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                                                                                August 25, 1952

REPUBLICANS

Fighting Quaker


     "Step right up, folks," the barkers were calling. "Hurree,
hurree, hurree!" The Ferris wheel was turning, the roller
coaster swooped down its artificial abysses, and the piccalilli
was waiting to be judged. But the most up-to-date attraction at
the Illinois State Fair last week was a good-looking,
dark-haired young man with a manner both aggressive and modest,
and a personality to delight any political barker. He seemed to
have everything -- a fine TV manner, an attractive family, a
good war record, deep sincerity and religious faith, a Horatio
Alger-like career, which had led him into notable
accomplishments on two major campaign issues: corruption and
Communism. He was Richard Milhous (pronounced mill house) Nixon,
Republican nominee for Vice President.

     Nixon (himself once a barker for a "carnie" wheel) had
come to Springfield to compete with the Democrats' star
attraction, Adlai Stevenson, on his own home grounds. In a
broiling sun, Dick Nixon spoke to 9,000 Illinois Republicans.
He proved himself no great orator but a hard-hitting performer.

     "Adlai Stevenson owes his nomination not to the people but
to the bosses," he cried. "Just yesterday he has sat in as an
ex- officio member of Harry Truman's cabinet...The voice will
be that of Stevenson, but the hand will be that of Harry
Truman." This charge, said Nixon, would surely be called unfair,
but there was a simple way for Stevenson to refute it: "I
challenge him to be specific and tell the American people in
plain English wherein he disagrees with the Truman-A.D.A.
program...The people have had enough of his fancy-striped-pants
language, meaning all things to all people. They want Stevenson
to get down to brass tacks..."

     Next day it was Stevenson's turn. As usual, he gave a good
performance. His English, however, was more polished than
plain, and he sidestepped Nixon's specific questions on whether
or not he favors Acheson's foreign policy, the Brannan Plan,
federal seizure of the tidelands. Comparing Alben Barkley, 74,
to Richard Nixon, 39, Stevenson remarked: "The Republican Party
is the party which makes even its young men seem old. The
Democratic Party is the party which makes even its old men seem
young."

     Childhood: Dishpan Hands. Dick Nixon hardly seems like an
old man, but he is old for his years. He was born in Yorba
Linda, near Los Angeles, where his parents had a lemon grove.
They wished it had been oranges which were the promissory golden
fruit that had helped attract Dick's maternal grandfather,
Quaker Franklin Milhous, to California from his home in
Butlerville, Ind. In 1897 he had loaded lumber, doors, windows,
cows and horses on a freight car and set out for the promised
land. At a Quaker church party, his daughter Hannah met Francis
Anthony Nixon, who had also come out from the Middle West. She
married him two years later. Their second son, Dick, worked in
the lemon grove as a youngster, chopping weeds and caring for
the trees. The grove itself turned out to be a lemon. The family
moved to Whittier and set up Nixon's Market, a general store and
filling station, which is still going strong today. (Nixon's
parents, still hale & hearty, have left the store to be managed
by their third son, Don.)

     Young Dick was a bright student. He made his debating
debut in the seventh grade on a boys' team upholding, against
the girls, the affirmative of "Resolved, that insects are more
beneficial than harmful." In characteristic fashion (he still
does his own painstaking research on legislation and speeches),
young Nixon went to an entomologist uncle and assembled a
formidable body of benign facts about the insect world. The
girls' team was routed.

     Nixon's mother was firm about church (three times on
Sundays and once at mid-week). Nixon played the piano for Sunday
school, still plays occasionally to relax (I"m not as good as
President Truman"). He worked his way through Whittier College
(present enrollment: 1,200), mostly by helping out in the family
store as cashier and delivery boy. Occasionally he helped his
mother to do the dishes. She recalls: "Richard always pulled the
blinds down tight so that people wouldn't see him with his hands
in a dishpan."

     Mrs. Nixon repaired and pressed the clothes for the whole
family, worked in the store during the day, and at night
thriftily emptied the shelves of fruit that might spoil in
another day and baked it into pies, which she put on sale in
the morning. Occasionally she would catch shoplifters, but,
instead of turning them over to the police, she would give them
a little sermon, always aware that the disgrace of an arrest
would hurt their families. Her son reflects that feeling. "Even
when I was convinced that Hiss was a traitor," says Nixon, "I
couldn't help thinking of his family and his friends, and how
hard this was on them."

     Law, a Wife & Washington. When Dick's older brother Harold
had TB, Mrs. Nixon took him to Prescott, Ariz., and in the
summers, Dick joined them, working as a barker for the wheel of
fortune at the Frontier Days Rodeo. He learned the knack of
drumming up customers and his booth became the most popular in
the show.

     The wheel of Nixon's own fortune carried him from Whittier
(he graduated second in his class) to a scholarship at Duke
University's law school. He lived with three other students in
a shack in a wooded patch a mile and a half from the campus.

     After Duke (1937), Nixon practiced law in Whittier, and
got a lot of divorce cases, to whose more explicit details he
listened with acute embarrassment. He also taught Sunday
school, joined the junior chamber of commerce, and acted in a
Little Theater group. In Night of January 16, he played a
district attorney opposite pretty Pat Ryan, a California redhead
who, like Dick, had worked her way through college and was a
teacher at the local high school. They were married in 1940. A
month after Pearl Harbor, Nixon went to work for the OPA in
Washington. Says he: "In OPA I learned respect for the thousands
of hard-working Government employees and an equal contempt for
most of the political appointees at the top. I saw Government
overlapping and Government empire-building firsthand."

     Fed up with Washington bureaucracy after eight months, and
pining for a more patriotic part, Nixon joined the Navy, asked
for sea duty, and was promptly assigned to Ottumwa, Iowa. There
he learned nothing about the sea but a good deal about the
Midwest. Eventually Nixon wound up as an operations officer
with SCAT (South Pacific Combat Air Transport Command), which
had the difficult and dangerous task of hauling cargo to the
combat zones. He spent 15 months in the South Pacific, once, on
Bougainville, was under bombardment for 28 out of 30 mights.
Says he: "I got used to it. The only things that really
bothered me were lack of sleep and the centipede."

     Back in the U.S., he worked for the Navy as a lawyer,
terminating war contracts. During one tour of duty in New York,
he watched Dwight Eisenhower's triumphal victory parade,
without an inkling that he, an obscure lieutenant commander in
the U.S. Navy, would a few years later be campaigning at the
general's side.

     Political Debut. In November 1945, a Republican
fact-finding committee in California's 12th Congressional
District was looking for a candidate, preferably a serviceman,
to run against popular Democrat Jerry Voorhis (who had held the
seat for ten years). A family friend of the Nixons saw the
group's ad in a paper, called Dick, then in Baltimore, and asked
him whether he was a Republican. Nixon replied that he had voted
for Tom Dewey in 1944. In that case, said the friend, Nixon
ought to come home and try for the job. Recalls Nixon: "Voorhis
looked impossible to beat. He was intelligent, experienced, came
from a well-known family. Why did I take it? I'm a pessimist,
but if I figure I've got a chance, I'll fight for it."

     Dick and Pat fought hard. Short of cash, they lived in a
bare little house on Whittier and were beset by a smelly,
cannibalistic brood of minks kept by the people next door (says
Nixon: "I've never had any use for minks since then, the Truman
variety or any other kind"). Against the advice of professional
politicians, Nixon took on his opponent in five public debates
before audiences largely favorable to Voorhis. Nixon argued
against the evil deeds of the New Deal as effectively as he had
urged the good works of the praying mantis and the syrphid fly.
He beat Voorhis by 15,592 votes.

     In Washington, Nixon banded together with a few other
freshmen Congressmen to exchange information on what was going
on in their various committees and in Congress as a whole. They
soon had 15 members, christened themselves "The Chowder and
Marching Club," and met informally (there was usually a bottle
of whisky but no chowder on the table; Nixon himself rarely
takes a drink). By being well informed and determined, the group
became a force in the House. Says one charter member: "Fifteen
guys can do a lot with members who know little about a given
bill."

     When he was offered a place on the House Un-American
Activities Committee, earnest Dick Nixon had quite a wrestle
with himself. On such occasions, he paces up & down, lights one
cigarette after another, talks to the ceiling, suddenly whirls
around as if he were trying to catch his problem unawares with
a new grip. The committee's reputation was low. Its chairman was
J. Parnell Thomas, eventually to be indicted and jailed for
fraud. Nixon's friend and fellow Congressman, California's
Donald Jackson, recalls how Nixon came into his office and
started pacing. "He felt the moral obligation to accept,"
Jackson recalls, "but he asked himself repeatedly, sometimes
aloud, if the condemnation of the committee by liberals was
sound, if there were the injustices and the irresponsibilities
complained of, if the committee could be brought to do a sound
job." As Nixon puts it: "Politically it could be the kiss of
death, but I figured it was an opportunity as well as a risk,
so I took it."

     Opportunity came a year and a half later, when a man
called Whittaker Chambers testified before the committee that
a man called Alger Hiss was a Communist.

     The Hiss Case. As Nixon later recalled it, almost all the
committee members believed Hiss when he denied Chambers'
charges, and the case was almost dropped then & there. Explains
Nixon: "I was impressed by Hiss's testimony. But then that
night, when I was reading the transcript as a lawyer, I became
convinced that he was hiding something. Everything he said was
too smooth, too carefully qualified."

     Nixon reasoned that if Chambers had known Hiss as well as
he said he did, he would know details of Hiss's life and habits
that a stranger would not know. In secret session, Nixon drew
from Chambers a mass of detailed information about Hiss. Then
Hiss, unaware of what Chambers testified, was asked about
certain details of his own life. His facts and Chambers' fell
together like tumblers in the lock of a safe.

     Most startling was the case of the prothonotary warbler.
Chambers remembered that Hiss's hobby was bird watching, and
that Hiss had once told him he had seen a prothonotary warbler.
Hiss was asked if he had ever seen one. He said he had, and the
incident fitted well with Chambers' previous testimony. This
was the turning point of the Hiss case. From then on, most of
the committee members were convinced that Hiss was lying. After
Chambers had produced the microfilms of State Department
documents from his famed pumpkin and the Justice Department was
fighting with the committee for possession of this new
evidence, Nixon -- on his way to Panama -- hurried back by plane
and Coast Guard cutter.

     Writes Chambers in Witness: "To [my children] he is always
`Nixie,' the kind and the good, about whom they will tolerate
no nonsense. His somewhat martial Quakerism sometimes amused
and always heartened me. I have a vivid picture of him in the
blackest hour of the Hiss case, standing by the barn and saying
in his quietly savage way (he is the kindest of men): `If the
American people understood the real character of Alger Hiss,
they would boil him in oil.'"

     Do the American people really "understand" about Hiss and
about the profound implications of the Hiss case? On this
question the man of ordinary common sense may be less confused
than many an "intellectual." There is no question that
Communists did infiltrate the Government of the U.S., and
exercised influence there as well as elsewhere in American life.
It is part of Nixon's job to show that if Americans want to rid
themselves of Communism and left-wingism at home, they must
throw the Democrats out.

     Last week the Republican view on this issue was baldly
stated by Senator Styles Bridge and Representative Joseph
Martin. They wrote: "Throughout the 82nd Congress, the
Democratic Administration continued its stubborn resistance to
the exposure of Communists, fellow travelers, other subversives
and their sympathizers in Government.

     "This is part of its long record which coddled Communists
at home and appeased them abroad, fought exposure of
subversives, employed congressional investigators to whitewash
suspects, and permitted Communists spies to enter the country,
and even to serve in the Government.

     "Such policies give Russia possession of atomic secrets,
built up the Communist menace to the free world, caused the
needless sacrifice of American lives in Korea, and put upon us
a crushing burden for national defense..."

     In other words, the Republicans will try to show the
tolerance of Communist infiltration issue as a broad and
continuing characteristic of the Democratic Party. Part of the
Republican ammunition is the failure of Democratic leaders to
make certain motions to get themselves off this hook. Secretary
Acheson said that he would not turn his back on Alger Hiss.
Harry Truman's last word on the Hiss case was to call it a "red
herring."

     This issue presents Stevenson with one of his most
delicate and difficult problems. The problem is further
complicated by the fact that Stevenson himself made a deposition
in support of Hiss's good reputation when they were acquainted
in Washington which was used by the Hiss defense. Stevenson's
friends think this action can be defended, and the Republicans
will doubtless try to make sure that the Democrats are kept busy
defending it. So far, Stevenson has made no effort to change the
Truman-Acheson line. Two weeks ago he called for resistance to
Communism abroad, and at the same time derided "the pursuit of
phantoms among ourselves."

     Nixon says: "It's up to Stevenson. If he concedes the
gravity of the domestic-Communism problem he can take the Hiss
issue right out of the campaign. But if he sticks to the line
[the "phantoms among ourselves"], the Hiss case will be very
much an issue. Stevenson is vulnerable, not on a basis of
loyalty, but certainly on the basis of judgment."

     Since Nixon has been one of the most effective harriers of
Communism in the U.S., he is inevitably compared to Joe
McCarthy. Some of the anti-anti-Communists have made the mistake
of calling Nixon "another McCarthy." There is nothing
McCarthyesque about Nixon's methods. He has laid down and
followed two rules: 1) "There must be no charge without evidence
to support it"; 2) "a charge that is false can harm our case
more than it can help." Nixon has been advocating a change of
rules to give more protection to people arraigned before
congressional committees.

     To the Senate. Largely as a result of Nixon's work on the
Hiss case, a group of young California Republicans urged him to
run for the Senate in 1950. Campaigning vigorously against the
Democrats' Actress-Politician Helen Gahagan Douglas, Nixon
toured the state in a station wagon, while Mrs. Douglas used a
helicopter. Nixon developed a memorable ploy against her,
obviously a major addition to Lifemanship. [A form of social
jujitsu invented by British Humorist Stephen Potter.] He audibly
and publicly worried about her health and, as a friend describes
it, "He'd get a real sad look on his face whenever he bumped
into her and say, `It's awfully hard on a woman, this
campaigning.'" He beat her by 680,947 votes.

     In the Senate he has fought Government corruption by
backing legislation to 1) waive the statue of limitations on
corruption cases; 2) enable federal grand juries to investigate
without waiting for permission from the courts or the Justice
Department; 3) make it an offense for a Government employee to
accept gifts from a political party.

     At Home. Nixon is a hard worker, never goes to the movies,
rarely allows himself a weekend trip. Once, when he promised his
two daughters (Patricia, 6, and Julie, 4) a picnic on a hot day,
they wound up in his air-conditioned Senate office. Nixon just
misses being handsome (he has fat cheeks and a duck-bill nose),
but he is what women call "nice-looking"; he given an impression
of earnest freshness.

     The Nixons live in a spick & span, two-story white brick
house at Spring Valley, a Washington suburb. Nixon no longer
does the dishes, and is generally bad at fixing things around
the house, but (after his strict Navy training) always neatly
hangs up his clothes. Pat Nixon is a good and enthusiastic
campaigner, and so is the rest of the family (although Julie has
lately taken a dislike to photographers). During Nixon's
senatorial campaign, when all the Nixons were on TV, Julie
thoughtfully picked her tiny nose in full view of the TV camera.
Said her father: "Julie honey, you have either just won or lost
me the election."

     "It isn't as if I were running for office myself," said
Nixon in Denver last week. "I am out here to help General
Eisenhower get elected." No passive running mate, Nixon has
been conferring with Eisenhower steadily during recent weeks,
has offered firm and sometimes critical suggestions on how the
campaign should be run. Nixon himself is preparing to travel up
& down the land, particularly to places that Eisenhower will
not cover. Nixon will go to New Hampshire this week, also
intends to campaign in Republican Maine -- a state, like a
woman, he thinks, should never have the feeling of being taken
for granted.

     Nixon's main theme will be the main Republican theme: the
need for a change. He will ask Americans to stop traveling the
Democrats' route, and get on another train where the engineer
has a firmer grip on the throttle, clearer ideas of where he is
going.

     Back home in Whittier last week, the folks were confident.
Said Frank Nixon: "With Eisenhower and him together, they'll
make things snap. They'll win -- I don't care if he is my boy."