Political Obituary of Richard Nixon - Nixon, Richard, 1964-01-01 - 1964

Item — Climate Control Archival Storage: 1

Identifier: PCC - A0090 - 20554

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APC#0007 20554- Narrator: 10:15 on Channel 7 first in Chicago. This is Jerry Voorhis five term Congressmen from California whom Richard Nixon defeated to begin his political career. Jerry Voorhis: He was a cleaver opponent, able opponent, well financed opponent incidentally, and I think I have a right to say that he was quite a ruthless opponent. Narrator: This is Congressmen Gerald Ford of Michigan, Republican, a fellow Congressman, and early friend of Richard Nixon. Gerald Ford: What I think is his principle quality, his best asset, is his complete and superb intellectual capacity. I think he is one of the most brilliant people I have ever known in the political arena. Narrator: Alger Hiss, whose investigation and conviction for perjury helped elevate Nixon from being one more Congressman to being a national figure eligible for vice president. Alger Hiss: I had the increasing feeling, beginning quite early on in the hearings, that he was more interested in, well lets put it this way, less interested in developing facts, and he was not presenting some kind of a pre-conceived case. Narrator: From Los Angeles, Murry Chotner who managed Nixons first campaign and his last. Murry Chotner: I think is a case of a man who has been dedicated to serving the public and doing a real job for the country and I think that is really his most outstanding characteristic. Narrator: Tonight, Howard K. Smith on the political obituary of Richard Nixon. November 11, 1962. Howard Smith: Good evening. If I had to draw up a list of the most interesting political figures of the present time, it would include Khrushchev, de Gaulle, Mao Zedong, John Kennedy, and one who has just left politics Richard Nixon. The basic thing to say about Mr. Nixon is that truism nobody is neutral about him. He has been a devoted and highly effective public servant to whom the nation is indebted. He was a savage political fighter who accused great and patriotic Americans like Adlai Stevenson of things they and others cannot forgive. No American ever came so close to being president without actually making it. Three times president Eisenhower was ill, and Nixon faced the possibility of taking over. The third time, the president had drawn up an agreement, which would give Nixon full executive authority if Eisenhower were incapacitated but still alive. In his one race for the presidency, Nixon got 49.6% of the vote compared to the winner Kennedys 49.7%. That is, he missed by only one tenth of one percent. If four thousand voters in Texas and 28,000 in Illinois has changed their minds and voted the other way, that is not enough people to fill half a football stadium on a Saturday afternoon, Nixon not Kennedy would be president today. The purpose of this report is to analyze the most fascinating figures of our time. And the best place to begin is the beginning. Richard Nixon early showed himself and ever remained extremely contentious and extremely hard working. For a man destined to live in a transparent bowl for sixteen years in Washington, he was oddly introverted. Social contact did not come easily. For a man destined to become a savage political fighter, he was and is sensitive and hurts easily. For a man destined to become a most effective campaigner of his party, he disliked campaigning. For a man destined to comment to an eagerly listening world about world affairs, he had and has a pragmatic, unsubtle mind. A two plus two equals four mind someone called it. Agile but not deep. In the year 1946, young bright but unknown Dick Nixon was given a chance to run for Congress from his home district in California. He promised quote, A fighting, rocking, socking campaign. That proved to be an understatement. By a whirlwind of charges and innuendos, the anti-communist Democratic incumbent Jerry Voorhis was made to seem a pro-communist. Voorhis, now head of the Cooperative League of the United States recalls the campaign. Jerry Voorhis: In this campaign I was confronted with a clever sort of innuendo that a, and more than that too really, which was a little bit astonishing. I mean here I was represented as being a handpicked candidate of certain organizations which incidentally never did endorse me and their philosophy was attacked as being red-tinged and their being red infiltrated and so on. And therefore, that this was what I was supposed to represent. And it would go further than that and editorials, which I am certain, emanated from Nixons advertising agency because some of my newspaper friends told me so would start out by saying, Jerry Voorhis is not a Communist of course, but on 27 votes, he voted in the same manner as such and such and organization was supposed to have an extreme left orientation had urged congressman to vote. Well this sounds very bad and the truth of the matter was that on five of those votes I had voted just the opposite of the way I was said by the Nixon propaganda to have voted. And that the other votes when I finally found out what list they were using and was able to analyze it were votes on the Social Security Act and soil conservation program on foreign security program or on things like the Reciprocal Trade Agreements or the Tennessee Valley Authority or the many things that all kinds of congressmen on both sides of the aisle are voting for. And I think this is an illustration of the kind of thing that was done. The philosophy, which guided Mr. Nixons politics, was the general philosophy that the way to win is to tear down ones opponent in every way one can never by quite falsifying but by coming very, very close to it such as he did in Helen Gahagan Douglas case where he compared her voting record with Vito Marcantonios where actually Mr. Nixon himself had voted the same way that Vito Marcantonio did on a number of instances. Howard Smith: We telephoned attorney Murry Chotner in Los Angelus manager of the campaign against Voorhis and of the later more bitter campaign against Helen Gahagan Douglas. He is created with pointing Nixon in the direction that became the young candidates trademark. Murry Chotner: We have yet to hear any individual come forward who has said that he or she was called and given any information that was inaccurate or in any way that was derogatory against Mr. Voorhis. We have heard those charges made but no one has come forth to substantiate them. Howard Smith: And how about the campaign for the Senate? Murry Chotner: Well I have heard any number of charges that were made against Mr. Nixon in the senatorial campaign of 1950. But here again the only thing that was ever pointed out against Mrs. Douglas was her voting record. And if that was an attack on her of course she had no one to blame but herself because she made the record and she voted that way. I think both instances Mr. Smith are illustrations of individuals attacking Mr. Nixon and hurling charges against him that are repeated time and time again over the years until finally the people begin to believe it without any evidence as to what the actual charges were. And in both campaigns I am satisfied that nothing was ever done by Mr. Nixon or anyone connected with his campaign who had any authority to act that would be considered an unfair tactic. Howard Smith: Nixon says he was catapulted to a place a heartbeat from the presidency by hard work and by luck. The luck was being on the Un-American Activities Committee when the ex-Communist and then senior editor of Time magazine Whitaker Chambers accused Alger Hiss, a former high government official, of being a member of the Communist espionage underground. Hiss denied the charge. Nixon arranged the famous confrontation of the two men the case ended in Hiss being tried, convicted, and jailed for perjury and in Richard Nixon becoming a man of national fame. This week, Alger Hiss commented on Mr. Nixon for our cameras. Alger Hiss: My impression of him as an investigator was that he was less interested in developing the facts objectively than in seeking ways of making a preconceived plan appear plausible. More interested in other words in molding appearances to a point of view that he began with than objectively developing the facts of the situation. And this feeling grew increasingly throughout the hearings. I sensed it fairly early and then became more and more convinced of it as the hearings progressed. I think that he was politically carried along whether the initial motivation was political I certainly do not think that he was unaware of the political boost, the political soaring up into outer space, that the hearings and the subsequent trial provided for him. He has called the whole situation his first crisis by which I assume he means his first vaulting into a major political position so I cannot but feel that political motivation played a very real part. Howard Smith: Mr. Hiss do you have any feelings of hostility toward Mr. Nixon? Alger Hiss: I do not think I have any feelings of hostility. I donot have any feelings of great personal warmth or affection. I regard his actions as motivated by ambition, by a personal self-serving, which were not directed at me in a hostile sense so that I feel that what he was engaged in was something beyond his own scope and size. And he was responding to a situation in this country an ugly period, an ugly time, and riding it rather than actually creating it. And I think that if it had not been Mr. Nixon, perhaps someone else would have tried to jump into the same situation and benefit by it. Howard Smith: Congressman Gerald Ford of Michigan states what many feel about Nixons handling of this case. Gerald Ford: In my opinion the American people owe a great deal to Dick Nixon for his dedication to finding out all of the possible facts that the committee could find out about the Alger Hiss case and its ramifications.; Notes:This piece exists as a moving image film in the Wisconsin film archives

Scope and Contents Nation: United States of America

Scope and Contents State: Other

Scope and Contents Party: Other

Dates

1964-01-01 - 1964

Physical Description

Commercial--00:00:05

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Extent

From the Collection: 50 Items

Additional Description

Biographical / Historical

Political Obituary -

Physical Location

Political Communication Center, Julian P. Kanter Political Commercial Archive

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Custodial History

The media within the Political Communication Center are maintained by Lisa Henry, Curator and Archivist, in the records storage facility at Julian P. Kanter Political Commercial Archive, on the Norman Campus of the University of Oklahoma