Mark Malcomson
Nixon and Eisenhower: Unlikely Bedfellows

Mark Malcomson | Nixon and Eisenhower: Unlikely Bedfellows | 03.12.24

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- Good evening, everybody. Good afternoon even. We’re at that special time of year where America gets an hour closer to Britain for a week or two weeks. And so it’s five o'clock in England, and I think it’s one o'clock on the east coast. So, welcome to everybody. My name’s Mark Malcolmson. I’m occasional lecturer on, kind of American History, as part of Lockdown University, and so I’m delighted to be with you this evening. And a couple of weeks ago, some of you might have joined me for a session on generals and presidents, and it was about Eisenhower in context. And we discussed quite a lot about Dwight Eisenhower. And we had a chance to explore his history and his context, about America’s occasional penchant for generals becoming political leaders. Today we’re going to look at an interesting twist, and it’s, really, context of Eisenhower and Nixon together. I know my good friend, William Tyler, yesterday did Nixon’s presidency, and obviously there’s an enormous amount to discuss around Nixon’s presidency. The ups and the downs of Nixon’s presidency. But what I wanted to do is look at the hows and the wherefores of the relationship between Eisenhower and Nixon.

But not just the personal relationship, the kind of political relationship, and how they balanced, contradicted, and the whole kind of history of a period of time was influenced massively by the two of them. I think it’s worth… And this is probably going to be quite controversial. I’ve been reflecting quite a lot on the stages of the Republican party since the Second World War. Obviously the Republican party got a battering as a result of being in power through the 1920s and into the Great Depression. And they were out of power at the presidential level for 20 years. They initially kind of campaigned and rejected the New Deal and the Roosevelt’s agenda. And then, as they realised that there was a consensus forming around it, they started to morph themselves. And I would say, and this is my own thing, and I’m sure I’ll get a stream of thoughts or questions as a result, is I think there are three phases of the Republican Party, and you can personify them to some degree by presidents and presidential candidates. You have the Dewey-Eisenhower-Nixon kind of period.

Basically the Republicans under Tom Dewey, to a certain extent, Wendell Willkie, start to accept the New Deal as something they will not necessarily embrace, but they will live with. But you will also have this change in the Republican party around internationalism versus isolationism. Remember, the party in the 1920s and the late… It’s straight after the first World War, were very much, “We need to go back, we need to retreat from this embroilment in Europe and world affairs, and we need to focus on home.” And that carried on, really, right the way through the 1930s. And even the Democrat party struggled to get a consensus, even once war had started in Europe in 1940, Roosevelt runs on a campaign of, “I’ll keep us in peace.” He knew in reality that that wasn’t true, but America wasn’t there yet at the end of 1940. But what you see is a Republican party who embrace the elements of the New Deal and the social security net, and the various other bits of that that are put in place, but they also move from this isolationist agenda.

And I think Tom Dewey, the governor of New York, who we’ll talk about a little bit in a minute, Eisenhower, Nixon, are all part of that new consensus, in my view. Gerald Ford, to a limited degree, for that two-year sort of tail end. But then you get a second phase, and that second phase for me isn’t tidy because it overlaps, and you see it first with… It’s kind of the Goldwater-Reagan-Bush kind of approach. And you have Barry Goldwater, who runs in 1964 for the Republicans disastrously. The Republicans get beaten by Lyndon Johnson. Goldwater gets beaten by Lyndon Johnson. Lyndon Johnson scores the highest percentage of the popular vote in history, a 61%, and the Republicans get an absolute thrashing. But it is seen, as we look now, back in the longer scheme of things, it is seen as a start of a turning point. And Goldwater is seen as a forerunner for Ronald Reagan and a consensus around tax cutting, a consensus around very forceful foreign policy. You know, the areas of accommodation, and containment, and detente, that also was part of Eisenhower, Nixon. With the Soviet Union.

You move on to a much more proactive, aggressive anti-communist thing, particularly under Reagan. But Bush father and son kind of continue that. And then there’s a third stage, which I think we are in now. And I would say it didn’t start with Donald Trump, it didn’t start with a president per se, but I think I would identify it starting with Newt Gingrich. A more belligerent, provocative, confrontational Republican party that is going at culture wars, going at fights, and really taking a fight home against the Democrats. And Trump is a phenomenon in his own right. But you see, he’s trailed for about 20 years, in my view, even though… And in the same way as Goldwater, doesn’t… The Goldwater sort of fewer things does not sort of see light for another 16-or-so years after ‘64. And the same way as Gingrich, you get the win in Congress in 1994, but you don’t really see it in the presidency, that type of thing, until Trump. So what I’m going to look at to a large degree is that Ike/Richard Nixon, kind of combination. I think it’s also important to, and I was emailing backwards and forwards with a very good friend of mine, who I think so… Joe Blake in the States.

And he says, “Well, I hope you don’t forget Tom Dewey,” and in fact, actually he’s good. I’ve got him right at the top of my notes. And of course, Tom Dewey was, Dewey was the Republican candidate both in '44 and 1948. He wasn’t quite a sacrificial lamb, let’s say Alf Landon was in '36 against Roosevelt, or Willkie, somewhere in between. And he ran a good race, Dewey. He’d been governor of New York, he was governor of New York, and he ran a better-than-expected race in '44. And as a consequence, it wasn’t automatic that he was the candidate in '48, but he kind of earned the right to have a go when Roosevelt wasn’t on the ticket. And of course it is the great unexpected kind of win of all time, until 2016, was the Chicago Tribune front page, which is “Dewey Beats Truman.” Harry Truman kind of comes from behind and wins the election. And that consigns Dewey to kind of presidential history. You know, he goes twice, he fails twice. It’s thank you and goodnight. He stayed on as governor of New York, as a very successful governor of New York. It’s funny to think nowadays of Republican governors of New York, but that’s, you know, it’s considered to be a liberal Democrat state.

But actually, to be honest, there’s been a lot of Republican governors right up until George Pataki recently. So you see, he’s a spent force, to some degree, but he isn’t. And he plays the kind of godfather role to actually the next rollout of the Republican party. And it comes in kind of two bits. There’s the Eisenhower bit and there’s the Nixon bit. But I’m going to just share some slides now, as giving you kind of context. And let me just pull these up and hopefully everybody can see these. You see, first off, Nixon. And we’re going to talk predominantly about Nixon, as I said, I discussed a lot about Eisenhower the other week. Nixon is a phenomenon. He’s a incredibly complex character, and we’ve kind of got to know him over the years as Tricky Dicky, as the Watergate guy, as the guy who resigned in imminent danger of impeachment. He’s all of those things. But he was an incredibly accomplished electoral winner in so many ways. And he’s born, he’s from a very poor family in California, where his older brother dies young. It has a big effect on him.

For those of you who have been to the Nixon Library, which I thoroughly recommend, in Yorba Linda, in the outskirts of LA… You know, he’s born in a small house. He’s…. I have this very loose theory about America likes rich presidents or poor presidents. The middle class really don’t get a looking very often. And a poor boy. And of course, up until now, it’s sort of been men, poor boy done-well, or Patrician, kind of comes and spreads largesse. They’re kind of the two things that… The duality, certainly, for the last 100 years or so, of the presidency. Nixon is very much in the Lyndon-Johnson kind of role of the poor boy done-well. And he basically can’t get to go to Harvard. He has a big chip on his shoulder. Actually, there’s a whole conversation I can have about the similarities between Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson, in terms of their insecurities, their behaviours fueled by, you know, class system, whatever it might be. But that’s a kind of separate lecture. This time he goes to Whittier College, he then goes to Duke University to study law, and he comes back and starts practising .

He goes into the military, as his generation did, as Lyndon Johnson did, as John Kennedy did, doesn’t see much frontline action, which is fine. Actually becomes quite a… He’s a very good gambler, and he wins a lot of money from his fellow soldiers, and so much so that he has the deposit on his house by the time he’s discharged. And he goes back to California and is seen as a potential rising star. I mean, he’s still very young. He’s born in 1913, so he’s kind of in his early '30s when he gets back from the war, and he’s spotted by talent spotters in the Republican party in California. Now, it’s worth, again, thinking about, I was commented about New York before, which worth thinking about California, is that if you look at the presidency between 1948 and 1984, those, the four… Sorry, eight presidential elect. Sorry, 10 presidential elections during that period, a Republican from California, he’s on the ticket 8 out of 10 times. Now, in fact, that’s a bit of a funny one because in a way, Richard Nixon is three out of the eight, twice as Vice President and three times as a presidential candidate.

So, you know, Californian republicans play an hugely important part in the Republican party, and yet we now have a very clear thought line of, “Oh, you know, Democrat, Democrat, Democrat.” To my recollection, with the exception of Kamala Harris, that she’s the only Democrat from California who’s ever been on a national ticket. Of course, the previous president, Republican president, Herbert Hoover, was the first President from California for the Republicans. So you’ve got this important party in California, and they find, they’re looking for talent, and they see Richard Nixon’s talent. He decides in 1946 to, with the support, to run against an incumbent Democrat, Jerry Voorhees. I’m sorry if I’ve said that wrong. He’s the Californian 12th district, and he’s done well, he’s new dealer, et cetera, et cetera. And Nixon isn’t necessarily expected to win, except he’s got good financial backing. And to be honest, it’s a very, very good year to be a Republican.

This is the year that the Republicans reap the benefits of, you know, basically 14 years of Democrats being in charge of both the presidency and both houses of Congress. And they basically sweep to win the election, and they carry how much that vote of, “Nixon winning is a Nixon win,” and how much of that vote is a Republican wave, is subject to debate. But he gets into Congress, and he joins Congress as part of the majority party, which is a good thing on one hand because, you know, with House of Representatives, it’s really rubbish to be in the minority. All the pickings are in the majority, but it is also… Whilst it’s not as high bound with seniority and longevity in the Chamber, it’s still not great to be the complete newbie. You are at least on the winning side. But at the same time, you are very low down on the pecking order. He doesn’t get his first choice of committees. And committees are very important. But he does get on a couple of committees that really make a difference.

And by 1948, he’s on the House’s Un-American Activities Committee, or else beautifully known as HUAC. And of course, you are now starting to see the paranoia, justifiably in some cases, around the menace of communist infiltration. Stalin, the great wartime ally, has now been rewritten in history as the enemy, and rightly so, and people are worried about. And the Republican party plays on this a lot. Where are these communists? How much have they infiltrated our lives? And the House Un-American Activities Committee is at the forefront, prior to McCarthy. And McCarthy is a whole separate issue. Prior to McCarthy. They start to investigate the government and various other parts of American society for sort of fellow travellers, communist infiltration, et cetera, et cetera. And it’s not the frenzy that starts under McCarthy, but it’s a drumbeat. And of course, the Republicans see this as an opportunity to berate the Democrats, as well as the patriotic thing of, “Let’s find out if they’re a communist.”

So it’s a double win for them. They’re pushing an agenda that’s valid to some degree, And they’re also finding the, you know, the Democrats have been in charge, and this is what’s happened. If you think about Eisenhower’s campaign, he runs on Korea, communism, and corruption, during his campaign. So, you see this is a good thing. And Nixon’s in the right place. I won’t go into the long story of Alger Hiss, but I think it’s a very interesting one because there are so many… I think all politicians have pivotal moments, in terms of where they’re going to succeed, where they’re going to fail, what happens, et cetera, et cetera. But to look at Richard Nixon, there are so many times that the road forks and it could have gone disastrously wrong. And at the end, obviously in 1974, it does, but up until a certain point, he always ends up on the right side. He’s a phenomenally lucky politician, or remarkably astute, whichever one you would like to go for. But Alger Hiss is State Department officials, very senior, very, very well connected to the establishment. And there’s a guy called Whitaker Chambers who is, testifies that he’s been a card-carrying communist, and he names his as somebody who had been at meetings with him, et cetera.

Hiss denies it, Chambers doubles down. Nixon, who’s still a relatively junior member of this committee, decides to take up the course, and at various points, Hiss very much has the better of him. He’s very accomplished. Nixon comes over as arguably too aggressive, lowly, Hiss rises above it. He’s quite Patrician. Lots of support behind the scenes from the establishment. And yet at the same time, the press are kind of giving him the benefit of the doubt. And it looks at one point, where Chambers sort of says, “I’ve got microfiche film proving, documents, then Kodak come out, and say, 'Well, that can’t be true, because that type of photographic film didn’t exist.’” It’s meant to be 1938. It didn’t exist until 1945. And Nixon thinks his career’s ruined. He thinks he’s prosecuted this guy. He is made a name of going after him, and it’ll come out that he’s already being presumed he’s petty, and now it’s going to be proved that he’s just a nasty, vicious man. But then Kodak suddenly realised they made a mistake, and it’s actually the film came out in 1945… Sorry, 1938. Sorry, I got my dates wrong.

They said the film didn’t come out till 1945 and the alleged photographs were meant to be taken in 1938. Actually, that type of film had come out in 1938. So it validated it was. And later in State Department and also Soviet documents, it was proved that Alger Hiss had been a spy for the Soviet Union during this period. It’s a massive win for Nixon. But what it does is, polarises, and Nixon’s kind of career is made to realise that Nixon is a great polarizer. If you think some, more recent politicians polarise, they do, but Nixon kind of was ahead of this game. So the Republicans love him, he’s gone and shown them that there’s corruption right the way up into the State Department. It’s proved all they’ve been saying. It adds fuel to the fire of. “These damn Democrats have been in charge for too long,” et cetera. And the Democrats and the Democrat-leading press are horrified, they kind of think he’s won.

But has he won fairly? And it starts this relationship with Nixon and the press, that feeds off each other for decades, and ultimately makes Nixon a more paranoid character that then starts to create actions that then make it worse, et cetera. And it’s the beginning, in my view, of a vicious spiral that doesn’t end well for kind of anybody concerned. He goes into Congress and… At the House of Representatives has been a success, and you know, those four years. But he realises that there’s a lot of congressmen and women, but actually if you want to do well, and particularly if you’re interested in foreign affairs, where he is, the Senate’s the place to be. And he realises that there’s a big opportunity and that the people behind him who supported him, encourage him to go for a vacant, until recently, Democrat seat that’s open in 1950. And he goes against a Democrat candidate, Helen Gahagan Douglas, who’s married to Mervin Douglas, the film star. And it’s a real battle. It’s one of those battles, it’s an off year.

So it’s a midterm election, so they’re not… But people aren’t preoccupied with the presidential level, so they’re looking for interesting races. And this becomes one of those really interesting battles that Nixon goes hot hammer and tongs, as he’d done against all his… And calls her The Pink Lady, “She’s even pink down to her underwear.” Literature correlates her voting record with a very sort of almost pseudo-communist, from New York, congressman, saying she’s no different from him. She’s not covered in glory in this. She coins the phrase Tricky Dicky, she has a go at him. It’s a kind of dirty campaign, but he’s much better at it than her. And he wins by a landslide in 1950, and goes to the Senate. Now, for me, that’s really interesting. So he is now 37 years old.

He is been a congressman, a member of the House of Representatives for four years. He’s now a senator, and he’s still very young. Well, the interesting thing about Richard Nixon is he’s one of those people who was young but never felt like he was young. He always looked much older than he was. And he had that kind of demeanour of, you know… If he’d have won in in 1960, he would’ve been the youngest elected president in history, not John Kennedy. We, of course, know Teddy Roosevelt was the youngest President in history, but he didn’t get elected to the presidency when he became President. So Nixon has done phenomenally well, phenomenally early, but he’s done it in a way to really create fans and enemies at the same time. And he gets into the Senate, again, as I said, Senate is very bound by kind of seniority, particularly then. And so you are way down on the pecking list, but he’s got a name and he’s got national name recognition. And what happens is that, and we talked about this a couple of weeks ago, Dwight Eisenhower is very much being wooed by both parties, and he declares himself as a Republican, and two people are instrumental in bringing him on side to the Republican party and encouraging to say that, “We need you, we need you to be the presidential candidate for us because we need… It’s going to be a Republican year, but if Senator Taft from Ohio, from the isolationist wing of the party, wins, all that you’ve worked for will go backwards.”

So, paraphrase of many, many months, of course, and years of wooing. And two people like that, with Tom Dewey, who we’ve talked about. And also Henry Cabot Lodge, who was a Republican senator for Massachusetts. And they persuade Eisenhower to run. There is a battle between Eisenhower and Taft for the nomination. Eisenhower wins it handily, wins the first nomination at the convention. And then of course, you look at who’s going to be his vice presidential candidate. Eisenhower has come on the scene. Politics, as a novice and newcomer. He’s somebody that is just a wow, but he’s very well known, probably the most well-known person in America. He’s the guy that won the war, after all. And so, you know, this is most incredibly trailed for, you know, years in advance. And so that bit, once the nomination’s done, but it’s who’s going to be his vice president? And this is where various bits of the Republican establishment step in, and Julian Cabot Lodge both look at Nixon, and they think he’s actually a very good balance. And why is he a balance?

Well, Eisenhower is about to become the oldest president in history. Whilst Nixon will not be the youngest Vice President, he’ll be very young, 39 years old. So he’s young. Eisenhower’s from Kansas. California is becoming increasingly important. They’re both internationalists, but you know, Nixon’s a younger breed. They’re, you know… Eisenhower’s campaign is going to be about being very presidential from the outgo. He’s not going to get himself dirty with politics. Nixon’s very keen to roll up his sleeves and be very pugnacious. So it’s a good match. And Earl Warren, who is the governor of California, who has been the vice presidential candidate in ‘48, is also keen on Nixon as well. So you see Nixon becomes sort of inevitable in that process. And Eisenhower asked him. They don’t really, I mean, Nixon has visited Eisenhower a couple of times in Brussels when he was supreme commander of NATO.

But you haven’t, up until this point, seen… They haven’t got a real relationship. They know each other vaguely. And that was the way of vice presidencies. Often Vice Presidents and Presidents, candidates didn’t know each other. They were married to each other through the political machinations of their party. It’s received well. There’s balance. The liberals kind of get upset, but, you know, and the Republican party’s happy. But it starts to go wrong quite quickly. And it’s found out very quickly that there’s a fund that’s… As I said, Nixon is poor. He hasn’t had a real chance to make a lot of money. So he and Pat Nixon don’t have a lot of cash around. So they’ve been supported by rich Californians who’ve been paying mostly legitimate expenses. And no different, you know, Adela Stevenson, the Democrat candidate, had a similar fund. But it becomes an issue and it becomes a big issue. And Eisenhower starts to worry about this.

Eisenhower’s people start to worry about it. Tom Dewey, ever the middleman… Eisenhower, by the way, for a great general, hates confrontation, never does his own dirty work, and always tries to get other people to. Dewey, he phones him up and says, “Well, are you really sure he should stay on the ticket? You know, maybe he should come off the ticket.” And Nixon is really unsure. He’s absolutely thrown into the fire on this one. Pat Nixon, who never really likes politics, though, realises, “If you go off the ticket now, your career will be ruined. Yeah, you’ve still got four years left in the Senate, but you will never be able to go for high office again. And it is going to be the ruin of you.” And what they do is Eisenhower phones him up, and uhms and ahs, and says, “Well, of course, it’s your choice.” And Nixon kind of is encouraged by… The Republican party buy a half hour advertising space on television, and it becomes one of the most watched pieces of television in American history.

Television’s still a relatively new campaign medium and nothing like this has ever happened before. And Richard Nixon and Pat go on stage, and basically he goes through the family finances to show how in debt they are, how much they have, no money, et cetera, et cetera. They are not kind of capitalising on his political standing at all. And at the end he pulls what, in hindsight, we think, look back, and he’s incredibly hokey, and kind of cheap in a way. He goes, “But, you know, there is one thing… I was on in Texas, and I was talking, and I said, "Oh, my daughters won’t have wanted a dog.” And this nice man sent us a dog and that dog’s called Checkers. And I’m damned if I’m going to give that dog up.“ And he makes it about the dog, and that’s what people remember anyway. Long and short of it is people are, you know, from the left, people are outraged of, "How… Bloody hell,” you know? “Really, he’s talking about a dog?” Yeah, of course, it’s sentimental. Look at that dog, it’s a lovely dog. And these are… This picture is his notes from the actual speech that he gave.

And he basically says at the end, “If you want me to stay on the ticket, basically send telegrams to Republican party headquarters.” He’s not sure, comes off stage no idea. 'Cause obviously it’s blank. It’s a bit like me doing one of these. I have no idea whether you’re thinking I’m an idiot or a genius. He has no idea. He’s speaking into a camera. His immediate family go, “Yeah, it’s good, it’s all right, it’s good, and everything.” But what happens is this tsunami of positivity kind of goes to him, and he gets an overwhelming endorsement from the Republican faithful around the country. So much so that basically Eisenhower, who has… And this is… Nixon becomes quite known for his profane languages, mainly from his tapes years later. But he actually is on the phone with Eisenhower, going, who’s a millionaire, going, you know. “Get off the pot or do whatever.”

And Eisenhower does a complete roundabout turn, gets to campaign with Nixon, Nixon ends validated on the ticket, everything’s great, as if nothing happened. And again, the fork in the road, we would never be talking about Richard Nixon, apart from one of those trivial, “Who was the person who had to resign for the ticket in 1952 because of alleged corruption?” We’d be going, “Oh, I can’t remember who was that.” A bit like Thomas Eagleton having to resign for electroshock therapy in 1972. Most people don’t remember that. Richard Nixon would be the “Trivial Pursuit” kind of question, had it not happened, but it does. And Nixon campaigns around the country, he really, he gets frustrated with Eisenhower, but they have this… No, that’s cliche to say, father-son relationship, but it’s not wrong in some ways. Eisenhower is always very distant. It’s classically military, it’s all about hierarchy, et cetera. But at the same time, he spends a lot of time nurturing Nixon’s abilities and giving him access that no Vice President has really had before.

Nixon’s always in awe of Eisenhower, and gets frustrated, as kind of you do almost with your parents, of going, “Oh, well, I can prove to you,” right? And he’s almost like the yappy dog around Eisenhower, of going, “Oh, let me… I’ll show you,” et cetera, et cetera. There’s eight years of the Eisenhower presidency, and it’s… we’ve talked about it a couple of weeks ago. It’s a successful presidency in history. It’s a successful, it’s now seen… It wasn’t seen, in the immediate aftermath, as successful. He was seen as a dilettante who kind of played golf too much, et cetera, et cetera. He was very hands off. The reality, as more… Historians found out more and more about him, Eisenhower ran a good presidency mostly. There’s obviously other bits, but we’ll not talk about that. And you know, Nixon’s there, doing the dutiful stuff. He goes on trips, he goes to the party faithful, he’s there, repeatedly doing Eisenhower bidding, and often doing his dirty work in terms of nasty and difficult conversations with party leaders, et cetera, et cetera.

1955, Eisenhower has a massive heart attack, and I mean massive, kind of touch-and-go type of heart attack. And Nixon is kind of put in the position where he chairs the cabinet. The cabinet is kind of predominantly old and grizzled. And Nixon is, you know, in his very early 40s at this point. Nixon very consciously does not sit in the cabinet, in Eisenhower’s chair, he sits where he normally sits, to chair the meetings, and wins grudging respect from quite a lot of the cabinet members, of doing that. And he’s a good steady hand when Eisenhower is out of action. Eisenhower then comes back into action, and the decision is whether he’s going to… Is he well enough to run again in 1956? He decides he’s going to. And then the big question is, is Nixon going to remain his running mate? And on seven separate occasions, Eisenhower tries to encourage Nixon to take a cabinet job instead. And there’s mixed views about it. Was Eisenhower trying to get Nixon out of the vice presidency 'cause he was worried about his health?

Or was he genuinely trying to help Nixon, say… At this point, only one Vice President in, apart from that bit at the beginning where the runner up becomes Vice President, et cetera, the Jefferson Adams bit, you’ve only had Martin Van Buren who’s gone from the vice presidency to the presidency, at that point. And so, he’s saying, “Look, go into the cabinet, become Defence Secretary, become Commerce Secretary, run something big, and then you’ll be in very good position in 1960.” Nixon doesn’t have to delve back in history much, he only has to go back 12 years to understand that’s probably a very bad move. Same conversation. Well, not the same, but same result conversation had happened in 1944. Henry Wallace, who’d been FDR’s second Vice President, had gone from being Vice President to being… I can’t remember. I think he was Commerce secretary. He goes to being a cabinet member with ideas that he might do well in '48 as the nominee. And of course, FDR dies, and Harry Truman becomes President.

Wallace runs in 48 as a third-party candidate and is a full note in history. And Richard Nixon knows that, you know, Eisenhower isn’t in great shape and he could well be, you know, Richard Nixon could be the next Henry Wallace, but he just won’t give in to Eisenhower about it. And actually his supporters run a write-in ballot in the New Hampshire primary. Eisenhower’s obviously going to win the New Hampshire primary. But there’s very substantial piece of support that boys up Nixon at that point. And Eisenhower, in classic Eisenhower way, he prevaricates and then comes out definitively as if it was what he did all along. Eisenhower then has his second term, Nixon is the dutiful second term, and is very much preparing to be the presidential candidate. And by 1960 there’s nobody else really in contention. And he wins the nomination by acclamation. And this is where, it’s interesting 'cause you’ve had various two-term Presidents who’ve handed or tried to hand over to their Vice President, and sometimes it goes well.

Ronald Reagan helped George H. W. Bush to become president in '88. Martin Van Buren became President after being Vice President to Andrew Jackson. So there’s a couple of examples of where it does work. Mostly it doesn’t. And this is one of the examples of where Eisenhower, I think, mostly wanted Nixon rather than Kennedy, but his kind of ambivalence created more problems than helped. And famously, Eisenhower was asked the question, right in the middle of the campaign, you know, “Can you give an example of where Richard Nixon positively helped foreign policy?” And Eisenhower kind of comes back and goes, “If you give me a week, I might think of one.” Now, Eisenhower tried to walk it back afterwards, et cetera, et cetera. But Nixon was running on the, “I’ve been incredibly close, I’ve been a member of the National Security Council, I’ve chaired cabinets, I’ve” blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, “I’ve been the guy.”

And suddenly his boss, hugely popular still, is saying, “You really weren’t the guy, you were just a guy, et cetera, et cetera. And I’ll, if I think about something, but it was me,” et cetera. And given how close the election, eventually, was, it does do damage. And you know, there’s an argument to say that it didn’t help. Coupled with Richard Nixon has a meeting towards the end of the campaign, and Eisenhower is ready to campaign from, and they have this meeting, it’s a very awkward meeting. Eisenhower and Nixon, despite working so closely together, seemed to have quite a few awkward meetings over the years. And Eisenhower, Nixon doesn’t ask him to campaign. Eisenhower is furious about this. Now, there are various theories and various views about what happened. One argument is to say Nixon wanted to win this on his own and didn’t think or want to need Eisenhower to get him over the line 'cause then it would’ve been Eisenhower’s third win, not Nixon’s first win. So there’s that.

The Nixon argument afterwards was, Mamie Eisenhower had phoned through to the Nixons and basically said, “I’m really worried about Ike’s health, and if he starts to go in campaign like he wants to do, he might die.” And obviously there’s been these massive heart attacks, et cetera, et cetera. So there’s a worry. I can actually see both arguments probably being right, is I think Nixon was proud, he wanted to step out from under the shadow. And you know, there’s lots of examples of vice presidents who’ve tried to do it, Al Gore, most recently. And it doesn’t always work. But they want to do that and be their own person. And also the… I can also imagine that Mamie Eisenhower made the call, and Nixon thought, “Actually”… He kind of hero worships this guy, go, “I don’t want him to die on my watch or because of me.”

As a result, Nixon isn’t campaigned for by Eisenhower. Eisenhower makes the derogatory comment. And so the ambivalence of the relationship kind of carries on. You have the debate, there are essays, thousands of words, millions of words, about the debate between Kennedy and Nixon and how important it was, particularly for those who watch television, how Nixon comes over as kind of shifty, as tired, sweating, et cetera. Famously, Nixon, as you see, is wearing a light suit. Kennedy is wearing a dark suit. Originally the backdrop was meant to be dark. When they practised early afternoon, they realised that they needed to wear something light because of the backdrop. They both went back to their respective hotels. And one of Kennedy’s guys… Kennedy had left stuff. So one of his guys went back. And one of the stage hands had ripped through the backdrop and the backdrop was changed to the one that you see. As a result, comes scurrying back to the hotel, tells John Kennedy, “It’s a pale backdrop. Now you wear a dark suit, not a light suit.”

Nixon never knew, wears a light suit. So, by the end of the debate, Nixon’s fading into the background, he’s pale anyway, he’s sweating 'cause he hasn’t used makeup. He’s doing this thing called Lazy Shave, which to this day, I have no idea what it is, but it’s a bad thing when you’re on television. And he’s been very ill. He’s hurt himself campaigning, he banged his knee, it had got infected, et cetera. So he hasn’t slept well. He’d given a speech that… Lots of schoolboy errors. As a result, those watching thought that Kennedy won overwhelmingly. interesting, a far fewer number listened on radio, they overwhelmingly thought that Richard Nixon had won. So all of this accumulates to the fact that the 1960… Oh my goodness, hang on, I’ve done something very wrong. No, that’s all right. All accumulates in with… Oh no, I’m doing it again. I don’t know what’s happening. Oh, I know why. This used to have the video clip. Sorry, it’s a slide that I used before.

Accumulates in a very close election. Kennedy wins by 0.2 of the popular vote. But the way that it falls is that he wins a convincing electoral college win. But it’s not that convincing if you actually look underlying. And the two important states that take him over substantially are Texas and Illinois. And there is both… Both states are run by the big bosses of the Democrat party. You’ve got Lyndon Johnson having huge sway in Texas, which is very close. And Mayor Daley of Chicago bringing Illinois into the Democrat column. There’s a lot of contention around it. Eisenhower and other senior Democrats. So, senior Republicans, ask Pat and Nixon, “You should appeal this, you should kind of go to the Supreme Court,” et cetera, et cetera. There’s a real thing of, “The election could have been stolen.” Nixon, spatter angels prevail. And I think he deserves a lot of credit for this.

He actually decides not to contest the election. The world is watching. If America is saying democracy is far better than the Soviet model of dictatorship, and then they can’t even run an election properly, then what’s it worth? And I think Nixon chooses the bigger things. There’s an argument to say that, you know, for the states that Democrats might have cheated in, that the Republicans might have cheated in other states. There’s lots of contention, but actually Nixon follows kind of the honourable path. He gets to read the win as Vice President. The Vice President gets to declare who’s won the election in the electoral college, as we know from Mike Pence, obviously. Richard Nixon’s one of the few people that’s actually had to read that he has lost. Al Gore had to do it. Hubert Humphrey had to do it. But John Kennedy wins. And Nixon, as he does regularly, goes back into law.

But he really is unsettled about what to do next. And he’s encouraged very quickly to run as governor of California in 1962. Governors run states. Nixon really is not a domestic politician in a lot of ways. Even though California’s hugely important, governors are governors. They’re very good at running things, or the good ones are anyway. Nixon’s real joy is foreign policy. That’s where he wants to be, in the Senate. Those are the opportunities. And his heart was never really in it, so he gets cajoled into running for governor of California, and is disastrous. Where he barely loses the presidency, he goes down in flames in California, and he comes out on the night of, the morning of the election, after the results have come out, and is petulant, annoyed, et cetera, and finally has had enough of the press. And he says, “You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore. I’m quitting politics. I’m out here.” Everybody’s like, “Wow, who knew?” Nixon, remember, is early 40s.

So, you know, you expect him to be around. Or mid-40s, expect him to be around for a long time, and he’s just withdrawn. Nobody’s quite sure whether that’s really true. Pat thinks it might be true, but is not sure, kind of “Will he, won’t he?” Et cetera, et cetera. But mostly he goes off and practises law, makes the money that he’s never made up until that point. And it’s good because he kind of keeps his head down. 1964 comes around, he really doesn’t think about being the candidate, which is wise, because had the assassination of Kennedy, you’ve then got him with Lyndon Johnson. Lyndon Johnson’s going to win whoever he’s against. So, sitting this one out isn’t a bad idea anyway. And also, given that Barry Goldwater wins the nomination and goes down in flames, it also, to some degree, neutralises the right in the short term of the party. So that Nixon, who’s a moderate right of the party at that point.

Nixon actually, to be honest now, would probably kind of not fit into anywhere in the Republican party. And certainly Eisenhower wouldn’t. He keeps his powder dry, carries on practising , he’s involved in politics, his speeches, et cetera, et cetera, for the party. 1966, he gets out and starts to campaign again. And his campaigning is effective. Republicans have a very good 1966 midterm elections, and it sets him up to, with a lot of of credibility on the ground and party. And lots of people who owe him: governors, senators, congressmen, they owe Nixon help in the campaign. Gets to the '68 election, and there’s a lot of talk about the three Rs, Romney, Mitch… The dad of, yeah, the most recent Romney, those Romneys are around. Governor of Michigan, in this case. The new governor of California, Ronald Reagan, and then the governor of New York, Nelson Rockefeller. And they’re the ones in contention. Nixon kind of come… Each one of them.

Reagan’s too new, Romney proves to be a bad candidate. Rockefeller has too many enemies. Nixon kind of comes through, runs a very effective campaign as the new Nixon. When it’s pretty certain he’s got the nomination, Ike endorses him and basically says, “Oh, I was going to endorse you anyway. Of course it’s Nixon.” But they hadn’t been close in the years that they’d been out of power. But it mattered to Nixon. It mattered to Nixon he got endorsed by the grand old man. Eisenhower is now very old and also very ill. Doesn’t campaign. Not like 1960 where he wants to, he’s really not up to it. You then get Nixon’s very weird choice of choosing Spiro Agnew. Those of you don’t know, in America there’s a satirical magazine that’s been going for decades now, called “Private Eye.” Their front cover is always a photograph with a funny little caption. And this is one of their more tasteless ones. And Spiro Agnew, the governor of Maryland, kind of nobody expects to see him come as the vice presidential candidate, or Vice President.

Obviously that ends badly, with him having to resign the vice presidency because of corruption five years later. But New Nixon presents himself as a much more moderate, less bitter candidate, et cetera. And looks like he’s going to win by a landslide. Actually, Hubert Humphrey of the Democrats, who’s an incumbent Vice President, runs a remarkably good campaign, seeing the parties ripping itself apart over Vietnam. Again, very, very close in the popular vote, but again, this time in Nixon’s favour, much clearer in the electoral college. And Nixon wins in the electoral college. He becomes President in January the 20th, 1969. Two months later he’s in the Oval Office, where he hears that Eisenhower has died, and he’s here heard weeping uncontrollably, in the White House. Nixon is a very emotional guy. We tend to think of him as this dark spirit, and there’s a lot of evidence to say that, but actually he’s got a soft side to him that I just think is fascinating.

So he writes the most lovely letter to Jackie Kennedy when John Kennedy is assassinated. He has great moments of support of friends, et cetera, et cetera. And when John, actually interesting, in 1956, when John Kennedy is given the last rights because back surgery has gone wrong, Nixon goes to visit him and then he comes out in tears from his room. So there’s this thing, and he’s definitely a far more emotional person than we give him credit. And of course, Eisenhower has been this father figure that he’s always wanted validation. Eisenhower gets to see him succeed. He doesn’t get to see him fail. And one would’ve argued, had Eisenhower steadying hand been around during the next six, seven years, things might have ended differently because the reins come off at this point. And of course, as William showed you, you know, Nixon’s got Vietnam. And also what he’s famous for is, you know, Watergate.

He’s goes down as the president who failed and would’ve been removed from office, and would’ve been impeached and removed from office. And any president who has to actually go on television to say, “I’m not a crook,” is obviously in deep, deep trouble. As I said, I wasn’t going to discuss much about his presidency, but I think those are the two bits that are hugely important. And then finally, I think what is worth reflecting on, a positive from the Nixon-Eisenhower kind of duality is that Nixon’s daughter, Julie, marries David Eisenhower, and have kids and a very happy marriage by all accounts. And the two families, who always have this kind of closeness, but not closeness, it’s a very odd relationship, actually come together because they have grandchildren and great-grandchildren in common. So I think that that, for me, is fascinating. Nixon’s Presidency, Eisenhower’s presidency, is looked back with fondness and increasing stature. Nixon’s presidency is remembered for this as he goes into Marine One for the last time, as he leaves the White House, having resigned in disgrace.

And just to make you have a laugh, that’s me and the very same Marine One in the museum, quite a few years later, doing my wonderful Nixon impression. So, there you have it. The relationship between them is fascinating for me. And I think the Republican party, really, from the 1940s through Dewey, right the way through, really, until the late 70s, is the party of, it’s the heirs of duty. It’s the Eisenhower-Nixon party in terms of moderate domestic policy, embracing most of the elements of the kind of New Deal, and then the foreign policy of global engagement, which did America very well for that, and the world very well for that period. So I’m going to stop sharing on that. I am going to have a quick look. I know I’m at six o'clock. I’m going to have a quick look. For those of you who can’t stay, I thank you for joining me, but I’m going to try and have a look at some of the questions just to see if I can answer them.

Q&A and Comments

Q: “When did Nixon do the cloth coat speech?” A: That’s actually part of the Checkers speech. That was the other part of… There’d been a scandal in the Democrat party about somebody having a mink, somebody’s wife having a mink coat that was bought illicitly. And so he makes a nod to that, to say, “My wife hasn’t got a mink coat, she’s just got a good Republican cloth coat.” I don’t know that Republicans make cloth coats. It’s always been a bit of a weird one for me. But it was the idea that we’re from poor stock, et cetera. Pat finds, by the way, finds the whole thing mortifying. She is, for a politician’s wife, but she’s also very private. The idea that her family finances are talked about by everybody is just horrifying. And she’s very long suffering. And I think, again, going back to this thing about Nixon’s sentimental side, is the thing that I think is interesting, is that the, you know, she dies about a year before him, and at her funeral, which has a phenomenal turnout of the good and the great. So, people really respect Pat from what she’s gone through. He is inconsolable, he just sobs, and sobs, and sobs. And basically, I mean, he’s an old man by this point anyway, but he is a broken man after she dies. And again, that makes me, you know, mostly don’t like Richard Nixon, let’s be honest. But there are bits about him that I just find fascinating because he is a lot better man than we think of on occasions. So he can be thoughtful, kind, et cetera, et cetera. So that’s fascinating. So that’s the cloth coat.

And “Henry Wallace became Secretary of Agriculture, not Commerce.” Thank you, Marilyn, for correcting that for me. And you know, Alger Hiss. Joe, “Whitaker Chambers”… Monty… “Was about the relationship with Hiss, well worth reading also.” LBJ became wealthy, but he was very poor. So just want to be, you know… I’m talking about where people come from. LBJ, you’re absolutely right, Monty, owned a string of radio and TV stations. But grew up dirt poor in the backwaters of Texas. So there is a bunch of self-made men who become the President, and LBJ’s in that category. Nixon became well off, but much later. Actually, to be honest, it was when he didn’t win the presidency in '60, he started to be able to make money as a lawyer. And let me just have a quick look down and see.

Kennedy Library, “The video of the debate is available.” You’re absolutely right. “Go to Boston.” I would actually say I’ve, you know, I’ve been to a number of presidential libraries. I think that the Nixon one fascinates me because of what happened in the end. It’s controlled much more by an independent group of historians. So it is something of a an all library. I mean, it still plays to his strengths, et cetera, et cetera. But there’s much more than you would normally think, about the bad side. Kennedy Library is a monument to John Kennedy. It’s also a stunningly beautiful building. But it’s the Kennedy version of history. And more so, I have to say, the Reagan library. The part with an Air Force One, which is very cool. The Reagan library is Ronald Reagan as told by Nancy and his mates. So yeah, Reagan’s first wife isn’t really mentioned. Iran Contra is a little kind of alcove, but it’s all about Ronald the Hero. And I think that’s something that Nixon’s library is probably the best-balanced one of the ones that I’ve been to.

Q: “Did JFK and Nixon have a friendship or a political relationship?” A: They very much had a political relationship, but in a funny way, up until they kind of became competitors. They did have a friendship. They travelled around America as new congressmen, debating. You know, they had to and fro, and then they would share train carriages, sleeping car compartments together, bunk beds, on the way back. So they had this relationship. I think Kennedy mattered more to Nixon than Nixon mattered more to Kennedy.

And the thing I’ll leave you with it, which is the dreadful Oliver Stone film, in my view. Now, any Oliver Stone fans out there, I apologise. The Nixon Oliver Stone, where… I love Anthony Hopkins, but my God, he chews the scenery. He really does all jowls and , But the bit that I think is very well done, there’s a little vignette in it, which is that he’s there, during one of his dark periods, and Nixon looks up at the brilliant Kennedy painting that’s in the White House, the beautiful one of him looking all thoughtful and pensive, and basically says, you know, “Americans look at you and see what they want to be. They look at me and see what they are.” And there’s the self pity of Nixon. Johnson, again, and Nixon were huge brooders, and “The world conspires against me,” and everything like that. But the relationship was an interesting one, and they really were contemporaries. Kennedy doesn’t get into the Senate until Nixon gets to the vice presidency. So whilst they’re overlap in the House and they’re both senators, they just… Kennedy comes in, interestingly, by beating Henry Cabot Lodge, who was instrumental in the Eisenhower-Nixon thing. So it’s the one big Democrat win in 1952. And there I think you have it. I’m sorry. I’m kind of trying to see the other… Yeah.

But yeah, the other comments, so… Yes, Neil, you’re right. Kissinger did originally advise Nelson Rockefeller. And interestingly, Nixon wasn’t as tribal as we tend to think he was. He would hire good people even if they hadn’t been supporters to start off with. And Kissinger’s the obvious one. He was absolutely a Rockefeller man, and then transferred his loyalties. And Nixon was good with that. And they formed a very interesting, very formidable pair.

Anyway, I’m off to have me dinner. Thank you very much for joining me. I really enjoyed this one. As I said, it’s a different twist on what I usually teach. I usually teach them separately. So it was nice to be able to bring it together, so hopefully it was, was useful for people. Thank you all.