as he
launched his bold counterstroke: "And so now, what I am going to
do -- incidentally, this is unprecedented in the history of
American politics -- I am going at this time to give to this
television and radio audience a complete financial history,
everything I've earned, everything I've spent, everything I owe,
and I want you to know the facts."

     Most of his early life was spent in his family's grocery
store in East Whittier, he said. "The only reason we were able to
make it go was because my mother and dad had five boys and we all
worked in the store.

     "I worked my way through college and to a great extent
through law school. And then, in 1940, probably the best thing
that ever happened to me happened. I married Pat, who is sitting
over here." The TV camera followed Nixon's cue, turned for the
first time to Pat, sitting in profile with her eyes on her
husband. "I practiced law," said Nixon as the camera picked him up
again, "and she continued to teach school."

     Package from Texas. Then, while he served with the Navy in
the South Pacific, his wife worked as a stenographer, he said.
Their joint savings at the end of the war were "just a little less
than $10,000." Since then, he and Pat have inherited about $4,500;
he has drawn $1,600 from cases which were in his law firm before
he went into politics (but not a cent from subsequent legal
business). He has made an average of $1,500 a year "from
nonpolitical speaking engagements and lectures." And he has had
his salary as a Representative and Senator ($12,500).

     "What do we have today to show for it? This will surprise you
because it is so little . . . We've got a house in Washington
which cost $41,000 and on which we owe $20,000. We have a house in
Whittier, Calif. which cost $13,000, and on which we owe $10,000.
My folks are living there at the present time. I have just $4,000
in life insurance, plus my G.I. policy, which I've never been able
to convert and which will run out in two years . . . I own a 1950
Oldsmobile car. We have our furniture. We have no stocks and bonds
of any type. We have no interest of any kind, direct or indirect
in any business. I owe $4,500 to the Riggs Bank in Washington. . .
I owe $3,500 to my parents . . . and then I have a $500 loan . . .
on my life insurance."

     Nixon had one postscript to his accounting. "One other thing
I probably should tell you, because if I don't they'll probably be
saying this about me too -- we did get something, a gift, after
the election. A man down in Texas heard Pat on the radio mention
the fact that our two youngsters would like to have a dog, and
believe it or not, the day before we left on this campaign trip,
we got a message from the Union Station, in Baltimore, saying they
had a package for us . . . It was a little cocker spaniel dog. . .
and our little girl Tricia, the six-year-old, named it Checkers.
And you know the kids . . . love the dog, and . . . regardless of
what they say about it, we're going to keep it."

     Let Them Decide. When Nixon had finished with his accounting
he noted, by a swift glance at the clock, that he had used only a
scant half of his allotted half-hour. So smoothly that his
audience could detect no change of pace, he went into one of his
back-platform attacks on the Administration. He got up from his
chair and walked out in front of the desk. Then he gave the whole
speech a heightened meaning when he announced that he was
submitting his case to the Republican National Committee. "Let
them decide whether my position on the ticket will help or hurt
. . . whatever their decision is I will abide by it . . . But
. . . regardless of what happens, I'm going to continue this
fight. I'm going to campaign up & down America until we drive the
crooks and the Communists . . . out of Washington. And remember,
folks, Eisenhower is a great man, believe me. He's a great man
. . ." There in mid-sentence Nixon's time expired and the
technicians cut him short. It was one more unintentional point of
high drama in a dramatic half-hour, for the rest of Nixon's
sentence was not half so important as the effect of his dissolving
from the nation's TV screens in the midst of an appeal for Ike
Eisenhower.

     "I Couldn't Do It." When the red camera light blinked off,
Nixon mumbled an apology for going over his time. Then he turned
his face away and broke into sobs. "I couldn't do it," he said.
"It wasn't any good." Studio technicians bore down on him to
assure him that he was wrong; some of the TV camera crew were
weeping too. Mumbled Nixon, who rarely drinks: "Let's get out of
here and get a fast one. I need it."

     Next morning, dog-tired, he knew he had made one of the most
dramatically successful speeches in the history of U.S. politics.
Toward the end of his speech he had asked his listeners to send
their opinions on his case to the Republican National Committee,
and people were responding as they had never responded before to
a political speech. By week's end the national committee estimated
that it had heard from some 2,000,000 people by telegram, letter
or telephone. Some editorialists and a handful of columnists
(including Walter Lippmann, Max Lerner and Westbrook Pegler)
scoffed at Nixon's performance. And some professional television
critics tried unconvincingly to measure him off in all the cliches
of the cliche-ridden Manhattan television and advertising world.
(Wrote the New York World-Telegram and Sun's Harriet Van Horne:
"Senator Nixon was using what admen call the 'sincere' approach.")
But most newspaper editorial opinion flip-flopped thunderously to
Nixon's defense.

     Actually, the speech was cut to fit the charge it answered.
The attack on Nixon's fund as picked up by the New York Post
derived most of its power from the assumption that some of the mud
would stick and thus disqualify Nixon (and, through the doctrine
of guilt by association, Eisenhower) from continuing a moral
crusade against corruption & Communism. The specific legal and
moral case against Nixon was so foggy and so vague that Nixon
would have made the mistake of his life if he had tried to answer
with specific legal or ethical arguments. What he had to dispose
of was not a charge that he had violated a specific ethical
principle; he had to deal with the "Caesar's wife" argument, the
vague but very widespread suspicion that he was somehow not an
honest man. When he finished dealing with the attack, he had
established himself as a man of integrity and courage. In 30
minutes, by the exposure of his personality, he had changed from a
liability to his party to a shining asset.

     "We've Only begun." One man who felt the courage in the
speech was Ike Eisenhower -- perhaps the one man whom Nixon had
uppermost in his mind during the broadcast. Soon after he was off
the air Nixon got Ike's telegram of congratulations. There was
still no blanket vindication, but Ike suggested a meeting with
Nixon in Wheeling, W. Va. Said Nixon happily, as he hopped off for
Wheeling from Stapleton airport in Denver: "I'm going to Wheeling
to meet the man there who will be the next President of the United
States . . . I can tell you we've just begun to fight."


     The Acquittal

     Fifteen thousand people jammed Cleveland's Public Auditorium
to hear Ike Eisenhower on the night of Dick Nixon's radio &
television speech. Here too, emotions were wound tight, for Ike
was deep in Taft country and, with Taft's help, had been charming
the suspicious and captivating the hostile at whistle stops all
along the way. Ike stayed out of sight while the Cleveland
audience listened transfixed to the voice of Dick Nixon, piped
into the auditorium's public-address system. When Nixon finished,
the audience came to its feet cheering the empty rostrum. The band
burst into the Battle Hymn of the Republic, and the crowd chanted,
"We want Nixon!"

     Ohio's Congressman George Bender, Bob Taft's braying
cheerleader of last June's Republican Convention, took over as
master of ceremonies. He introduced Ohio's Senator John Bricker,
then went down the list to introduce every big- and little-wig in
sight. He called for a voice vote on Nixon, got a roar of ayes and
a few scattered noes. Then he called for another a got a floor-
quaking, indisputable aye. He called for singing and bellowed his
way through the band's repertoire. By this time the atmosphere was
electric: the crowd sensed that Bender was playing for time, and
that some big change of plans -- probably the Nixon speech -- was
detaining Ike Eisenhower.

     The Next Corner. Ike and Mamie watched Nixon on television in
the auditorium manager's office upstairs. By the time Nixon's
telecast ended, Mamie was dabbing at her eyes and Ike was jumping
with fight. He strode into an adjoining room with four members of
his staff, threw aside his prepared speech on inflation and began
scribbling notes for a new speech. At 10:30 p.m., to Bender's
enormous relief, Ike came into the auditorium. ("Here we go boys,"
he said over his shoulder. "You never know what's around the next
corner.") The crowd roared its welcome.

     "Tonight," said Ike, "I saw an example of courage. I have
seen many brave men in tough situations. I have never seen any
come through in better fashion than Senator Nixon did tonight." He
recalled a dramatic parallel. "In [my World War II] command, I had
a singularly brave and skillful leader. He was my lifelong friend.
We were intimate. He committed an error. It was a definite error;
there was no question about it. I believed that the work of that
man was too great to sacrifice . . . He has gone before the
highest judge of all, but . . . certainly George Patton justified
my faith."

     Gradually, as Ike went on, it came to his audience that he
was once again the commander, still reserving decision on Nixon
until he could talk with him face to face. He was sending Nixon a
telegram, said Ike.". . . To complete the formulation of . . .
[my] personal decision, I feel the need of talking to you, and
would be most appreciative if you could fly to see me at once.
Tomorrow night I shall be at Wheeling, West Virginia . . .
Whatever personal admiration and affection I have for you (and
they are very great) are undiminished." When Ike was through
talking, he ducked his head and walked, grim-faced and square-
jawed, from the rostrum. Bob Taft jumped up and shook his hand.
The crowd streamed out; it was obviously shaken and affected by a
great emotional experience.

     Two in a Booth. As the Eisenhower train jogged from station
to station across Ohio and West Virginia toward Wheeling, Ike's
feelings about Nixon became plainer at every stop. "He's going to
come in at Wheeling tonight," Ike said at Kenova, W. Va., "and he
and I are going to have a talk. He will come in swinging and he
will go out swinging, by golly. You know that." At Portsmouth,
Ohio, the commander demonstrated the communication frailties of a
campaign train. He hopped off the train and squeezed into a
telephone booth with Chief Strategist Sherman Adams while they put
through a call to work out details of the Wheeling meeting.

     That night, 45 minutes behind schedule, Nixon's plane touched
down in the chilly starlight at Wheeling at 9:57 p.m. When the
door opened, Pat Nixon and the staff left the plane, but Nixon
lagged behind to put on his coat. Ike Eisenhower, who had been
waiting at the airport for almost an hour, hesitated for a moment
outside the plane, then bounded up the steps into the cabin. Nixon
was startled. "Why, general, you shouldn't have come out here," he
stammered. "Dick," said Ike, "you're my boy." Ike had his arm
around Nixon's shoulder as they came down the steps in a flare of
flashbulbs.

     The two candidates talked alone in the back seat of a big
Chrysler sedan as the motorcade sped down from the mountain-top
airport, raced through Wheeling and drew up at the Wheeling Island
football stadium. There, a crowd of 8,000 had been shivering for
hours.

     Higher Than Before. Eisenhower read through his prepared
speech (on the strength of Republican unity) before he came to the
end and went on to what the audience, Dick Nixon and the rest of
the U.S. wanted to hear. Finally, in a hoarse voice, Ike began to
ad-lib: "Ladies and gentlemen, my colleague in this political
campaign has been subject to a very unfair and vicious attack. So
far as I am concerned, he has not only vindicated himself, but I
feel that he has acted as a man of courage and honor and, so far
as I am concerned, stands higher than ever before." The crowd went
wild.

     Nixon sat unsmiling on the platform, his eyes fixed on the
back of Ike's head, until Ike said: "And now I give you Dick
Nixon." For 15 minutes, Nixon rambled through an excited speech on
Candidate Eisenhower, while Ike watched with a fatherly smile.
After Nixon finished, he turned slowly toward his seat, wiped his
eyes with the back of his hand, then began to weep and buried his
head on the shoulder of California's senior Senator, Bill
Knowland.

     The crowd started to go home, and suddenly everything was
over. Ike and Nixon drove to the Wheeling railroad station and
walked slowly through the empty waiting room to a Pullman marked
"official." Nobody followed. Everybody was too exhausted.