Nixon's Secret (13 page)

Nixon would dissemble with his own wife and advisors other than Chotiner about his likelihood of being offered the vice presidential nomination. The Nixon family would go through a prolonged discussion of the merits of Nixon accepting the second slot. He would also play coy with the press. When asked by reporters, Nixon would say that the chance of him getting the vice presidential spot was too remote for him even to consider it. Of course, while he was saying that, Nixon was already meeting with Herbert Brownell and practically escorting Eisenhower around during his visit to the California delegation. When a
Los Angeles Times
journalist asked him about an Eisenhower-Nixon ticket, Dick said, “It’s the first time I ever heard of it, and I expect it will be the last.” However, Dick knew better. The final selection of Nixon was ratified Friday afternoon in a smoky room at the Conrad Hilton where Dewey, Cabot Lodge, and Brownell were present.
18

It is important at this point to draw a distinction between Eisenhower’s public perception during his presidency and the reality of Dwight David Eisenhower. Professor Fred Greenstein began a historical reappraisal of Eisenhower in his seminal work
The Hidden Hand Presidency.
Despite the role Eisenhower cultivated with the press as a solid but somewhat bumbling and nonpolitical naïf, Eisenhower was in fact a cunning, devious, and brilliant political strategist. He purposely used tortured syntax and obfuscation with the press to hide his real motives and efforts. Eisenhower would claim that he hadn’t been aware that it was his prerogative to choose a vice presidential running mate after winning the nomination. I find this unlikely. In truth, Dewey had the nomination wired as long as Nixon delivered in California, which he did.

Nixon would be sweating in his overheated hotel room with Pat while trying to nap when the phone call from Brownell came through. Eisenhower wanted to meet with him immediately to extend the vice presidential nomination. Brownell called the room and informed Nixon’s campaign people that he had been chosen by Ike’s closest advisors and, at that same time, Brownell was also informing Eisenhower. “We picked you,” Brownell told Nixon. “[Ike asked] if you could come see him right away. . . . That is, assuming you want it.” Nixon wanted it, and though he was sleep-deprived, sweating, and needed a fresh shave, he quickly went to the general’s suite and accepted.
19

Eisenhower gave Brownell a list of six or seven candidates that he would approve of, and Nixon was one of them. When Ike authorized Brownell to hold a meeting of Eisenhower campaign leaders to choose the second spot on the ticket, “Dewey carried the day when he presented Nixon’s name.” In fact, Brownell admits he knew of Dewey’s “decision to secure a place for Nixon on the ticket” for several months. “Before the meeting was ever convened, I knew that Nixon was the candidate.”
20

Eisenhower would meet privately with his young subordinate. The general made it clear that he intended to stay above the political fray to win the vote of millions of Democrats and independents who revered him as a war hero. Nixon’s designated job was to carry the partisan load. Nixon was to take the point in attacking the Democrats, presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson, and Senator John Sparkman, the segregationist the Democrats had nominated for vice president. This would be the division of labor that would ultimately cause Nixon to be among the most polarizing and controversial figures in American political life. Eisenhower would use Nixon as his attack dog while the affable general avoided politics. Nixon, for his part, would take on his role with relish, attacking the Truman-Acheson foreign policy calling Truman’s state department “the Cowardly College of Communist Corruption” and charging that Truman, Acheson, and Stevenson were “traitors” to the great principles of the Democratic Party. Truman would never forgive Nixon for this slur, claiming the Californian had impugned his patriotism.

The Eisenhower-Nixon campaign used the most sophisticated Madison Avenue techniques, pioneering the use of television ads to promote the election of a presidential candidate. The medium of television was young, but the audiences who tuned in for
Texaco Star Theatre Featuring Milton Berle
or
Bishop Fulton J. Sheen’s Program Life Is Worth Living
would see the first primitive TV spots using the slogan “I Like Ike.” Eisenhower himself proved an uneven campaigner, but improved with time. His superstar status really rendered his performance unimportant. He was Eisenhower.

* * *

On September 14, 1952, Peter Edson, a reporter for the Newspaper Enterprise Association, questioned Nixon about a campaign fund based on a leak from a disgruntled supporter of Governor Warren. “He told me the basic facts and said it was all right to use them,” Edson said and added that Nixon was “perfectly willing to have the thing published.”
21
Nixon also referred Edson to Smith for further inquiry. The column the journalist wrote on September 18 was, as Nixon described it, “fair and objective.”

Leo Katcher of the
New York Post
also interviewed Smith. Katcher’s story ran with published the headline, “Secret Rich Men’s Trust Fund Keeps Nixon in Style Far Beyond His Salary.”
22
The article referred to Nixon’s “Scandal Fund,” where he was accused of taking money from the $18,000 fund raised by a group of his supporters. UPI picked up the story as “Nixon Scandal Fund.” The calls for Nixon’s resignation ensued from the Democratic National Committee.

Nixon’s detractors’ accusations of improper use of funds to reimburse himself for campaign, of taking money from the $18,000 fund raised by a group of his supporters, came at this critical time for Nixon in his political career. “This should blow that moralizing, unscrupulous, double-dealing son-of-a-bitch out of the water,” said
New York Post
editor Jimmy Wechsler. “I’d love to see Ike’s face when he finds out that Tricky Dick, his partner in the fight against Democratic corruption, has been on the take for the last two years.”
23
With the accusations of shady funding, Nixon’s place on the Republican ticket as Eisenhower’s running mate was seriously compromised.

As aforementioned, in 1950, California Congressman Richard Nixon had beaten Representative Helen Gahagan Douglas in the US Senatorial race. Senator Nixon’s annual salary was $12,500, (roughly equivalent to $117,600 in 2014). His $75,000 expense account covered the costs of his twelve-member staff, office supplies, telephone and telegram services, and other expenses. Murray Chotiner and campaign chairman Bernie Brennan proposed they create a year-round campaign that would continue during Nixon’s six-year term as senator in preparation for a run for reelection in 1956.

Nixon’s aides suggested they appeal for funds from his supporters to finance this campaign, to have the means for Nixon to travel, to make speeches, etc. Campaign treasurer Dana Smith suggested “the fund,” which he would administer to pay for Nixon’s political expenses. Nixon was to remain uninformed of the names of the contributors.

“The fund had been carefully established, limiting contributions to individuals, not corporations, and to a maximum single contribution of $500, so that no one could be accused of buying special favors,” said Nixon. “The money was solicited from regular party contributors and it was administered by Smith as trustee. The funds were kept in a Pasadena bank and were subject to regular audits.”
24

The fund had raised $16,000 by October 30, 1951, mostly from contributors in the Los Angeles area. Nixon spent about $12,000 of that total. His Christmas card expenses for 1950 and 1951 totaled over $4,000. The fund only raised $2,200 from November 1951 to July 1952.

When inquisitive reporters on the campaign trail brought up the topic of the trust fund, Nixon dismissed the rumor as smear tactics by Communist hatemongers. In California, at Marysville Depot, when asked about the fund, Nixon said, “the purpose of those smears is to make me, if possible, relent and let up on my attacks on the Communists and the crooks in the present administration. As far as I am concerned, they’ve got another guess coming: because what I intend to do is to go up and down this land, and the more they smear me the more I’m going to expose the Communists and the crooks and those that defend them until they throw them all out of Washington.”
25

The
Washington Post
and
New York Herald-Tribune
called for Eisenhower to dump Nixon. Campaign manager Murray Chotiner kept this from Nixon, but a reporter informed the candidate of the condemning editorials. Newspapers such as the
Sacramento Bee
and the
Pasadena Star-News
published stories that painted Nixon in the most accusatory fashion as taking money for his personal luxury lifestyle. The
Pasadena Star-News
reported that the Nixon fund requested from one contributor a donation because the Nixon family needed a larger home with maid service—both of which the Nixon’s couldn’t afford. Over one hundred newspapers had fueled the suspicions of secrecy and wrongdoing, which motivated public protests accusing Nixon of taking “bribe money” and repeating slogans that targeted Pat Nixon: “What are you going to do with the bribe money?” and “No mink coats for Nixon—Just Cold Cash.” Murray Chotiner, always the disciplined tactician, had an idea: find a way to circumvent the press. “What we have to do is to get you the biggest possible audience so that you can talk over the heads of the press to the people,” said Chotiner.
26
The ploy was a nationally televised, prime-time spot. “This is politics,” Chotiner said in an attempt to embolden Nixon. “The prize is the White House.”
27

President Eisenhower was less than supportive of his running mate and, as noted, typical to his style, uncommitted to a strong public opinion on the matter.

The Eisenhower-Nixon ticket would sweep thirty-nine states, winning an Electoral College majority of 442 over 89 and carrying the popular vote by six million. As vice president, Richard Nixon was one rung closer to his ultimate goal: the White House.

“I have come to the conclusion that you are the one who has to decide what to do,”
28
was the only advice the presidential candidate privately offered Nixon. Nixon did receive positive advice from his aides to stay on the ticket. Nixon’s mother, Hannah, sent a telegram in support of her son. Some messages to Nixon were discouraging, however. Minnesota Governor Harold Stassen urged Nixon to resign as Eisenhower’s running mate, while Murray continued to push the idea to counterattack. “If you get off this ticket because Eisenhower forces you off, or if you do so on your own volition, Eisenhower won’t have the chance of a snowball in hell to win in November,” Chotiner said. “Your friends and those who supported Taft will never forgive him, and the Democrats will beat him over the head for his lack of judgment in selecting you in the first place. This whole story has been blown up out of all proportion because of the delay and indecision of the amateurs around Eisenhower. Every time you get before an audience, you must win them.”
29

When an appearance on
Meet the Press
was suggested, Chotiner quickly shot down the idea. Nixon, Chotiner believed, must attack the issue alone, without interference from combative news hosts.
30
A half hour of time following
Texaco Star Theatre featuring Milton Berle
was agreed upon.

Nixon and his aides worked on the speech throughout the night up to the morning of September 22. The RNC raised the $75,000 for the thirty-minute TV time slot, and Eisenhower’s staff obtained sixty NBC affiliates to broadcast the speech along with CBS and Mutual radio coverage. The Eisenhower-Nixon campaign aides arranged for it to be broadcast from the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood.

On the flight to Los Angeles, Nixon made notes that included the accusations that had upset Pat Nixon regarding their family’s finances. He thought of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Fala speech in which FDR issued a sarcastic response to Republican charges that he had sent a battleship to rescue his dog, Fala. Nixon remembered the dog given as a gift to his children.

On September 23, an hour before Nixon presented his case to the nation, New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey, a member of the Eisenhower inner circle, called Nixon using his code name “Mr. Chapman” and suggested that Nixon publicly rescind the nomination for vice president. “If they want to find out they’d better listen to the broadcast,” Nixon shouted at Dewey, “and tell them I know something about politics too.”
31
Nixon was not going to resign on national television, but Dewey’s message was worrisome. Nixon would recall that Dewey “went on to say that he was sure that, in view of the close relationship between those with whom he had talked and Eisenhower, they would not have asked him to call unless this represented Eisenhower’s view as well as their own.”
32
“It was Nixon’s first experience with that side of Eisenhower,” wrote Jeffrey Frank in
Ike and Dick
, “the invisible commander who liked to issue an order and have it carried out as if the order had arisen spontaneously.”
33
Nixon knew Eisenhower and his team had deserted him.

“Dick looked like someone had smashed him,” said longtime Nixon confidant Pat Hillings.
34
But Nixon’s allegorical speech would thwart those in the Eastern establishment around Eisenhower who had decided to dump him.

Richard Nixon delivered the television address that came to be known as the Checkers speech on his own terms. Nixon sat at a desk and began with, “My fellow Americans, I come before you tonight as a candidate for the vice presidency, and as a man whose honesty and integrity have been questioned” and that the best response to smear “is to tell the truth.”

Nixon defended himself and appealed to viewers nationwide to contact the Republican National Committee and to ask whether he should stay on the ticket. Nixon stated the fund was wrong if he had profited from it or if it had been a secret fund. He went on to assure the public that not a penny was misspent for his 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 United States.” He said the fund was no secret and there were no special favors doled out to contributors. Nixon gave an angry response that struck a note in public consciousness: as far as improper gifts, Nixon said there were no mink coats for anyone in his family, and he was “proud of the fact that Pat Nixon wears a good Republican cloth coat, and she’s going to continue to.”