THE NIXON/GANNON INTERVIEWS

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Transcript: Richard Nixon/Frank Gannon Interview, April 8, 1983 [Day 3 of 9]

interviewer: Frank Gannon
interviewee: Richard Nixon
producer: Ailes Communications, INC.
date: April 8, 1983
minutes: approximately 189
extent: ca. 258kb
summary: This interview, comprising four video tapes, or just over 3 hours, is the third in a series of taped interviews with former president Nixon. Topics covered in the beginning of this conversation include Watergate, the Vietnam War, democracy, American foreign policy, and Nixon's relationship with the media. Beginning with tape two, the conversation focuses on Nixon's years as vice president. Other topics discussed include Joseph McCarthy and McCarthyism, Pat Nixon, and the meaning of loyalty in politics.
repository: Walter J. Brown Media Archives, University of Georgia Libraries (Main Library)
collection: Richard Nixon Interviews
permissions: Contact Media Archives.

Day three, Tape one of four, LINE FEED #1, 4-8-83, ETI Reel #20
April 8, 1983

Day 3, Tape 1
00:01:27
[Action note: Screen goes black.]

Day 3, Tape 1
00:01:28
[Action note: Picture appears.]

Day 3, Tape 1
00:01:29
[Action note: Screen goes black.]

Day 3, Tape 1
00:01:57
[Action note: Picture appears.]

Day 3, Tape 1
00:01:59
[Offscreen voice]

Go.

Day 3, Tape 1
00:02:02
[Frank Gannon]

Now that the war in Vietnam is over, long over, in order to heal the wounds of war and to begin reestablishing some kind of new American presence and policy in Southeast Asia, should we recognize the Democratic Republic of Vietnam?

Day 3, Tape 1
00:02:20
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, under no circumstances. There's really nothing in it for us in terms of our policy toward Southeast Asia, even though some of those countries down there per forma [he may mean "pro forma"] suggest that that be done. But there's a geopolitical reason that we must not do so, and that is that the Chinese are violently against the Vietnamese government because the Vietnamese government at the present time is totally under the control and s—being supported by Moscow. So, at this point, we should stay right where we are.

Day 3, Tape 1
00:02:55
[Frank Gannon]

Some critics claim that your administration was obsessed with secrecy. Some claim that it—it—it stems from—from your own character, that you have a secretive nature and that this carried over into the operations of your administration. Thinking about the leaks of information—leaks are endemic in Washington. They—they always have existed. They always will exist. Shouldn't you have accepted leaks as a fact of life and not become so concerned with them that you had to resort to things like wiretaps and—which—which turned out to be unsuccessful anyway?

Day 3, Tape 1
00:03:34
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I think there are two parts to that question, as I understand it. First, that we were obsessed with secrecy. As a matter of fact, you're being too kind. I was paranoiac, or almost a basket case with regard to secrecy, and Henry Kissinger as well, because, believe me, if you think I was tough on these leaks, he was even tougher at times because he thought it was jeopardizing his negotiations. The second point we should have in mind is that we were strongly urged to do something about leaks by two of our predecessors. I remember so well the first conversation I had with President Johnson after the election in 1968. We were in the Oval Office, and he had read in the paper that I had planned, after my talk with Kissinger, to reinstate the regular meetings of the N.S.C., which he had put on the back burner and had little private meetings which were totally secret. He said, "You will live to regret this." He said, "You"—"Things are going to leak out of those meetings when you have people sitting around in the back of the room, the note-takers and the rest." He said, "You know, sometimes I couldn't even tell Hubert things." He says, "He'd leak because he wouldn't know he was doing it. He just liked to talk." So he urged me not to do it. He also said a very interesting thing which I didn't really understand till later. He says, "You know, I couldn't have been president without J. Edgar Hoover's assistance in trying to track down some of these things." And then I remember too well, as well, that when we were in office, that I went out to brief Eisenhower with regard to a new initiative that we were trying to implement through the N.S.C. system with regard to the Mideast. He was very interested in it. A couple of days later it was in the press. Eisenhower didn't call me. He called Kissinger, and he said, "Shape up your shop. If you don't stop these leaks, you're not going to be able to have a policy." So that tells you what they think. Now, the other point that you make with regard to—why secrecy, why should we care about whether or not people leak. In other words, aren't—aren't the people entitled to know? And my answer is—the people are, but not the enemy, not our opponents. And by that, I mean that—and I'll put it quite bluntly—without secrecy, we would not have had the opening to China. No way the Chinese would ever have done that in public forums, because they had the Russians that they feared in this respect. They had a number of other internal problems, those that opposed any rapprochement with the United States. It had to be done secretly, and that was an enormously important event which could not have been accomplished without those secret trips that Kissinger took and the secret negotiations we had through the White House channels. Without secrecy, we wouldn't have had the meetings in Paris which reached the agreement with the North Vietnamese and brought the peace agreement which ended the American involvement in Vietnam. It couldn't have been accomplished without secrecy, because people will say things secretly that they won't say publicly when they're talking to a much broader—broader constituency. And without secrecy, as a matter of fact, we wouldn't have had the negotiations with the Russians that led to the first [Strategic Arms Control Agreement]. So, I am simply suggesting to my successors in this office—have an open administration to the extent that you can. It's much more popular, particularly with the members of the media. But remember, the most important thing to do is to make progress in solving particularly great international problems. You cannot make progress at times in public forum. Let the media know—unless letting the media know is going to abort an initiative you're attempting to undertake.

Day 3, Tape 1
00:07:30
[Frank Gannon]

This makes logical sense, but isn't it really deeply basically inconsistent with the—the ethic of democracy? Let's take a worst case. Let's assume that there is a president who either has bad intentions, which I guess would be the very worst case, or a well-intentioned president who has a—a policy that turns out to be disastrous. If he has the ability to carry it out behind the scenes in secret, to carry it to fruition, how—then—we then—we then have to live with the results of that. How can you balance the need for secrecy in order to get things done with the kind of checks and balances that are built into the democratic system and keep it on an even keel?

Day 3, Tape 1
00:08:11
[Richard Nixon]

Well, let me say with regard to secrecy that there are some you do confide in. For example, when I had the secret bombing of Cambodia, I did inform Senator Russell and Senator Stennis, both Democrats, because I knew that they, as key Democrats, could keep a secret. And, incidentally, they proved it. But let me say, too—

Day 3, Tape 1
00:08:33
[Frank Gannon]

Your critics, though, would charge that you chose the two key Democrats who you knew in advance would, because of your relationship with them and because of their background, would approve your—

Day 3, Tape 1
00:08:44
[Richard Nixon]

Oh—

[Frank Gannon]

--your—

[Richard Nixon]

Not necessarily, not—

[Frank Gannon]

--your actions.

Day 3, Tape 1
00:08:45
[Richard Nixon]

--particularly in the case of Senator Russell. He was very much disenchanted with the war, even though he is always known to be a hawk. No, I chose them because I knew they'd keep their counsel, and I couldn't say that, frankly, for some of the Republicans. On the other hand, in terms of the—of how we are to operate, we have to have in mind that it's most important for a president, for an administration, in the field of foreign policy, to be effective. We have to have in mind, too, that it is a fact of international life that, in the world we live in, negotiations that are private are a way of accomplishing things. And this is particularly true, may I say, particularly true when you're dealing with totalitarian states. Secrecy to the Soviet Union, to the Chinese and so forth—it's a way of life for them, and if you don't move in those secret channels, you're always going to be fighting things out propagandawise. Let me say--(laughs)--it was very difficult for me. I'd liked to have gone out and huffed and puffed in front of the media about all the great things I was doing to bring rapprochements with China and get a lot of plaudits and kudos in The New York Times and Washington Post and CBS, NBC, and ABC. But, on the other hand, what I wanted to do was have results. And if I'd had those kudos, we wouldn't have had the results. So, I say it is very important, of course, to inform the country once you have made a breakthrough. It is very important, too, to submit to the Congress to the extent that the Congress has responsibility for the—for approval of the programs. But, on the other hand, the negotiations of—in these particular cases have to be, in many cases, accomplished through secret, or, should I say, private channels.

Day 3, Tape 1
00:10:37
[Frank Gannon]

What about the critics who would say that in your conduct of the war, you purposely avoided the democratic processes which would have involved going to Congress or informing larger numbers of congressmen, because you knew, which turned out to be the case in 1972 and 1973, that if you went to them, they would essentially stop the war. They would stop the funding. If they knew what you were intending to do, they would have stopped it.

Day 3, Tape 1
00:11:03
[Richard Nixon]

No. That was true. I wou—I think we should say, in the Johnson years—I mean, in the Johnson years, we went in, as some people have said, by stealth, and the Congress, it approved very early on sort of a general approval of a—a program in this instance. But it w—Johnson did not inform them along the way. But let me say, on the contrary, in my case, if you look over the record, I addressed the country over and over again, publicly, on television, on these issues, with regard to—with our withdrawal program, with regard to our training of the Vietnamese, with regard, too, to our incursion into Cambodia, and explained what we were doing. I was going over the heads, I may say, of the media, most of whom were opposed to anything except a bug-out, and I was going over the heads of some of those in Congress who would have opposed anything except a bug-out. But, on the other hand, there was no question but that the Congress was well-informed of what we did and could, at any time prior to the time we reached the peace agreement, put thumbs down on it. They didn't do that, because I had the support of the country. It's very important to recognize that the president of the United States is not just speaking for the Congress. They are the people's representatives, because they also have been elected, but he represents—he's the only person in this country—he and the vice prepi—president—who represent all the people, and he has a right and should go over the heads of the Congress, over the heads of the media to the people when he believes that the people's support may override congressional opposition.

Day 3, Tape 1
00:12:49
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think you ever got fair treatment from the media?

Day 3, Tape 1
00:12:54
[Richard Nixon]

Possibly, some say—I mean, as president, I assume you're asking, not the earlier years. I—I would say that some would say that I got fair treatment on the China initiative, and perhaps it was one that many of the media considered to be a great adventure, and I think some of them honestly thought it was a major achievement. As Henry Kissinger used to ruefully say, he says, "Well," he said, "they're supporting it, but they've—they really are sorry we did it. They only wish that one of theirs had done it." No. As far as the media is concerned, let me understand, I hold no personal grudges. I—I know that some people say, do—do I hate the press. I was asked that once in a press conference. I said, "No. I—I—you only hate people you respect." I don't mean I don't respect many in the media, but those in the media, for example, on the war issue, who supported Kennedy's getting us involved in Vietnam, which was proper, in my position—in my opinion, who supported Johnson, when Johnson was campaigning against Goldwater, and Johnson's Vietnam position, and then who deserted ship, in effect, once the public opinion began to turn against the war, and then sabotage me, in my opinion, or tried to, when I was trying to bring the war to an honorable conclusion—as far as those in the media, and they are several of them—there are several of them—I don't have any respect for them. I don't hate them. It’s just a matter, I would say, of mutual contempt. I'm sure they share the same feeling toward me.

Day 3, Tape 1
00:14:32
[Frank Gannon]

You talk about a—people who wanted to "bug out" of Vietnam. What—what—what is a bug-out?

Day 3, Tape 1
00:14:40
[Richard Nixon]

A bug-out is what, for example, the Democratic caucuses in both the House and the Senate voted for in 1972. It, in effect, says, "Bring back our prisoners of war. If we get those from you, we will withdraw all of our support from the South Vietnamese," so that the North Vietnamese would be able to impose their government on the South with, of course, all the consequences that have come from that, as we have well seen. I think Mel Laird put it pretty well once, though, when the prisoner-of-war issue was beginning to get very, very hot. He said, "Look, we can't be in the position of fighting these war—this war in order to get back our prisoners of war." And I must say that he was exactly right. So, a bug-out basically is w—something where we say, "The war in Vietnam is wrong. We shouldn't be in there in the first place. It's been conducted the wrong way. It's costing more than it can possibly gain. So the thing we have to do is to get out and let Vietnam—South Vietnam fend for itself," which would have meant a Communist takeover, which of course is what happened when we cut back on them, which was, incidentally, a modified bug-out. Whenever your friends don't have the support and tanks and arms and so forth that your potential enemies have, they're going to lose.

Day 3, Tape 1
00:16:07
[Frank Gannon]

Why do you think so many of these people, who were smart, sophisticated, involved, aware people, were, in your judgment, so wrong in their assessment of why Vietnam wasn't important to us? How was it possible for the—the—the leaders of Congress, the leaders of—in—in the universities, the thought leaders—indeed, arguably, the American Establishment wanted us to bug out. Why were they—how could they be so wrong?

Day 3, Tape 1
00:16:37
[Richard Nixon]

When you describe these people, they are what we call "the best and brightest," "the best and the brightest" in the media, in the universities, in the foundations, even in the—some parts of the business community, and, of course, in the Congress. It's been difficult for me to understand. I think part of it was because they were turned off by, frankly, the horrors of war, war being in living color on television night after night. This was the first war fought on color television, as you know. They were turned off, too, by what they considered to be the excesses of the Vietnamese government. They had a double standard. They could see the danger on the right—they saw it in Vietnam, they saw it, for example, in Iran, they saw it in Cuba—and yet who would say, for example, that Cuba is better off under Castro than it was previously? Who would say, for example, today that Iran is better off under Khomeini than it was under the Shah? And in the case of Vietnam, who could really say that Vietnam is better under the Communists than it was under Thieu? It seems to me that, when you look at it that way, it is difficult to understand how the best and the brightest, because they were overwhelmed by seeing the horrors of war, because also they felt that the war was very divisive at home, and it was, that they said, "Well, get it off our plate and turn to other things." And let me say the fact that it was divisive at home, I think, was a major factor, because in the university communities and the rest, college faculties and so forth just didn't want to stand up to the activist students and particularly the professors.

Day 3, Tape 1
00:18:27
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think—talking about the American Establishment, do you think it is "the best and the brightest"? Do you think it is the brightest but not the best?

Day 3, Tape 1
00:18:36
[Richard Nixon]

The American establishment certainly can't be faulted on brains. We have more college graduates per capita than any country in the world. We have excellent institutions. The whole world comes to America now, just as Americans used to go, for example, in the nineteenth century and early twentieth century, for example, to Germany, for example, in the field of science, to Britain if you wanted to learn something about political science, and the rest. In terms of the best, in terms of character, in—in I would say that I think that the American university community has got to look very carefully at what has happened. What—what is the situation today, for example, when a Jeane Kirkpatrick or a Bill Buckley happens to be denied the right to speak on a university campus and then your faculty just didn't have the backbone to face down the demonstrators and so forth and let them speak, and why an Ellsberg goes there and is recog—is received like a hero? Now, what I am saying here is that, as far as the American establishment is concerned, it certainly is very bright, but in terms of responsibility, of facing up to the real world, of distinguishing—and these are hard distinctions a make—to make—distinguishing between governments that don't meet our standards but understanding that the choice often is not between something perfect and something imperfect, betw—but between something which is not good—between something that is much worse. It's on these scores that I think the American establishment has really forfeited its right to lead. And I trust—and, incidentally, having said that, there are a substantial minority who know this and are attempting to turn it around. I hope they prevail.

Day 3, Tape 1
00:20:32
[Frank Gannon]

If it follows that the best—or that the brightest people make the smartest choices, why is the American Establishment liberal?

Day 3, Tape 1
00:20:42
[Richard Nixon]

Of course, the brightest people don't always make the right choices. This is not just a modern phenomenon. It goes back through history. We often find that as far as leaders are concerned, some of them have been intellectual geniuses, others have not—but far more important than a high I.Q. is good judgment. Far more important than whether you lead your class is whether or not you have the strength and the character in a crisis to stand up against the mob. I would say, above everything else, far more important than doing what is fashionable—and these days so many people are affected by what is in fashion, the trendy business—is to do what is right. As I've often said, a—the responsibility of a leader is not to follow public opinion, what is trendy, but to change it when he believes it should be changed. Not to follow the polls, but to change the polls. And I would say that, in terms of much of the American Establishment, it's—that is the case. I would say, finally, in this respect, we have to understand that most of the American Establishment coming out of the universities and so forth—it's liberal, and generally those coming out of universities have a liberal background.

Day 3, Tape 1
00:22:10
[Frank Gannon]

Why is that?

Day 3, Tape 1
00:22:12
[Richard Nixon]

It is because you—you have—from—historically, from way back, that those who—who sit in the great universities and so forth are not in the real world. It's an unreal world. Let me say, I speak with great respect about looking back at my own professors, at—at college and in law school and many that I have known. But generally speaking, they do not live in the real world, and when they see the real world and what you have to do, to make choices between the perfect and the imperfect, or, I should say, between what is not perfect, from what is—and something that is worse, it is this that really makes it very difficult for them. And also there is this to be said. Generally speaking, when you look at the universities and so forth, as—they're basically idealists, which is to their credit. They basically are critics, and they see everything wrong around them, as they should, and they're very critical of that. But way out there they see also—they—they are usually taken in by those who offer panaceas. That's why Communism appealed, let's face it, or Marxism, or socialism, as it even appeals today. In practice, it's been a disaster, but, on the other hand, in the earlier years, in the thirties, and the forties and fifties, before it self-destructed by how it failed to perform, it had enormous appeal among the intellectual elite. I haven't given up on them. After all, they are intelligent, and I do feel that over a period of time, that I don't expect them to be conservative. I don't ex—certainly would hope they would never be reactionary. I would always hope that they would be for progress, but i—within a democratic framework. But I would think they would be less naïve about what the—how the world works.

Day 3, Tape 1
00:24:16
[Frank Gannon]

If there is one most common denominator of the American Establishment, my guess is that it is dislike of Richard Nixon. What is it about you drives the Establishment up the wall?

Day 3, Tape 1
00:24:31
[Richard Nixon]

I don't know whether I'm the best qualified. You really ought to ask them. People often say, "Your press relations are bad. Get a new press secretary." That isn't the problem. I could have the best press secretary in the world and that isn't going to change the attitude of the press. I think there are two things, one—or maybe three. One, they don't agree with what I stand for. I am a conservative, I hope an intelligent one. Un--(coughs). And I—

Day 3, Tape 1
00:25:00
[Frank Gannon]

Isn't that redundant?

Day 3, Tape 1
00:25:01
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, yeah. Not necessarily. I would say I am not reactionary and tha—therefore not a very good target for them. I'm usually not reckless and therefore not a good target. I think, for example, a second point that has turned them off is almost historical. I can—I'll never forget my old friend Bert Andrews, who was an intellectual, a very—one of the top reporters for The New York Herald-Tribune in Washington—he was the head of their office—after we'd broken the Hiss case and after I had stayed on the ticket through the fund broadcast, he'd had a couple of belts, and I was feeling pretty good after that broadcast, and I said, "Well," I said, "I guess things are going to change. We're going to get a better press." He said, "No, you won't." He said, "Let me tell you something about my brethren in the press." He said, "They don't mind if you're stupid. As a matter of fact, they like it. You make a better target. They like the dummies, frankly, in a way, because it gives them something that they can really cut up pretty good." He said, "And, as a matter of fact, when you're wrong, they can take you on, because that puts them on the side of the right. But," he says, "there's one thing that they cannot tolerate. There's one thing that really turns them off. And that is if you embarrass them by proving they were wrong." He said, "They were ten-to-one against you on the Hiss case. You proved them wrong. That embarrassed them. And then on the fund—on the Eisenhower train, they had voted forty to two that you ought to get off the ticket. With one broadcast you proved them wrong." He says, "Mark my word. It isn't they hate you individually, but you have embarrassed them, and from now on they're going to be after you." Now, that sounds a little petty, and perhaps it's way overstated, but I would say that, as far as the media is concerned, I probably have t—don't handle myself in a way they like. They like fashion, and I'm not a fashionable person. They like the trendy people. I am not a trendy person. They like froth, and I'm more one who believes in substance. So, basically, under the circumstances, however, I think it really gets down to the fact that I am a conservative, and also, curiously enough, a conservative who is not an isolationist, who is not a reactionary, who is for progress, who is an internationalist. As a matter of fact, I think really many of them privately resented the fact that I went to China and that their boy hadn't done it, whoever their boy was. Now, having said that, let's simply say that that's all in the past, and looking to the future, I hope that when—as time goes on, that they will take a more tolerant attitude, or at least a more objective attitude upo—toward conservative Republican presidents, or Democratic presidents, for that matter, if they happen to be conservative.

Day 3, Tape 1
00:28:05
[Frank Gannon]

One of the—for a number of years, one of the arguments in favor of the—or one of the arguments for the necessity of fighting the Vietnam War was the [Domino Theory], that if South Vietnam fell, the rest of the nations in Southeast Asia and Asia and the Pacific Basin would fall like a row of dominoes. Now, several years after the fall of Vietnam, the end of the war, the fall of Vietnam, the dominoes still seem to be in place. Does that mean that the [Domino Theory] was wrong?

Day 3, Tape 1
00:28:34
[Richard Nixon]

No, not at all. You have to understand historically how the theory developed. It developed first and was first expressed by President Truman and Secretary of State Acheson back in 1948 and '49 when the French were still there. And in that period and in 1953 when I traveled throughout that area, and in 1956 when I was there again, and again back in 1964 when I was there again—in all of that period of time we have to understand that Communism, the idea, ha—still had appeal. These were new nations, many of them. They were just trying the great experiment of self-government. They were trying to find the best way to quick progress. They saw the Soviet example, and they did not see the fact that Communism didn't work. Now, since that period, particularly in the mid-sixties, the late sixties and the seventies, that has all changed. So the Communists don't have the appeal that they had, for example, in Indonesia and the Philippines and Malaysia and Thailand that they had back in 1953 and '54 when the [Domino Theory] was first suggested. So what happened here is that by holding the ring in Vietnam against Soviet- and Chinese-supported revolutionary warfare, we bought time for those nations to develop their own systems. We bought time for the Communist systems to self-destruct. Let's take Indonesia as the best example. Indonesia in the year 1962, throughout, Sukarno, who was left-leaning and was getting taken in by sort of the Communist ideas and—put in a non-Communist, a strong non-Communist government. That would not have happened, in my opinion, had the United States failed to hold the line in Vietnam, beca—and Indonesia was the most important country in that area. There's a hundred and fifty million people and it has a thousand miles of strategically located islands.

Day 3, Tape 1
00:30:36
[Frank Gannon]

Was it worth destabilizing our government, having hundreds of thousands of American casualties, fifty-seven thousand American dead, in order to hold the line for Indonesia, to buy time for the Indonesians?

Day 3, Tape 1
00:30:50
[Richard Nixon]

It wasn't just Indonesia. It's a question of the whole area of what I call revolutionary warfare, because we have to understand the dominoes are just not in Southeast Asia.

Day 3, Tape 1
00:31:04
[Frank Gannon]

Is—is one American life worth buying time?

Day 3, Tape 1
00:31:10
[Richard Nixon]

It is if it's going to affect us. Let's well understand that here sits the United States. Now, I think most people say, well, the United States certainly should risk an American life to save Europe. And most people in America would say we should risk an American life to save Israel. And maybe they would say we should risk American lives to save Japan, because of its economic importance to us and so on. Having said that, however, we have to understand that, as we look at Europe, the United States, and Japan, they cannot survive if, basically, the Third World—and that's a very big term—Latin America, Africa, the Persian Gulf, Southeast Asia, and South Asia—if that comes under Communist domination, we will be surrounded, squeezed, because our supplies will be cut off and so forth and so on. So, in the long term, we simply have to stand firm. We don't fight everyplace. In fact, we try not to fight at all. We should help others fight their own battles, the so-called Nixon Doctrine. But, on the other hand, we have to recognize that what happens in Indonesia, what happens in El Salvador, what happens in Iraq and Iran does matter.

Day 3, Tape 1
00:32:33
[Frank Gannon]

Where is the domino—where are the dominoes today, and what should we be doing? How—

Day 3, Tape 1
00:32:38
[Richard Nixon]

I—

[Frank Gannon]

How—

[Richard Nixon]

I—

[Frank Gannon]

How—

Day 3, Tape 1
00:32:39
[Richard Nixon]

I—I pointed that out in—in considerable detail in my book The Real War. The real war is being fought today not between the superpowers and not between N.A.T.O. and the United States, for example, and the superpower, because there is no war. There's the absence of war there at the present. But the real war is being fought i—in the so-called Third World, Third World, which has the minerals, which has the energy supplies, the oil and so forth, which has the raw materials that is essential for an industrial survi—society to survive. It's Latin America. It's Africa, both black Africa and North Africa. I—it's the Persian Gulf. It's the Mideastern area. It's South Asia and Southeast Asia. That is where the Communists, particularly the Russians, the Chinese now being supportive but playing a—a less expansionist role than it did previously. But that is where by—war by proxy, through using Cuban troops, war through supporting revolutionary warfare, and so forth and soon—where it's being conducted. And so what we have seen since the fall of Vietnam—we've seen Angola. We’ve seen it work there through support of war by proxy, when the United States Congress refused to honor President Ford's request that we do something to save that—to prevent that from happening. Angola, Ethiopia, Yemen—these are places far away. They don't seem to matter, but when that begins to develop in other areas, it's going to matter very much.

Day 3, Tape 1
00:34:21
[Frank Gannon]

Is it—

Day 3, Tape 1
00:34:22
[Richard Nixon]

And, of course, Nicaragua.

Day 3, Tape 1
00:34:24
[Frank Gannon]

Is it worth American lives to buy time for El Salvador?

Day 3, Tape 1
00:34:29
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, certainly. It's a—it's a small country. I've been there. Sad in many ways, and yet hopeful, too. There are four million people in El Salvador. They're very good people. I was there in 1955. But certainly there were reasons for a revolution to occur, but a revolution which brings more repression and more corruption than they had previously is not what the people of El Salvador deserve, and that's what we're trying to prevent. But I think President de Gaulle, many years as a matter of fact, was very prophetic when he said, "What we have to understand is that the countries of Central America are only incidents on the road to Mexico." So Nicaragua was gone, despite the editorials in our great newspapers to the effect that the Sandinistas were not at the—under the control of the Russians, or at least didn't depend it—upon it, and are not today, and so forth—they are. There's no question about that. Nic—uh—

Day 3, Tape 1
00:35:38
[Frank Gannon]

Direc—

[Richard Nixon]

El Salvador—

[Frank Gannon]

Directly, or just in terms of inspiration?

Day 3, Tape 1
00:35:41
[Richard Nixon]

I think [unintelligible]--

[Frank Gannon]

Do you think Moscow is calling the tune or just setting the—

Day 3, Tape 1
00:35:45
[Richard Nixon]

I think m—I think—I'll put it this way—without Moscow, the Sandinista government could not survive for even one month. And that, I think, tells the story. The—El Salvador, now, it can go. Now, call it ["domino"], call it what you want, but the effect on Guatemala, where there are also dissident elements or terrorists or guerrilla elements, you know, who are trying to overthrow the government—let me say in this respect, I hold no brief for the Guatemalan government, for the Nicar—for, certainly, the previous Nicaraguan government, for the El Salvador government. They had their faults, and some of them were very glaring faults. But, on the other hand, what I do say is that it's the old story. It's the choice between them and somebody worse, or them—rather than between them and somebody better. It doesn't mean that we simply say there we support these governments, right or wrong. We must, of course, use our influence to move them into an age of reform. That has to be the American position, always, and that's the real way to practice human rights. But it's no way to practice human rights to say because this government or that one denies human rights, some human rights, to get rid of it and then to bring in a government that allows no human rights. That's what's happened in Cuba, and that's what happened in Nicaragua, and that's a bad choice.

Day 3, Tape 1
00:37:16
[Frank Gannon]

If it came to an up-or-down decision, and you were president, would you send American troops to El Salvador to save it?

Day 3, Tape 1
00:37:22
[Richard Nixon]

No, sir. There's where the Nixon Doctrine—which I'd like to s—take just a second on, applies. Under the Nixon Doctrine, which I announced in Guam in 1969, I said the problem is that in Korea and in Vietnam, the United States provided the arms, we provided the economic assistance, and most of the men in order to help them defend their freedom from Communist domination. I said, in the future, the United States should provide for our friends who are threatened by Communist insurrection. We should provide arms, we should provide training, we should provide economic aid. But, on the other hand, we should not provide the men, except for technicians who—for training, because if they are unwilling to and unable to fight themselves and win, we shouldn't do the fighting for them. And that is the rule that should apply in El Salvador.

Day 3, Tape 1
00:38:18
[Frank Gannon]

Isn't—

Day 3, Tape 1
00:38:19
[Richard Nixon]

Now there is one exception to the rule.

[Frank Gannon]

Isn't that what's happening, though? We're providing this, and they're getting creamed. For whatever—

Day 3, Tape 1
00:38:23
[Richard Nixon]

I think—

[Frank Gannon]

--reason, they can't—

[Richard Nixon]

I think they're going to survive.

Day 3, Tape 1
00:38:25
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think so?

[Richard Nixon]

I think they're going to survive if we provide the arms. You understand, we have to provide the arms, we have to provide economic assistance, and we also have to provide technical training. Now, understand, those that are fighting against them are not fighting with pitchforks. They're a pretty tough bunch, and they have some very modern weapons, and they're not just ones that have been captured from the government forces. A lot of them have been—are Soviet imports, and, of course, Cuban, and so forth and so on. There's one exception insofar as the so-called Nixon Doctrine is concerned, and that is if a foreign government intervenes, then we have to have a reevaluation, and that, of course, is what happened in Korea. The reason the United States went into Korea is that North Korea attacked South Korea. It was not just a civil war. And the same happened in Vietnam. If the North Vietnamese had stayed out of South Vietnam, there would have been no necessity to keep any American forces there, because it was North Korea—North Vietnamese tanks that rumbled into Saigon when it capitulated, not VC tanks, believe me.

Day 3, Tape 1
00:39:34
[Frank Gannon]

Should President Reagan, then, get on the hotline and tell Yuri Andropov to cool it in El Salvador?

Day 3, Tape 1
00:39:42
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I believe that when a summit occurs, as it in—inevitably will, that it must not be one just zeroed in on the very important area of arms control, but it should be the whole world, the relations of the United States and the Soviet Union economically, the relations of the United States and the Soviet Union to the Mideast, to other areas where our interests happen to collide. We're not going to agree on everything, but we at least can set up a process to avoid war over disagreements. They call that "linkage" and so forth. And people say, "Well, why don't you get arms control alone? Wouldn't that be enough?" And the answer is—not at all. Important—you have to remember that wars do not come because of the existence of arms. They come because of failure to resolve—to—political differences that lead to the use of arms. Therefore, since the purpose of arms control ostensibly is to prevent war, that purpose is not served unless you go to the heart of the question. You have arms control, but then you leapfrog that to the differences that might bring war, and you try to cool those. And we've got to make it very clear to the Soviet that, as far as we're concerned, we can have arms control, we can have better trade relations, we can even help them in non-strategic areas in trade, if they're willing, of course, to cool it in areas that might affect us detrimentally.

Day 3, Tape 1
00:41:14
[Frank Gannon]

How do you react to the charges that we caused, largely during your administration—that we caused serious health damage to our own troops in Vietnam by the use of the chemical defoliant Agent Orange? Do you—and do you think that the government should make financial settlements for soldiers or—or people whose health was affected by Agent Orange in Vietnam?

Day 3, Tape 1
00:41:39
[Richard Nixon]

I have not studied that, but if—if a—an independent study indicates that the government was responsible, of course—course they should make financial settlements. Obviously.

Day 3, Tape 1
00:41:53
[Frank Gannon]

What is it—what does it feel like—it's probably an impossible question to answer, but it's not an impossible question to ask, and I think it occurs to people. What does it feel like to make a decision that leads to the bombing of people? You were under fire in the South Pacific. You—you experienced the—the—the terror and the—the helplessness of that. When you’re in the air-conditioned Oval Office and you're looking at maps, and you're making a decision about sending out a bombing run, do you think—can you think about the people in the—in—in—in the non-air-conditioned jungles that—that are going to be under those bombs?

Day 3, Tape 1
00:42:29
[Richard Nixon]

Yes, you did. I must say that, in terms of Vietnam, however, I at least was able to order the bombing, recognizing that our bombing was very carefully restricted to military targets. In fact, our pilots, many of them, as I pointed out, may have lost their lives due to the fact that we did not allow any area bombing, including the bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong. And the records will show that we did carry that out. I remember, though, that President Eisenhower, who had a much more difficult decision, told me that one of the most heart-rending decisions he made was to approve the bombing of Dresden in World War II. Dresden was not a military target, and in one night, thirty-eight thousand people were burned to death because of a firebombing. But the purpose was to discourage the Germans and to bring down Hitler. And it's an awful close question—was it worth it? So I say every president has that problem, but in our case it was not nearly as difficult as the one that President Eisenhower had or that President Truman had when he ordered or approved the bombing with atom bombs of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

Day 3, Tape 1
00:43:39
[Frank Gannon]

In a—in a—a television documentary, General Westmoreland has been charged with suppressing intelligence estimates and leading a conspiracy to conceal from the president, the Congress, and the people, the actual number and placement of enemy troops in Vietnam in order to convey the impression that we were winning a war that we were in fact losing. How do you react to those charges against General Westmoreland?

Day 3, Tape 1
00:44:04
[Richard Nixon]

Disgraceful. He's filed a libel suit. I hope he wins it. He should. I think that as far as he's concerned—I know him. He was an outstanding commander. He's a by-the-book commander. He would never allow himself to be used politically, I'm sure. I saw him out there in Vietnam to—on a couple of my trips. Now, it is true that what, of course, taints him is the fact that the Johnson administration, as we've pointed out earlier, did not level with the American people as much as it should have, due to pol—domestic political considerations with regard to what was going on and so forth. But you can't blame that on West—General Westmoreland. He would never have done it. I know the man.

Day 3, Tape 1
00:44:54
[Frank Gannon]

Looking back on the American experience in Vietnam from your perspective as—as commander-in-chief and president of the United States and as someone who was there from the—from a very early point, before we even became involved in a military sense—looking at the billions of dollars, the millions of refugees, the hundreds of thousands of casualties, the fifty-seven thousand American dead in Vietnam, and the fact that in a matter of a couple of months the whole thing went down the tubes anyway and the Communists—the Communists won—

Day 3, Tape 1
00:45:27
[Richard Nixon]

A couple of years, I should say.

Day 3, Tape 1
00:45:30
[Frank Gannon]

--was it worth it?

Day 3, Tape 1
00:45:32
[Richard Nixon]

Well, was it worth it—I've, of course, obviously, often asked myself that question during the times I had to make the decisions with regard to Cambodia, with regard to the bombings, and so forth and so on. And particularly I asked myself that question when I met with the next-of-kin of people who had lost their lives and so forth. My answer is that the United States and Vietnam, as we know, going back over twenty-five years, have been entwined together. Fate brought us together in that area after the French left Vietnam. I know a case can be made, and it is made by many, that we shouldn't have gone along with the policy of trying to help Vietnam prevent a Communist takeover, but when you say, "Was it worth it?" my answer is, when you see what has happened since the Communist takeover, there's no question about who was on the right side. More people, for example, many more people have been killed and starved to death in Cambodia, between two and three million, than have been lost by the French, by the Americas, by the North Vietnamese and the South Vietnamese in twenty-five years of warfare in Vietnam. And there were no [Boat People], may I say, when our governments, the ones we were supporting, Thieu, et cetera, Diem—there were no [Boat People]. The traffic was all one-way. Nobody went north. They all came south if they possibly could. The question is who was it on the right—were we on the right side. Were we on the right side? I have no doubt about it when I see what we were trying to prevent. When I see the terrible holocaust that has been visited upon the people of South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, I say that any government with any moral sense whatever was justified in trying to prevent that from happening. And I think history will record, when we get further away from the trauma of defeat, that at—as President Reagan has said, it was a just war, if any war at all is just.

Day 3, Tape 1
00:48:02
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think that the Vietnam vet has got a fair deal?

Day 3, Tape 1
00:48:08
[Richard Nixon]

No, not at all. A fair deal, certainly, in terms of education and perhaps jobs and so forth, and some would even question that. But that isn't the important thing. More important than anything else for a s—for a veteran after he has served there—to be—come back and to be respected, to be appreciated, and many of these fellows came back, and they almost had to slink around in their communities, particularly if they went into the universities and the colleges and so forth, in order to get the education that they were denied due to the fact—for having—going out there. I do not think, in other words, that the Am—that the Vietnam veterans have been properly recognized. That's changing some now, and I hope it changes a great deal more, and that those lucky people, particularly, who didn't serve in Vietnam, quite legally, continued their college education, demonstrated against the war and thereby prolonged the war without intending to do so—I think they should be the first to get in and say, "Thank you, fellows. You did your job, and the country owes you a debt." That's the way I feel about it.

Day 3, Tape 1
00:49:20
[Frank Gannon]

What would you say if you found yourself trapped in an elevator on a—in a ten-story building with a—someone who went to Canada to avoid the draft? What would you say to them now? What would you talk to them about?

Day 3, Tape 1
00:49:36
[Richard Nixon]

I don't know that I can really reconstruct what could happen. I don't know what he would say, what I would say. He would probably be very bitter toward me, because in this case—and I don't want to make an invidious comparison—I was like Lincoln in the Civil War. People talk about the fact that Lincoln, of course—

Day 3, Tape 1
00:50:01
[Frank Gannon]

I think another comparison would come to his mind—

Day 3, Tape 1
00:50:03
[Richard Nixon]

Yeah—

[Frank Gannon]

--but that's—

Day 3, Tape 1
00:50:04
[Richard Nixon]

No, but the point is—I remember Sandburg tells a very moving story. Lincoln was sitting in the White House one day, and a—a soldier came to the front gate. He had fled to Canada rather than serving in the Union forces. He wanted a pardon, and Lincoln said, "No, I will not pardon him. He must go back and serve with his unit until the war is over." That was my attitude toward those that ran to Canada and so forth. I understand why they did it. Some disapproved of the war. Some didn't want to take the risk of it. I understand those things, but on the other hand, let me just say, I think they've got to recognize—I don't mean that they should bear this guilt and wring their hands about it, but let them at least compensate for it by paying proper respect to those that did go. You ought to remember, a few thousand went to Canada and Sweden or what-have-you, but two-and-a-half million Americans went out there to Vietnam. And I'm mighty proud of them, and—and I think we all should be proud of them.

Day 3, Tape 1
00:51:10
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think those—

[Richard Nixon]

Because they were on the right side.

Day 3, Tape 1
00:51:12
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think those thousands that went to Canada and Sweden are as good Americans as the million that w—that served?

Day 3, Tape 1
00:51:19
[Richard Nixon]

I don't know what has happened to them since. At the time they made that decision, no. I think those that served were the better Americans of the two.

Day 3, Tape 1
00:51:27
[Frank Gannon]

Would you allow them just to reenter the society, perhaps to—to expiate just by honoring the people who did serve—

Day 3, Tape 1
00:51:35
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, sure.

[Frank Gannon]

--or should they have to do something more?

Day 3, Tape 1
00:51:37
[Richard Nixon]

No, that's done now. I mean, the point is, President Carter, of course, has—in effect, very early on, made the decision that they should all come back.

Day 3, Tape 1
00:51:48
[Frank Gannon]

Did you agree with that decision?

Day 3, Tape 1
00:51:50
[Richard Nixon]

I wouldn't have, no. But, on the other hand, that's done now, and I think the best thing now is to put that aside. These—these people, I think, deep down, deep down, many of those that went—they—they must have a feeling of remorse, and particularly a feeling of remorse when they see what has happened in Vietnam, in Cambodia. And that is where our intellectual elite, I think—I think their problems are sort of two-fold. They're going through quite a trauma. One, it was a war that most of them in the first instance supported, and then they turned against it. They sabotaged my efforts to get them out. They said it wasn't possible to have peace with honor. When we did get the peace with honor, I think it embarrassed them, but I think—think beyond that, that—that these people have got to have a feeling of remorse, remorse about what happened because, it happens, they were on the wrong side.

Day 3, Tape 1
00:52:57
[Frank Gannon]

Talking about the—the draft evaders and deserters, and talking about people like Jane Fonda and Ramsey Clark, you're very hard to interview because you're so—you—you appear to be so magnanimous or so calm, and yet it doesn't make sense that you—that you can't be passionate and furious about what these people did and the damage that they caused, from—from your point of view, and it's—it's—in a way, it's been through your career, it's—it's—a—and it's got you the worst of both worlds, because to your opponents, it proves that you're phony and hypocritical, and to your supporters, it robs them of the catharsis of seeing you share the anger that they feel at the things that get them angry, which is why they support you. Don' t you feel more passionately about these things?

Day 3, Tape 1
00:53:55
[Richard Nixon]

Yes, I feel quite passionately about it, but I've always had the feeling that you—that it serves no purpose to answer hate with hate. You see Jane Fonda and Ramsey Clark and their faces contorted and all the rest, and so I'm supposed to ret—respond that these people are so terrible and I hate them and so forth. I may feel that.

Day 3, Tape 1
00:54:16
[Frank Gannon]

Don't you think they are?

Day 3, Tape 1
00:54:17
[Richard Nixon]

I may feel that, but I am not going—

Day 3, Tape 1
00:54:19
[Frank Gannon]

FG: Do you?

[Richard Nixon]

--to express it.

[Frank Gannon]

You say—say—if you—

Day 3, Tape 1
00:54:20
[Richard Nixon]

No.

[Frank Gannon]

Again, you've put the qualifier in. You may feel that.

Day 3, Tape 1
00:54:22
[Richard Nixon]

No, what they—

[Frank Gannon]

Don't you—f—from—

Day 3, Tape 1
00:54:24
[Richard Nixon]

I—

[Frank Gannon]

--from everything you say, you have to feel that.

Day 3, Tape 1
00:54:26
[Richard Nixon]

I have very strong feelings about them and what they—I did at the time, what they—particularly what they said about our P.O.W.s, for example. That really infuriated me. On the other hand, it would have not served any good purpose to get down in the gutter with them on that kind of thing. I stayed above it, and I think I am going to continue to stay above it.

Day 3, Tape 1
00:54:50
[Frank Gannon]

What does that—does that take an internal toll to—to have the—the calm and discipline that you have, outwardly? What does that do inside?

Day 3, Tape 1
00:55:03
[Richard Nixon]

Well, it tears you up some. It's a lot of turmoil. But, on the other hand, I think th—I think a leader has to be somewhat different from those that attack him. I've—I've taken quite a banging from the media, from the best and the brightest, over the years and so forth, and sometimes, like in 1962, when I told some of the press what I thought of them, I—except for incidents like that, I have not responded in kind. I've never cancelled, for example, a—a—a subscription to a newspaper because of bad cartoons and editorials. If that were the case, I wouldn't have any newspapers to read. But, on the other hand, I—I think that—let me put it this way. Wh—wh—when you get down in the ring there, when you answer hatred with hatred, you destroy yourself. I think they are destroying themselves with it.

Day 3, Tape 1
00:56:06
[Frank Gannon]

One final question on Vietnam. You resigned the presidency because of Watergate. Without Vietnam, many of the attitudes and elements of Watergate wouldn't have existed. From that point of view, do you feel that you were in any way the last—the last American casualty of Vietnam?

Day 3, Tape 1
00:56:38
[Richard Nixon]

You know, some people have written that. It's an intriguing thesis. I guess I would have to respond this way. As you've already implied, if it had not been for Vietnam, there would have been no Pentagon Papers. There would have been no Ellsberg case. There would have been no Plumbers. There would have been probably no wiretapping, because most of that was really directly related or indirectly related to the need to keep a—a very tight ship during it—during wartime. There would have been no demonstrations, certainly, no demonstrations about Vietnam. So that's one side of it. In that sense, I suppose I could be called a casualty. And then, in another way, too, I guess it would have to be said that, had it not been for Vietnam, the outrage about Watergate would not have been as virulent as it was. After all those—the best and the brightest had been embarrassed by the fact that we ended the war, when they said it couldn't be done, and ended in an honorable way, that we went to China, that we had then arms negotiation with the Soviet Union—some of the things which they had not achieved, and then we won an overwhelming election victory against their candidate, or the candidate of most of them, Senator McGovern, and, as—as they looked at those events, I—I think they began to be concerned, as they should have been, about whether they were to continue to have the role that they had—traditionally have, of being those who controlled and directed a—public opinion and affected the decisions of government in the future. And I would say, in that case, that consequently, when Watergate came, that it was manna from heaven. Now, let me make it clear, Watergate was wrong. It was stupidly handled, and as far as—and we should have been attacked on it. But I would say that when you car—you compare it with what happened previously—and this does not justify it—the virulence of the attackers was to a certain extent due to the fact that we had been through the Vietnam syndrome and probably because we had succeeded when they said we couldn't succeed. Perhaps that's a—a theory that some won't buy. But, incidentally, as far as the last casualty is concerned, I'd like to bring all this esoteric talk—and of course this is that—that psychohistory that I—as you know, I have very little use for. Who—I remember the last casualty, and I would say that it was one of the most moving experiences I had in the White House. I am—am known—I'm considered to be, as you've already implied, a non-emotional person. I know, for example, that it's often said that pol—politicians, political leaders, are monsters of self-control. Well, that isn't quite true. I—Winston Churchill, for example, when he was dictating his great speech about—"We will fight on the beaches. We will fight in the cities. We will fight in our homes. We will never surrender"—the tears were streaming down his cheek, and I remember Eisenhower used to tell me that when Churchill would argue his case before Eisenhower in the high councils, the tears would flow down his cheeks. Well, I am not that way. But I am an emotional man. I—I just believe in controlling it, and I'm pretty good at it. I recall only three incidents when I was unable to control my e—emotions when I was president. One was when Eisenhower died. I don't know yet why it happened, and yet I do, in a way. Mel Laird was in the office. We were discussing the next withdrawal program for Vietnam, or—which had not yet occurred but we were g—wh—wh—which was going to occur in a few months after that, and Bob Haldeman interrupted us. He came in, which he never does normally when I'm talking to anyone else, and I knew it was something important. He said, "Mr. President, the general has just died." And all of a sudden, I—I burst out into tears, and I suppose I should have said something for the ages or that sort of thing, but all I could say was, "He was such a strong man." And the second occasion was one that is a—also been well-publicized, of course—was at the time I resigned, the day I made the resignation speech. I met with my supporters, Democrats and Republicans who had stuck with me on Vietnam and when I went to Russia and to China and so forth, and stuck with me during the Watergate period. And I had to tell them about resigning, and it was a very emotional s—moment. The whole Cabinet Room was packed, and people were hanging on every word, and so I thanked them for what they had done and for the years that we had worked together, because many of them went back over thirty years with me, back to 1947 when I came to the Congress. And finally, as I was reaching the conclusion, I was saying something to the effect that, "I only regret that I have let you down." And I looked across the table, and there was the—Les Arends, who was the minority whip for the Republicans, an old friend, a dear friend from Illinois, and I remember he had his face in his hands and the tears were coming down his cheeks. He was sobbing, and I couldn't control myself. I had to leave the room. Fifteen minutes later, I had to go on national telev—

Day 3, Tape 1
00:01:02
[Action note: Screen goes blank.]

The following text appears in the original transcript but does not appear on a tape. It has not been edited.

[Richard Nixon]

[Previous tape ended in the middle of the word "television."] --ision and make the speech. I still don't know how I did it. The other incident is not known. It involved the last casualty, the really last casualty in Vietnam. The officer—I believe he was an officer—might have been an enlisted man—I don't recall—he had been killed the day before the cease-fire went into effect in Vietnam. And so I was receiving his widow and his two children in the Oval Office. It was difficult. They were such fine-looking people, very dignified, and I tried to tell them in simple words, as simply as I could, how much we appreciated what he had done and how much we regretted the loss that they had suffered. And I said that in the long run, "I think you should know that the nation will recognize that it owes him and all those who died and served with him a very great debt that we can never repay." Well, they got up to leave, and as we got to the door, the daughter—I guess she was about eighteen years old, a pretty thing, sort of vivacious, and reminded me of both Tricia and Julie—and she said, "May I kiss you?" Well, I must say, I broke up. I thought of all the thousands of children of the men who had died, and—

Day three, Tape two of four, LINE FEED #2, 4-8-83, ETI Reel #21
April 8, 1983

Day 3, Tape 2
00:00:59
[Action note: Screen goes black.]

Day 3, Tape 2
00:01:07
[Action note: Picture appears.]

Day 3, Tape 2
00:01:08
[Richard Nixon]

--I must say that, after that conversation, I couldn't have disagreed more with what John Lindsay said when he said our best young men went to Canada. He was dead wrong. I know where our best young men went. They went to Vietnam. They served with honor, and the country is eventually going to honor them, I trust, in the way that they deserve.

Day 3, Tape 2
00:01:46
[Offscreen voice]

Okay, hold positions, everybody. I need to make a quick [unintelligible] stop here, and then we'll continue, so don't leave your positions. [Unintelligible.]

Day 3, Tape 2
00:02:07
[Richard Nixon]

Well, now you've got what? Under the—

Day 3, Tape 2
00:02:12
[Frank Gannon]

We're, uh—

Day 3, Tape 2
00:02:14
[Richard Nixon]

Took a little more time than you expected, huh?

Day 3, Tape 2
00:02:15
[Frank Gannon]

Well, I decided just to take the first hour [unintelligible].

Day 3, Tape 2
00:02:16
[Offscreen voice]

We went further, but I'll tell you, that was [unintelligible].

Day 3, Tape 2
00:02:21
[Frank Gannon]

I don't—I—

Day 3, Tape 2
00:02:22
[Offscreen voice]

I wasn't [unintelligible].

Day 3, Tape 2
00:02:23
[Frank Gannon]

I—I need a few minutes to—

Day 3, Tape 2
00:02:25
[Offscreen voice]

Your lip is fine. It's not perspiring, if that's—

Day 3, Tape 2
00:02:27
[Richard Nixon]

No, no—

[Offscreen voice]

Oh, oh, okay.

Day 3, Tape 2
00:02:28
[Richard Nixon]

Oh—I see.

Day 3, Tape 2
00:02:29
[Offscreen voice]

Every once in a while, you're—you're wiping—

Day 3, Tape 2
00:02:30
[Richard Nixon]

I think I'll go out and get a cup of coffee, if I can.

Day 3, Tape 2
00:02:32
[Offscreen voice]

Okay, can we unwire the president here?

Day 3, Tape 2
00:02:33
[Offscreen voice]

Yes, all right here [unintelligible].

[Offscreen voice]

One second.

Day 3, Tape 2
00:02:36
[Offscreen voice]

We’re going now to the—

Day 3, Tape 2
00:02:37
[Frank Gannon]

I'm going to [unintelligible]--

[Offscreen voice]

--tape playback.

Day 3, Tape 2
00:02:38
[Frank Gannon]

--do the same.

Day 3, Tape 2
00:02:39
[Offscreen voice]

Uh, Frank?

Day 3, Tape 2
00:02:50
[Action note: Nixon gets up and walks off set.]

Day 3, Tape 2
00:03:34
[Action note: Screen goes black.]

Day 3, Tape 2
00:03:36
[Action note: Color bars appear.]

Day 3, Tape 2
00:04:43
[Action note: Screen goes black.]

Day 3, Tape 2
00:05:02
[Richard Nixon]

Eleven thirty-five, twelve thirty-five—

Day 3, Tape 2
00:05:08
[Offscreen voice]

Stand by. One.

Day 3, Tape 2
00:05:11
[Action note: Picture appears on screen. Film clip dialogue:

First speaker: "How do you feel, Senator?"

Second speaker: "How do you feel, Senator?"

Voiceover: "…and declares Richard M. Nixon the Republican nominee for vice president by acclamation."

Cheers; music.]

Day 3, Tape 2
00:05:16
[Frank Gannon]

In this conversation with former President Nixon, we'll cover his vice-presidential years from 1953 to 1961. Why were you chosen as Eisenhower's vice president? What did you bring to the ticket?

Day 3, Tape 2
00:05:32
[Richard Nixon]

Well, he told me years later that what he thought I brought to the ticket was, first, a bridge to younger people, and he was making a great effort to win younger people; second, a possible way to build a bridge between him and the regular Republicans, because he knew that I had considerable support among those regular Republicans; and third, and I think this may have been the decisive factor because at that time domestic Communism was a major issue, he felt that I had credentials in this area. As he put it to me, "You got Hiss, and you got him fairly." And he felt that I therefore would be a good answer to the extremists like Joe McCarthy who didn't care that much about fairness, in his opinion. I think these factors were those that made him make that decision. And, finally, I think, another factor was that he had been told, particularly by Tom Dewey, that I was a pretty good speaker.

Day 3, Tape 2
00:06:33
[Frank Gannon]

How did you and Mrs. Nixon feel about the prospect of becoming national figures, leaving the Senate and becoming a vice president if the ticket won?

Day 3, Tape 2
00:06:44
[Richard Nixon]

Well, her attitude was quite negative actually—not negative in the sense of not being willing to go out and do the campaigning, which she had done so well for the House and Senate, but negative in terms of the fact that we had just been through the Senate campaign, we were looking forward to six years in Washington with our young daughters, a little more peace, not out there fighting battles and so forth. And she knew very well that the '52 campaign would be tough and that from then on we'd be living in a fishbowl. And she didn’t care that much for all that public notoriety.

Day 3, Tape 2
00:07:25
[Frank Gannon]

How did you feel? Were you excited by the prospect?

Day 3, Tape 2
00:07:29
[Richard Nixon]

Mixed emotions. I would have to say yes, because, after all, I was only thirty-nine years old and to even be considered for vice president, particularly running with General Eisenhower, for whom I had enormous respect, was to me something that you only dreamed about. But, on the other hand, I—I was aware of the fact that I was building a career in the Senate, that I had plenty of time, and I wasn't so sure that I wanted to make this move at this relatively early age into a position that—and I had studied a lot of history—that Harry Truman had said was about as useful as a fifth tit on a cow, and Theodore Roosevelt said it's like taking the veil. On the other hand, to answer it, with all these things measured, did I want to do it? The answer is yes.

Day 3, Tape 2
00:08:34
[Frank Gannon]

You got the word that you had been chosen, and—or when you got--when you got the word that you had been chosen, you went to Eisenhower's hotel room to meet him. What was that—what was that meeting like?

Day 3, Tape 2
00:08:49
[Richard Nixon]

Well, for me, quite an emotional meeting, because I had met him before, at the Bohemian Grove in California after I had been nominated for the Senate in 1950, and then in Paris, when I had called on him and had an hour with him when he was serving at S.H.A.P.E. as Supreme Commander.

Day 3, Tape 2
00:09:09
[Frank Gannon]

Didn't you write that at that meeting you were impressed because he was wearing an Eisenhower jacket?

Day 3, Tape 2
00:09:13
[Richard Nixon]

He was not only wearing an Eisenhower jacket, but he was so erect and vigorous and young. What impressed me, too, was another factor that Winston Churchill says is one of the most important attributes that a political figure can have. He said, "When you meet another person," he said, "if you really want to impress him, try to make him feel after you have met him that he has done well rather than that you have done well." And I was really quite impressed by the way that Eisenhower, when I met him, rather than talking about himself—he did answer my questions with regard to S.H.A.P.E. and the rest—that he was very interested in what I had done, asked me about the Hiss case, said he had read Ralph de Toledano and Victor Lasky's book Seeds of Treason, congratulated me on being very fair. I thought right then, he's a pretty coonie fellow.

Day 3, Tape 2
00:10:08
[Frank Gannon]

So you go into the—into the suite at the Blackstone Hotel—

Day 3, Tape 2
00:10:12
[Richard Nixon]

Yes.

[Frank Gannon]

--he shakes your hand, and asks you to join his ticket?

Day 3, Tape 2
00:10:15
[Richard Nixon]

Yes. He—I must say that I had a little bit of an uneasy moment, because when I walked in, I didn't know, really, what to call him. He'd just been nominated for president, and when I had met him previously at the convention, he had attended the California delegation, and of course I called him "General." So I shook his hand and I said, "Hi, Chief," and I could tell he didn't like it. Now the reason I used the term "chief" was not in a derogatory sense, but that is what Herbert Hoover had always been called, and I thought it was a compliment. But President Eisenhower, incidentally, didn't like that kind of a familiar term. I should point out that in the entire period of his presidency, I never called him "Ike." I always called him "Mr. President." And also, after he left the office, I didn't call him "Mr. President." He wanted to be called "General." But I was one of the few of his intimates, as I did become an intimate later on, who never called him "Ike."

Day 3, Tape 2
00:11:13
[Frank Gannon]

Did he consider "general" a higher calling than "president"?

Day 3, Tape 2
00:11:15
[Richard Nixon]

I think he did. I think he did. But, in any event, we sat down, and he—he was quite formal, a—a—and he said—asked me if I would be willing to join his cru—this crusade. Well, I said, of course I would be honored to do so. And then I remember a rather poignant incident that occurred. As we were talking, all of a sudden he snapped his fingers, and he says, "Oh—forgotten something. I've got to resign from the Army." And he called in his secretary--dictated a letter resigning from the Army, and I thought, "Here is fifty years, changing from one career to another," and I also thought in the back of my mind, "I hope he isn't going to be too disillusioned when he gets into the ring in politics," because I knew with Harry Truman on the other side, with Adlai Stevenson, with his rather cutting rhetoric, that it would not be an easy campaign even for Eisenhower.

Day 3, Tape 2
00:12:16
[Frank Gannon]

From that meeting, you went to the convention hall, where you met Mrs. Nixon. We have some film of your arrival at the convention hall and then your nomination as vice president in 1952.

Day 3, Tape 2
00:12:33
[Action note: Clip begins; noisy.]

Day 3, Tape 2
00:12:40
[Frank Gannon]

That's your one suit, eh?

Day 3, Tape 2
00:12:42
[Richard Nixon]

Hmm.

Day 3, Tape 2
00:13:01
[Richard Nixon]

I remember, incidentally, when that demonstration was going on, and it went on and on and on, that I kept telling Joe Martin, I says, "Can't you calm them down?" He turned to me with that sort of Irish twang of his, and he says, he says, "An old saying," he says. "Get in the hay while the sun is shining." And you see there Pat, Mrs. Nixon, kissing me. What had happened was that I was at the Stockyards Inn when I got the word, and she was having lunch with a friend of hers. She got the word—when she got it, incidentally, dropped the sandwich on the floor, she was so surprised—and here we are together.

Day 3, Tape 2
00:13:41
[Frank Gannon]

It must have—

[Richard Nixon]

I can—she hasn’t changed, but I don't think I was ever that young.

[Action note: They both laugh.]

Day 3, Tape 2
00:13:47
[Frank Gannon]

Will you ever be that young again?

Day 3, Tape 2
00:13:50
[Richard Nixon]

Possibly.

Day 3, Tape 2
00:13:52
[Frank Gannon]

That must have been a heady moment for you, for both of you, to--to be standing in front of a national convention and—for the first time. Of course, you'd been in the House and you'd been in the Senate, so you'd campaigned, but to hear all those people cheering for you to become a national—to become the vice president.

Day 3, Tape 2
00:14:07
[Richard Nixon]

Well, the first time, of course, is the one that is always the mountaintop experience. Not that everything else is downhill, but there is nothing that equals it. For example, people ask which--which election gave me the biggest thrill. It wasn't being elected president. It was being elected to the Congress. That was really a big thrill.

Day 3, Tape 2
00:14:27
[Frank Gannon]

So you remember.

[Richard Nixon]

And the same thing is true here. I addressed this convention, and--and then I addressed the 1956 convention, the 1960 convention, 1964, when I introduced Goldwater, 1968, '72. All were memorable. The excitement of the crowd and so forth—it really gives you a lift. It turns on the adrenaline if it wasn't already there. But nothing like the first time. Nothing like the first time.

Day 3, Tape 2
00:14:46
[Frank Gannon]

We have a photograph of the two nominees at the—that night receiving the acclaim of the convention. (Pause as they look.) Do you remember that moment?

Day 3, Tape 2
00:15:11
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, I remember it very well. That's a very famous picture, too. It was used all over the country on posters and that sort of thing.

Day 3, Tape 2
00:15:18
[Frank Gannon]

You look very happy.

Day 3, Tape 2
00:15:19
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I was happy, and I—I must say, though, that I sensed when I held the general's arm up that he resisted it just a little. Oh, he didn't indicate displeasure, but that—he didn't quite like it. And later on I learned that, in watching him over the years, that Eisenhower didn't like people to manhandle him, to grab him, and so forth. He had a great sense of dignity and also of privacy. He wasn't the average politician in that respect. I remember, too, that he was very different in another way. He had a famous smile, and he appreciated a good joke, but it really turned him off if a joke was off-color—really turned him off. He felt that that was an insult to the presidency, to the office that he held, and he never would laugh at one. And, also, he didn't like any humor when it was a serious situation or a serious subject. I recall vividly very early on a briefing of the legislative leaders with regard to our civilian defense program, and all the numbers were put out about the number of missiles that might fall on the United States and all that sort of thing, and why we had to have a civilian defense program, and Senator Gene Milliken, who had a wry sense of humor, from Colorado, after the briefing was continued, he—concluded, he said, "Well, you know, after hearing this briefing, Mr. President," he said, "I think what we all ought to do is to paint our asses white and run with the antelope." And Eisenhower—everybody else laughed, but not Eisenhower. He sort of smiled a bit, and he said, "Well, Gene," he said, "let me say we may not have time to paint our asses white if the bombs begin to fall and we aren't prepared for it."

Day 3, Tape 2
00:17:22
[Frank Gannon]

After the convention, you—you went to Colorado for a fishing vacation with Eisenhower to plan the campaign, and this—this film of that—that event. Was that one of your favorite vacation memories?

Day 3, Tape 2
00:17:37
[Richard Nixon]

No, I don't think it was one of mine, except for the dinner that Eisenhower cooked. He was a gourmet cook, and he wouldn't allow anybody else up there with him. There were about ten of us that were up there at this camp in the mountains, and he cooked, I remember, a—a—a beef sirloin and potatoes. He let somebody else peel the potatoes. That was the only thing he didn't do. But otherwise, he did it all. It was marvelous. But also he insisted that I learn to fish. I had never hunted or fished in my life, and so, having to learn to fish, and trout fishing, fly casting—that was really starting in the major leagues when I should have, probably, started with something much easier. And I remember he got me out there and showed me how to cast. I tried it about six or eight times, but when I brought the thing back and it caught him in his jacket once, he gave up on me and I gave up. I've never tried it since.

Day 3, Tape 2
00:18:31
[Frank Gannon]

The—you kicked off your campaign with a whistle-stop train tour up the coast of California, in California, and the first day out a--you got zapped by a bolt from the blue. A headline in the New York Post newspaper said, "Secret Nixon Fund: Secret Rich Men's Trust Fund Keeps Nixon in Style Far Beyond His Salary." This was the—the first shot in what became known as the "Fund Crisis." What was this secret rich man's fund?

Day 3, Tape 2
00:19:06
[Richard Nixon]

Well, first, the headline was very misleading in three characteristics: the fund was not secret, it was not a rich man's fund, and the purpose of the fund was not to keep me in a style far beyove—far above what I could afford. As a matter of fact, it was a routine fund, which were very common in the Congress then, and even more so today, which took care of political expenses that could not be properly charged to the government. For example, and this is hard to think, if you were to tell a senator today from California that the government only paid for one round trip a year between Washington and California, he'd say, "I really can't serve in the office." Today, I think it's ten or twelve that they allow. But, in any event, this fund of eighteen thousand dollars had been set up after I won the Senate campaign so that I could conduct a year-round campaign and get back to California. It paid for some of my travel expenses. It—it paid for some of my mailings. It paid for some extra office help to handle the huge volume of mail that I received as a new senator from California. Absolutely nothing went for personal purposes. It was not secret. It was—Mr. Dana Smith and—my finance chairman in the '50 campaign—sent over--several thousand letters to supporters all over the state. And it was not a rich man's fund, either. As far as that's concerned, there were some rich men that contributed to it, but the limit on the contributions was five hundred dollars. The average contribution was two hundred and forty-three dollars. Nevertheless, all that being said, once the headline appeared, it really created a firestorm.

Day 3, Tape 2
00:20:52
[Frank Gannon]

It later turned out that there was a—a Stevenson Fund, that Governor Stevenson had a fund of his own. What were the differences between the Nixon Fund and the Stevenson Fund?

Day 3, Tape 2
00:21:03
[Richard Nixon]

Well, it's interesting to—how we learned about the Stevenson Fund. After I had gone on—on my campaign train up into Portland and it was decided that I return to Los Angeles to make a nationwide broadcast, the so-called "Checkers speech," as it later came to be known—on the way down, as I was working on my notes, Murray Chotiner, my campaign manager, slipped into the seat beside me, says, "I don't want to interrupt you," he says, "but, you know, I kind of smell a rat here. Here Stephen Mitchell"—who was the Democratic National Chairman—"has asked you, has demanded that you get off the ticket. Several newspapers have. Several of the leading Democratic officials have. But Stevenson is not saying a word. I smell a rat." And sure enough, the next day, it was a--the rat exposed himself. What had happened—I don't mean Stevenson was the rat, but, in any event, the next day it became known that contractors doing business with the state had contributed to a Stevenson Fund. Stevenson office immediately put it—out a story to the effect—well, this fund was different, because it was solely for the purpose of supplementing the salaries of people on his staff who couldn't otherwise serve in state government if they didn't have this sa—salary supplementation, and it indicated that the fund was eighteen thousand dollars only. Well, the press, in one of the rare t—times when they did not have a double standard, asked Stevenson for a press conference so that he could explain his fund, just as I was going to explain mine on television. They petitioned him, as a matter of fact, and he just flat turned it down. It was only years later, long after Stevenson was dead, that his authorized biographer, John Bartlow Martin, disclosed that the fund was much bigger and very different from the one that had been admitted in the campaign. It was for eighty-four thousand dollars. The major contributors put up five thousand dollars. They did so with the expectation, no promise, but expectation, that they might get business from the state. It was not used solely for political purposes. It was used, for example, to pay for Stevenson's annual Christmas parties. It was used for the purpose of hiring an orchestra for a dance that his sons were having. And under the circumstances, therefore, the fact that it was being used for personal purposes as well as political purposes totally distinguishes it from my fund. Now, in retrospect, therefore, it seems that—that I have the best of the argument, but Stevenson had the media with him. And so it took a—a—it took a broadcast which went over the heads of the media, in fact, over the heads of the politicians, to win the day.

Day 3, Tape 2
00:24:05
[Frank Gannon]

What was Eisenhower's reaction when he got word of the—of the Post story, because, of course, one of the things you were running on was—or running against, was the—

Day 3, Tape 2
00:24:16
[Richard Nixon]

The mess—

[Frank Gannon]

--scandal-ridden corruption of the—

Day 3, Tape 2
00:24:17
[Richard Nixon]

--the mess in Washington.

Day 3, Tape 2
00:24:18
[Frank Gannon]

--mess in Washington, the Democratic administration. How did he react?

Day 3, Tape 2
00:24:21
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I wasn't there, but all that I knew—that I didn't hear anything from him. Sherman Adams called. Jim Hagerty called. I didn't take their calls. I wasn't going to be fobbed off on some aide. Even though I was just thirty-nine years of age, I knew better than that, but I heard, for example, that Herbert Hoover had made a supportive statement. I had a nice wire from Warren Burger, who later became chief justice. I had a wire from Jerry Ford, who later became president, and a very warm statement made by Bob Taft, when he said he didn't see what was wrong. And he says, "This is something that seems to be a regular pattern, and the only question is whether or not he was affected by his votes, and it appears that he was going to vote the way most of his supporters wanted him to vote anyway. He'd been elected by them. These were his supporters." But nothing from Eisenhower.

Day 3, Tape 2
00:25:12
[Frank Gannon]

Were you surprised or hurt by Eisenhower's silence?

Day 3, Tape 2
00:25:15
[Richard Nixon]

Uh—not hurt to an extent, but then, as I thought it through—not necessarily surprised or hurt, because I realized he was not a politician. A—and I realized, too, from what I later heard that he was under terrific heat. There were some people on his staff who did not approve of my being on the ticket in the first instance. They preferred a more liberal candidate than I was, and also Eisenhower was very sensitive about the media. He'd always had a very good press when he was in Europe, and he was very sensitive about it. And so, consequently, when he learned that the press had taken t—a poll and, by a margin of forty to two, said that Nixon should get off the ticket, as Stephen Mitchell had demanded, and as the New York Herald Tribune, a Republican paper, as well as the Washington Post, a Democratic paper, had demanded, he then told the press in an off-the-record session that there was going to be no attempt here to whitewash Nixon, that he had to come out clean as a hound's tooth. He also made the point that he had confidence that—of my integrity. So that's all I heard. This was not from him directly. It's what I was reading in the play—in the papers. In other words, he was saying, in effect, though—I could read between the lines—not that I was innocent till I was proved guilty, but that I had to prove my innocence. In other words, there was the presumption of guilt. I had to prove that I was clean as a hound's tooth.

Day 3, Tape 2
00:26:45
[Frank Gannon]

When did you finally hear from him or d—or did you finally hear from him? And wh—

Day 3, Tape 2
00:26:51
[Richard Nixon]

Well—

[Frank Gannon]

--what did you decide to do?

Day 3, Tape 2
00:26:52
[Richard Nixon]

Well, the way it worked was this. Murray Chotiner had suggested to me that I should use the money that was allocated for a vice-presidential TV program to answer the charges. Tom Dewey called me, told me—he said, "Eisenhower's advisors are a hanging jury as far as you're concerned." And he said, "I think what you ought to do is to go on TV and ask the people to indicate whether they support you or not," which was—which was exactly the way Murray had come down. So, up to this time, I still hadn't heard from Eisenhower, and finally in Portland, I got a call from him. It was a very friendly call. He says—d—said, " I understand it's rather difficult." And I said, "Yeah, it hasn't been easy." He then went on to say that he wanted me to make the decision as to whether or not I should stay on the ticket and so forth. He said, "After all, you've got a lot of support in this country." He said, "I don't want it to appear that I have knocked you off and condemned an innocent man." I then went on to say, well, I'd be willing to leave if it would serve his interests or the interests of the ticket, but he said no, that was not the way it should be done, that I should make the decision. Well, the conversation went on for a while, and finally, he s—came up with the same suggestion that Tom Dewey had made, except he elaborated on it. He said, "Not only answer the fund, but," he said, "tell the country everything you have ever received, how much money you have earned, what it's been used for, what your worth is," and so forth. He said, "I advise that that be done," which was shrewd advice. And I said, "Well, General, I'll be glad to do that because I've got nothing to hide." I said, "But once I've made the broadcast," he said, "then can we make a decision?" He said, "No," he says, "I think we should take three or four days to see how it goes." I said, "Well, General," I said, "the problem here is the indecision." I said, "We've really got to get it decided because otherwise it's going to be ballooned bigger than it i—even is at the present time." And then I sort of blew my top a bit, and I says, "You know, there comes a time you either have to shit or get off the pot." Well, from me, a thirty-nine-year-old senator to say this to the supreme commander of Europe forces, a great war hero whom I admired enormously, a presidential nominee who was going to be president, was pretty shocking. He took it rather well, though, and his last words were, "Keep your chin up." So that was that.

Day 3, Tape 2
00:29:31
[Frank Gannon]

So you decided to—to make a national television speech.

Day 3, Tape 2
00:29:35
[Richard Nixon]

Yes.

Day 3, Tape 2
00:29:36
[Frank Gannon]

You had to go back to Los Angeles to do it, and you've described the moments just—just as you were getting ready to go to the studio, you received a phone call from a Mr. Chapman.

Day 3, Tape 2
00:29:48
[Richard Nixon]

Yes. Mr. Chapman was Governor Dewey's code name. You know, even in those days I guess people were afraid that they were being tapped or what-have-you, and I wouldn't put it past some of our friends on the other side. But, be that as it may, he called and said, "This is Mr. Chapman." I knew it was Dewey, and I was scheduled to go out on the television, to the studio, in thirty minutes, and I was working on my notes. The speech, incidentally, was to be in three sections. I should make—lay the groundwork for that. First, I was going to explain the fund, as I've explained it earlier. Second, I was going to release all material with regard to everything I had earned and what I owned and what I didn't own and so forth, which of course virtually qualified me for—for food stamps, if we'd have had food stamps in those days, because I didn't have much. And, third, I was going to go on the attack and take on Stevenson for his fund and also point out why it was very important to have Eisenhower rather than Stevenson as president. I had it all worked out and had made the notes and so forth. So this call came in from Dewey, and Dewey said, "Dick," he said, "I--I don't agree with this, but," he said, "I think you should know that Ei—Eisenhower's advisors have all met, and they unanimously agree that you should resign from the ticket." I said, "Well," I said, "it's a little late to hear that." He said, "I think probably that's what you should do." And he said, "I think further that what you should do is resign from the Senate, and then what you should do is to announce you're going to resign from the Senate and then run for reelection so as you can be vindicated in reelection." It was getting a little unreal at that point, because Dewey was a pro, he was a friend, and so forth. So I just didn't say a word. There must have been about a two-minute, or at least one-minute silence, and then Dewey said, "Well, what are you going to do?" I said, " Governor, I don't know what I'm going to do. Just tell your friends to listen to the broadcast." End of conversation. Well, that was a rather traumatic experience, and I went to the studio, and I must say I—just before going in at—or getting a little preparation for it, we were sitting in the control room, and Mrs. Nixon, Pat, was sitting with me, and I said, "Gee, I just don't think I can do this." She put her hand over and says, "Yes, you can." She's a very strong person. So we walked out to the set together, and I made the famous fund speech, or infamous, as my critics would say.

Day 3, Tape 2
00:32:24
[Frank Gannon]

Two of the most famous images from that have to do with Mrs. Nixon's coat and the cocker spaniel puppy—we have—that—that gave the speech its name. We have two clips from the speech.

Day 3, Tape 2
00:32:43
[Action note: First clip from speech.]

Day 3, Tape 2
00:33:48
[Richard Nixon]

What made you think of those two images, the coat and the dog?

Day 3, Tape 2
00:33:52
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I thought of them going back on the plane from Portland to Los Angeles, because time was rushing down. I only had two days to prepare this speech of—nationwide television, which of course was not being written by anywe—uh—s—uh—else [he may mean "anyone else"]. I had written everything out on my own, as I always did at those times. And I couldn't sleep. I tried to doze off--it was a night flight—and I reached into the pocket in the airplane, which in those days—I don't know whether they still do it or not—you could get cards which you could mail to your friends from the airplane. And I got these cards out, and I made notes, and it occurred to me that as far as the dog was concerned—I knew a little about political history. I remembered that F.D.R., whom I always admired as a great politician, had really decimated his opponents i—in—in one of his campaigns when, in Boston, he made a speech, and he was answering some of the attacks and said these attacks were unfair against him, and then he went on to say, "And I suppose next they're going to be attacking my dog Fala." So I remembered Checkers, and that's why I said what I did about Checkers. Now, the mink coat, of course, had to do with my old sparring mate, Harry Truman. In the Truman scandals period, one of the women, or girls, should I say, working in the White House, a White House secretary, had received a nine-thousand-dollar mink kert—coat. Incidentally, today that'd only buy a muff, but then that was a pretty good mink coat. And so, under the circumstances, that had been quite a scandal, and Truman, of course, had defended it. He always stood by his people. So I made the point, which was true, that Pat didn't have a mink coat, but she did have a respectable Republican cloth coat. Incidentally, one other thing that occurred to me on that, and I had to check it out with my old professor, Paul Smith—I remember that Stephen Mitchell, the Democratic chairman, who could really use a knife pretty good and twist it, had said after my statement with regard to my fund—he says that, in that usual arrogant way of the Eastern elite, he said, "If a man can't afford public life, he shouldn't go into it," inference being that only people like Stevenson, who of course was a millionaire, should be allowed to run for office, at least high office. And I said, "Well, with regard to that, after all, as Lincoln said, 'God must have loved the common people, because he made so many of them.'" Well, those three lines had dramatic impact, because there were a lot of common people in the country. There were a lot of people in Texas, incidentally, that liked the fact that that dog came from Texas, and we carried Texas, finally. And, of course—

Day 3, Tape 2
00:36:52
[Frank Gannon]

[Action note: He laughs.]

Your dog.

Day 3, Tape 2
00:36:53
[Richard Nixon]

--there were many people that resented what had happened about the cloth—about the—the mink coat. Later on, we got a lot of dog collars for Checkers as we campaigned around, and dog food enough to last three or four years, but nobody ever gave Pat a mink coat. I did buy one for her after we left the presidency.

Day 3, Tape 2
00:37:14
[Frank Gannon]

As this next clip shows, the—the speech ended on sort of an unfinished note. You just faded out in mid-sentence.

Day 3, Tape 2
00:37:24
[Action note: Second clip from speech.]

Day 3, Tape 2
00:37:59
[Frank Gannon]

What—what happened there?

Day 3, Tape 2
00:38:01
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I was cut off because I didn't give the address of the Republican National Committee, and, consequently, I was really let down after the broadcast. I should point out that the reason that I was unable to do that and didn't finish quite on time was that I didn't see Ted Rogers, who was my television man, give the one-minute signal. Also, although after that I think the—after the broadcast, there were various anti-Nixon newspapers, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch and others, who said this had—the whole broadcast had been—speech had been written out in advance, had been practiced before television, I'd looked at tapes and so forth. Let me say I have never seen a tape of myself. I had written every line of this myself. I had—as was my practice, I timed it in my mind, and I have always been able to know from just looking at what I have written and thinking it through without ever uttering it out loud about exactly how it'll come out. I could time it down to even the second. And in this instance I missed the signal, and I consequently w—thought that the speech was a failure because I hadn't told wh—where to send their wires. As it was, incidentally, the wires went to the Republican National Committee, they went to Eisenhower and his train, they went to the hotel we were staying in, to my home in California, to my office in Washington--hundreds of thousands of them.

Day 3, Tape 2
00:40:30
[Frank Gannon]

What was Eisenhower's reaction to the speech? What happened as a result of it?

Day 3, Tape 2
00:40:34
[Richard Nixon]

Well, that was one of the problems, that we almost blew the whole thing. I got back to the hotel. The wires were piled up, but no word from Eisenhower. Nothing. And the first call that I took was from Daryl Zanuck, incidentally, the motion picture producer. I knew then that it had been a success, because he is—was a real pro. He said, "There's never been political television like that. There'll never be one like that again," and so forth. But, in any event, what had happened—Eisenhower had sent a wire, but it had been lost because there were so many. And, consequently, there was a period there when I hadn't heard from Eisenhower, and when some sort of a garbled media report of what he'd said—that one broadcast wasn't enough and that he was going to have to hear more—I blew my stack and told Murray Chotiner, I said, "Look, I'm going to resign from the ticket if that's the way they want to do it. I'm not going to make another broadcast. I'm not going to go through this any more." Chotiner took my resignation and tore it up and so forth, but, in any event, we finally did get Eisenhower's wire, which was a very gracious one, and I met him in Wheeling, Virginia—West Virginia for the reunion.

Day 3, Tape 2
00:41:53
[Frank Gannon]

How did—how did Mrs. Nixon react to the speech?

Day 3, Tape 2
00:41:59
[Richard Nixon]

You know, Mrs. Nixon, my mother, my father—what average people don't realize is that it is much harder on the families than it is on the man in the arena. The man in the arena can fight, as I was trying to fight in that broadcast. He can express himself, but the family just have to suffer in silence. But she was a very intelligent person. She was very strong. She's a fighter, I can assure you, and she wouldn't hear to any suggestion that I should resign. She said two things. She said, one, she said, "If you resign, the Republicans are going to lose"—

Day 3, Tape 2
00:42:42
[Action note: Screen goes black.]

The following text has been corrected to tape but does not include time codes because of confusion among multiple tapes.

[Richard Nixon]

--which was a pretty good indication of her political shrewdness, and second, "If you resign, i—it's going to mar the lives of our girls." And so, consequently, she had considerable impact on me. But after this fund episode, she lost all heart for politics. She felt it had been unfair. She felt that it was an enormous, unnecessary invasion of privacy for us to reveal how little we had and how much we owed, which we had to do in the broadcast. She wasn't angry at Eisenhower. She understood, but, boy, was she mad at some of the people around him in the media, who were convicting me before I had a chance to state my side of the case. And she was angry at them not because she thought that they were being rough on me—I think she was angry on that, too, because she is loyal and was always to her family—but she was angry because she thought they were so stupid, and she was right about that, too.

[Frank Gannon]

You finally went to Wheeling and met Eisenhower for a sort of laying-on of hands. We have—we have two clips from that Wheeling rally.

[Action note: Film clip of Nixon and Eisenhower.]

Day three, Tape three of four, LINE FEED #3, 4-8-83, ETI Reel #22
April 8, 1983

Day 3, Tape 3
00:00:59
[Action note: Screen goes black.]

Day 3, Tape 3
00:01:09
[Action note: Picture appears.]

Day 3, Tape 3
00:01:12
[Action note: Film clip of Eisenhower and Nixon.]

Day 3, Tape 3
00:02:16
[Frank Gannon]

In Eisenhower's speech, he read a telegram that surprised you. What was that?

Day 3, Tape 3
00:02:25
[Richard Nixon]

Well, he read one that didn't surprise me. It was from Art Summerfield, the chairman of the National Committee, because I'd heard from a lot of them after the speech myself, and the telegram indicated that they were unanimously in favor of my staying on the ticket. After all, they weren't stupid. After they heard the public reaction, they followed what the public wanted, or seemed to want. But the other one was one that—that he read from my mother. It was the first one he r—read, and I must say it was a rather moving experience for me to hear it.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:02:53
[Frank Gannon]

We—

[Richard Nixon]

He did not show it to me beforehand.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:02:56
[Frank Gannon]

So you were hearing it for the first time?

Day 3, Tape 3
00:02:57
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, yes.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:02:58
[Frank Gannon]

I have a copy. Would you read it?

Day 3, Tape 3
00:03:02
[Richard Nixon]

It reads: "Dear General, I am trusting that the absolute truth may come out concerning this attack on Richard." She always called me "Richard," never "Dick." "And when it does, I am sure you will be guided right in your decision—to place implicit faith in his integrity and honesty. Best wishes, from one who has known Richard longer than anyone else, his mother." Well, Bill Rogers later told me that he was enormously impressed by the fact that my mother had written that out herself and that it was done so well, so tersely, and so eloquently, but my mother was quite a person, too.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:03:44
[Frank Gannon]

There's a famous photograph—

Day 3, Tape 3
00:03:47
[Richard Nixon]

Incidentally, my father, I think, would have said something else, because he—he was sort of—had—I remember that after this fund thing was all over, he put it in his own rather terse way. He says, "Well, it looks like the Democrats have given themselves a good kick in the seat of the pants."

Day 3, Tape 3
00:04:03
[Frank Gannon]

There's a famous photograph taken at the Wheeling rally, after all the speeches and all the—the emotions of that week. As you were shaking hands with a group of people, you saw Bill Knowland and--your California Senate colleague and friend, and when you came to him, you—you just broke down, and—and he put a comforting hand around you. The—did you feel bad that having stood up as tough as you had for—throughout the whole crisis, that at the end you—you let yourself go?

Day 3, Tape 3
00:04:38
[Richard Nixon]

Yes. I have always sort of prided myself on self-control, and I am emotional, but I don't believe you should share emotions. I am a great believer in privacy—or expose them, i—in the way—I know that you're—that—all yo—in the political science classes and the rest these days you not only expose your emotions, but you're supposed to put them on to convince people that you're human and all that sort of thing. But in this case, I guess what happened is that I had never had an emotional downturn or outbreak or anything. I hadn't let it get away from me during the critical days when I was trying to make the decision. But once you have fought the battle, and once you have won, then you have a letdown. And Bill Knowland came up to me, and he said, "Great speech, Dick," and all of a sudden it all came down on me, and—I got over it pretty fast, though.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:05:36
[Frank Gannon]

What—what lessons did you draw from your experience in the—in the fund crisis? In your memoirs—or, I'm sorry, in Six Crises, you wrote, "I had been deserted by so many I had thought were friends, but who had panicked in battle when the first shots were fired."

Day 3, Tape 3
00:05:55
[Richard Nixon]

Well, what you learn in—any time you come u—under an attack is who your friends are and who they aren't. I—I mentioned some of those that did write and wire me before the broadcast. After the broadcast, everybody did. But before the broadcast, there were a lot of people that jumped ship, people that I thought were my friends. I also realized after this broadcast and after the fund crisis was over, that in politics—and I think I had known this before, but I realized it an—even more—that you cannot expect others to save you. You've got to save yourself. I didn't—don't resent the fact, in retrospect, that Eisenhower said, "Look. It's not my decision. It's yours." After all, "he's the commander of this outfit," as Bert Andrews said to me after he heard that I might resign from the ticket since I hadn't heard from Eisenhower. And he had the right to call the shots the way he wanted. I remember Bert Andrews put it, u—on the telephone with me, very well. He said, "Look. He's the man who commanded five million troops in Europe. He's the nominee for president, and he's going to be the next president of the United States. He's going to make the right decision, but he's going to make it in his own way and at the right time. You know what the decision is going to be. It's going to be favorable. The broadcast decided that, but don't try to second-guess him." I realized that that was the case, and I realized that, from now on, that's the way Eisenhower was going to run his presidency.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:07:33
[Frank Gannon]

What was your opinion of Adlai Stevenson?

Day 3, Tape 3
00:07:37
[Richard Nixon]

Not high. I guess that's no surprise to our audience, and I know that his opinion of me was perhaps lower. I respected him as one who had been successful enough to be nominated for president of the United States. But he had a—a superficial, fatuous air about him that just turned me off. It turned many on. The media loved him, because the media loves froth. They like fashion. They liked the titillating humor that he used, even though he used to laugh at his own jokes. He—he was one who, I think—Oscar Wilde put it once, "like the man who knew the price of everything and the value of nothing." What concerned me most about Adlai Stevenson, however, was the fact that I thought he would be a disaster as president—not because of what he believed, because I wasn't sure what he believed. I think that he would believe whatever was in fashion. I don't think he had profound beliefs. But because of his indecisiveness, he had a Hamlet-like quality. Will Rogers, I think, summed it up very well. He said that where Stevenson was concerned—that he considered everything very carefully before making the wrong decision. And that is a man we don't need in the White House. I always felt that, and so I could campaign with him with good conscience and with great verve. Incidentally, Eisenhower shared that. Eisenhower couldn't stand Stevenson. For example, in his eight years as president, Eisenhower never had Stevenson to the White House and turned down a suggestion on one occasion that Foster Dulles made that he should be brought to the White House for purposes of enlisting Stevenson for a bipartisan support of Eisenhower's foreign policy. The same was true of Harry Truman. Let me explain. Eisenhower was not a hater, but, on the other hand, he could not take personal affronts. I mean, I've taken stuff that—people have hit me and smashed me, and you go out, and you meet them again, and all that sort of thing. You forgive, although you may not forget. But Eisenhower, if people attacked him personally, just couldn't take it. And Harry Truman, of course, had suggested that Eisenhower run as a Democrat in 1948 and then took him on unmercifully in 1952, said he didn't know more—any more about politics than a pig does about Sunday, and that Eisenhower some way had been involved in the decisions with—that divided Europe at Yalta and that sort of thing, which of course was not true. He never forgave Truman, never allowed Truman in the White House. But, incidentally, getting back to Stevenson, I remember that after Eisenhower had his heart attack, that his doctors told Sherman Adams—they said, "Don't raise Stevenson's name with him. It raises his blood pressure."

Day 3, Tape 3
00:10:46
[Frank Gannon]

From 1946 until 1957, Joseph McCarthy represented Wisconsin in the United States Senate. Today, McCarthyism has become sort of a—a catch-all epithet. What—how would you define McCarthyism?

Day 3, Tape 3
00:11:08
[Richard Nixon]

Well, first, in order to understand McCarthyism, you've got to really go back to the Hiss case. The reason the Hiss case sent the Establishment right up the wall was that, up to that time, those that talked about Communism in America were considered to be nuts or demagogues or worse. There were several reasons for that. They said, first, that as far as Hiss was concerned, that he was probably telling the truth, that he was not a Communist, even after the evidence became overwhelming that he was, or at least that he had served the Communist purpose. Second, there were those that said, well, even though he might have been a Communist and turned over papers, secret papers, documents, and so forth, as he did in great volume, to Communist espionage agents, it didn’t make any difference because, one, the papers weren't important, even though they weren't declassified, even at the point that—ten years later. Or, second, and this was really distorted reasoning--because the Soviet Union had been our ally. They overlooked the point that Hiss remained a Communist at the time that Chambers left the Communist Party during the period of [the] Hitler-Stalin Pact, when certainly you couldn't say that Stalin and Communism was an ally of the United States. And then, third, there was a deeper reason. I—it had to do with the fact that people thought that the Hiss case and the investigation of Hiss and his eventual conviction reflected on a whole generation of people that had supported the Roosevelt foreign policy. I never forget an evening in Washington when one of those Washington hostesses—not in the great tradition of Germaine de Staël and the others who had their salons back in the nineteenth century, in the eighteenth century, who used to get people together for serious talk—but in the tradition of getting controversial people together ar—in a rooms to see what fireworks would happen. But in this case, one of the guests was Paul Porter, a Washington lawyer, a very good lawyer, a Democrat, a liberal, and I was there with him. And the Hiss case—this was right after Hiss had admitted he knew Chambers, after first denying that he had known him, and after the evidence was overwhelming that he was not only a Communist but had delivered papers to a Communist espionage agent. And I remember Paul Porter got red in the face, and he pounded the table—this was at the conclusion of dinner—says, "I don't give a damn if Hiss admits he was a Communist or whether he was. These investigations are doing a great deal of damage to the country because they reflect on the Roosevelt foreign policy." Now, that was simply ridiculous. I was a supporter of the Roosevelt foreign policy. I was a supporter of the Marshall Plan. I was supportive—this was later on, which was a continuation of the rest. I was a bipartisan supporter, but here it was, the attitude of this whole generation of people who had a vested interest in opposing anybody who was exposed to Communism.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:14:35
[Frank Gannon]

I think since we only have a couple of minutes—

Day 3, Tape 3
00:14:38
[Offscreen voice]

[Unintelligible.]

[Frank Gannon]

--we should probably cut now.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:14:39
[Offscreen voice]

Okay, we can stop tape here. We'll take it for—a lunch break. Forty minutes. Forty-five minutes, we'll roll tape.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:14:48
[Action note: Screen goes black.]

Day 3, Tape 3
00:14:49
[Action note: Color bars appear on screen; tone begins.]

Day 3, Tape 3
00:15:36
[Action note: Screen goes black; picture appears on screen.]

[Frank Gannon]

--Hyannis, I mean, that's really surprising.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:15:40
[Richard Nixon]

And Joe Kennedy was a great supporter of his.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:15:42
[Frank Gannon]

Of his, yeah. Of course, they're trying to—

Day 3, Tape 3
00:15:43
[Offscreen voice]

[Unintelligible.] Just look right into this camera.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:15:45
[Frank Gannon]

Me looking at it, or looking at the president?

Day 3, Tape 3
00:15:47
[Offscreen voice]

[Unintelligible.]

Day 3, Tape 3
00:15:48
[Offscreen voice]

Looking into—well, no—you're going to just pick up [unintelligible].

Day 3, Tape 3
00:15:50
[Frank Gannon]

Just picking up the questioning.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:15:51
[Offscreen voice]

Fine. Just go right into the interview when you get the cue.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:16:07
[Richard Nixon]

I want to pick up—

[Action note: Screen goes black.]

[Richard Nixon]

--with the Hiss—

Day 3, Tape 3
00:16:08
[Action note: Picture returns.]

[Richard Nixon]

--to get the transition there, though, the—

Day 3, Tape 3
00:16:10
[Frank Gannon]

What?

Day 3, Tape 3
00:16:11
[Offscreen voice]

Four, three—

Day 3, Tape 3
00:16:11
[Richard Nixon]

You'll—you introduce me [unintelligible]. I want to finish the Hiss thing.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:16:15
[Frank Gannon]

What do you want to—

Day 3, Tape 3
00:16:16
[Richard Nixon]

Yeah, I'll just—well, I'll pick it up then. You want me to—you know what I mean, we were talking about Hiss [unintelligible].

Day 3, Tape 3
00:16:20
[Frank Gannon]

Yes, you want to just start that.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:16:22
[Richard Nixon]

I haven't quite finished.

[Frank Gannon]

Yeah.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:16:24
[Offscreen voice]

Four, three…you going to start talking, Frank?

Day 3, Tape 3
00:16:30
[Frank Gannon]

You've said that to understand m—

Day 3, Tape 3
00:16:31
[Offscreen voice]

[Unintelligible.] Wait—I'll give you—hold on—

Day 3, Tape 3
00:16:34
[Frank Gannon]

We'll—I'll say that you said that to understand McCarthy—

Day 3, Tape 3
00:16:36
[Richard Nixon]

'Cause we did that—

[Frank Gannon]

--you have to understand Hiss.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:16:37
[Richard Nixon]

Yeah.

[Offscreen voice]

Hey, Frank—

[Richard Nixon]

Well—you said that earlier, but you can ask the same question.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:16:39
[Offscreen voice]

Frank.

[Richard Nixon]

Then you can—you're going to be cutting, in any event.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:16:41
[Offscreen voice]

Go.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:16:42
[Frank Gannon]

You've said that to understand Joe McCarthy, you have to understand the Hiss case.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:16:46
[Richard Nixon]

Well, up until the Hiss case, as I think I was trying to point out earlier, it was said that those who were engaged in the fight against Communism in the United States were either demagogues or reckless or worse. After the Hiss case, they couldn't say that any more, because it was clearly demonstrated there that Hiss not only was a Communist, but that he was in a high place in government--he was at Yalta, for example, with Roosevelt, and had been the secretary general of the U.N. conference in San Francisco, but, in addition to that, that he had turned over top-secret information to a Soviet espionage agent. And so, under the circumstances then, they could no longer brush off Communism in government as being a red herring or what-have-you. That's why Truman went forward with the loyalty program after the Hiss case came to public attention, even though Truman even called the Hiss investigation a red herring right to the last because he thought it was more political than anything else. And that, of course, led to McCarthy. McCarthy, in the first instance, was not one who held himself out to be or was an expert on Communism in the United States, or abroad, for that matter. He was a Wisconsin progressive, so to speak. He was one, for example, in 1952, who supported Harold Stassen for—I'm sorry. He was one who had supported Harold—Harold Stassen for president in 1948.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:18:24
[Frank Gannon]

As did you, didn't you?

Day 3, Tape 3
00:18:25
[Richard Nixon]

As-as I did. That's right.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:18:27
[Frank Gannon]

Did you meet him then?

[Richard Nixon]

And we worked together—oh, yes. We worked together at that convention. I was not a delegate, but I was there as a congressman, and I remember—I remember Joe McCarthy so well--vividly. After it was clear that Stassen wasn't going to make it—it was quite clear even before he got there, but then, when the die was cast and it was going to be Dewey, I remember him standing outside the convention hall, and the sweat just pouring down his cheeks and everything, and his just shaking his head, because he was a fighter. He said, "Well, he isn't going to make it. We're all going to have to be for Dewey." And he wasn't enthusiastic for Dewey. He was more, curiously enough, for Taft than for Dewey, although he came from the Wisconsin progressive background. But, coming back to how he got into the Communist business, at '48, it was not then. But after the Hiss case, a—a lot of politicians saw that, from a political standpoint, there were gold in those hills, as they might put it, and also from the standpoint of the country, that it was a legitimate issue and we ought to root the Communists out of government, if there were more there, and expose those that had been there in the past. So McCarthy made his famous speech in West Virginia. I think it was in Wheeling, West Virginia, as a matter of fact. And in that speech—this was in 1951. I was in California at the time and read it with great trepidation in the papers when I noted he was—said that there were fifty-six—I think that was the number, but it's irrelevant. He changed the number about every other day thereafter, usually upping it. Fifty-six card- carrying members of the Communist Party in the State Department—I saw that, and I practically threw up my hands, because, first, I knew very well, apart from the fact that there might be and probably were—and I'm convinced there were—some with Communist sympathies in the State Department, that under no circumstances would a card-carrying C—Communist be in the State Department, because the Soviet espionage apparat [sic] doesn't put card-carriers in a position where they can be exposed. They would be covert Communists, for example, as Hiss was. Hiss was not a card-carrier. At least he didn't have a card. He paid dues, but he did not—was not an open Communist, so to speak. So, under the circumstances, when McCarthy called me after that speech and asked me if I could furnish some information about what our investigations had showed, I said I'd be glad to p—help him, but I said—I urged him strongly. I said, "You'd—you'd better get off this wicket and make it clear that you're talking about those who may have Communist backgrounds, who had been in Communist fronts, who had supported the—the—the Communist Party in various ways, for example." And I said, "There you'll be on safer grounds, because I think you're—I don't think you're going to be able to prove that there were card-carrying Communists in the State Department." Joe was never one to back off. That was his problem. Now, in the first instance, then, I think he saw the Communism-in-government issue as a political issue only, but I will say, and I—I believe this to be true, that he was totally sincere about it and became convinced that he—that it was a real problem once he dug into it, because there were facts there—not the way that he presented it. He overstated it. He was reckless, but, on the other hand, he was onto something, and those who were supporting the Communists knew it, and so did the political opposition.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:21:59
[Frank Gannon]

You came to bro—to break with him in a very spectacular way in 1954. How did—how did you get the news that you were going to be the man to jettison Joe McCarthy?

Day 3, Tape 3
00:22:11
[Richard Nixon]

Well, what had happened there was that all through 1953, after McCarthy was re-elected to the Senate in 1952, McCarthy was expanding his charges. He first, in 1952, had con—er, condemned the previous Democratic administrations by the term, "twenty years of treason." And then in 1954--

Day 3, Tape 3
00:22:37
[Frank Gannon]

Did you approve of that?

Day 3, Tape 3
00:22:38
[Richard Nixon]

Absolutely not. I—

Day 3, Tape 3
00:22:39
[Frank Gannon]

Did you try to st—t—to—

Day 3, Tape 3
00:22:41
[Richard Nixon]

On the contrary. Bill Knowland and I both made it clear, I on one occasion and Bill Knowland on another, that there was only one party of treason in the United States, which was the Communist Party. And it wasn't the party that was involved. And here Joe again was overstating. But be that as it may, in 1954, after he became dissatisfied with what he considered to be the Eisenhower administration's failure vigorously to pursue the loyalty program of rooting them out from the State Department and other areas and so forth, he made a speech saying that—that there were twenty-one years of treason—that included the Eisenhower administration. Well, that was enough for Eisenhower. Eisenhower was already turned off on McCarthy for a variety of reasons. First, he didn’t like his manner. McCarthy was a very physical, vigorous kind of a fellow that'd pat you on the back, and he was a very familiar person, familiar with Eisenhower or anybody else, and Eisenhower didn't like that. The second thing—he didn't like the fact that McCarthy had attacked George Marshall, whom Eisenhower venerated. The third thing—he felt that Ei—McCarthy by his charges was diverting attention from the accomplishments of the Eisenhower administration, the Eisenhower crusade, and he didn't want the country debating that issue rather than addressing what he was trying to accomplish—ending the war in Korea and then moving forward with our various p—domestic initiatives. And, finally, he felt that McCarthy, as he often put it to me—that rather than proceeding as I had in the Hiss case in a way that Eisenhower described as being "objective" and "fair" and so forth, that McCarthy was swinging wildly, and that he was therefore doing more harm to the cause than good. Those were the reasons.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:24:36
[Frank Gannon]

Wasn't it cynical to have waited until McCarthy began to attack the Republican administration to—to stop him than to—than to do it earlier when he was—he was just as irresponsible?

Day 3, Tape 3
00:24:49
[Richard Nixon]

Well, let me say that it wasn't that cynical because McCarthy had not become that big an issue. It wasn't necessary to address it. And we also have to have in mind, too, that in that period of 1953, before McCarthy went over the brink and took on the Eisenhower administration as well as previous administrations, that in that period I—McCarthy, we all had to admit, had great public support. A poll taken—the Gallup Poll in January of 1954 indicated fifty- two percent support for McCarthy and only about thirty percent against. Well, it was pretty hard to take that on unless you had sound grounds. And so Eisenhower, though, who, like so many others in positions of leadership, has always followed the motto, "Never make any mistake in a hurry"—he waited. But once he made his decision, then he decided that somebody had to answer McCarthy. The reason that I was chosen was that Adlai Stevenson had not only attacked McCarthy and indicated that Eisenhower was pussyfooting about the issue and so forth, and also attacked Eisenhower for his foreign policy and defense policy and the rest, he'd done it before a cheering partisan audience, and we had, of course, equal time, or were going to get from the networks for that, and he had to select somebody to appear on it. And I remember so vividly a meeting of the legislative leaders when the decision had to be made as to who had to appear, and there somebody suggested the national chairman might do it, and, no, that wouldn't do. He wouldn't get it across. And somebody suggested the majority leader, and Eisenhower looked across the table. He says, "You know, I think we ought to use Dick a little more. After all, he knows this issue. Nobody can—can s—can charge him with being a pinko, and therefore he's the one to address it." Well, I wasn't about to be eager to address the issue. After all, a lot of my friends were McCarthy's friends and so forth. I had just come back from a very successful trip to the Far East in which I got, even from the antagonistic press, rather high marks, i—i—including a very favorable article in The New York Times at the conclusion. And to get back into the partisan business of having to not only take on McCarthy but to divide the Republicans, didn't appeal to me at all. But Eisenhower asked me to do it, and I did do it.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:27:25
[Frank Gannon]

On March thirteenth, 1954, you made this—

Day 3, Tape 3
00:27:29
[Richard Nixon]

That's the speech.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:27:31
[Frank Gannon]

--speech. I don't think you ever mentioned him by name, but it was quite clear who you were talking about. We have a clip from that speech.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:27:42
[Action note: Clip begins; they watch.]

Day 3, Tape 3
00:28:39
[Richard Nixon]

I remember that speech well. Incidentally, I have never seen this film before, because I don't watch myself on television. As I look at that, and I am sure as others look at it, they'll think I must be reading from a TelePrompTer, but I have never used a TelePrompTer in all my life. What happened there is I wrote the entire speech out. I went over to the [Carleton Hotel], I remember, rented a room, locked myself in for three days and wrote it, got it all in my mind and delivered it just like that—straight into the camera. Eisenhower, incidentally, after the speech, was very, very nice. He called me from Camp David, and he said, "You know, I am not one who believes that you ought to butter up your people, but," he said, "I thought that was a really outstanding job." Eisenhower, in that respect, incidentally, was like my old coach in college, Chief Newman. The Chief was a great coach and a great leader of men, but when somebody made a spectacular play and when he was being taken out of the game after the play, most coaches go up and throw their arms around them and clap them--them on the back and so forth. And the Chief just sat there, stoic intrin—Indian that he's—was, and never went up and congratulated them. And somebody asked him, "Why don't you do it, Chief?" And he said, "Look," he said, "he was doing his job, and also there were a lot of blockers out there that made that run possible." Eisenhower felt that I was doing my job, and you don't congratulate people or even thank them for doing the job they were supposed to do, although Eisenhower was usually very generous in a very personal way, as he was there. But in any event, that particular section about the rats had a great, great impact.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:30:21
[Frank Gannon]

Why did you—

[Richard Nixon]

I didn't mention McCarthy.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:30:23
[Frank Gannon]

How did you choose that language? Why did you choose that language?

Day 3, Tape 3
00:30:25
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I was just trying to think of a way to get it across, and it just came to me as I was writing, the idea they're all a bunch of rats. I must have seen it in some speech that somebody had made or heard it on see—on the Senate floor, or something like that. And then I began to try to formulate it in a way that people could understand. And in saying that, of course, I did not mention McCarthy by name, but I was referring to anybody who was investigating Communists, that it was very important to bend over backward to be absolutely accurate, because otherwise you're going to hurt innocent people, but beyond that, you may take on people, as McCarthy did—he'd taken on Eisenhower himself, when he shot wildly, which was wrong.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:31:14
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think innocent people were hurt by McCarthy?

Day 3, Tape 3
00:31:17
[Richard Nixon]

Relatively few. That’s been greatly exaggerated. They mention Owen Lattimore, people like that. Let me say that, as far as Owen Lattimore is concerned, even his apologists have got to agree that Owen Lattimore was way over on the left, a—and, whether knowingly or otherwise, that he more th—often than not supported the Communists' side.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:31:41
[Frank Gannon]

Owen Lattimore is one of the more prominent examples, though. Didn't McCarthy recklessly i—in hearings just list—come out with lists of names of people, not necessarily accusing them, but in the context of that time even to be mentioned by him was enough to cause—

Day 3, Tape 3
00:31:58
[Richard Nixon]

Yes.

[Frank Gannon]

--great hurt and harm and even ruin—

Day 3, Tape 3
00:32:01
[Richard Nixon]

Generally—

[Frank Gannon]

--careers and lives.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:32:02
[Richard Nixon]

Generally, however, let me say, it wasn't the naming of names. If-- if that was the case, whoever was named had an opportunity to come back. But it was the general way that he did it, like he said there are fifty-seven card-carrying Communists in the State Department. Well, he never named any names, but the point is that raised a cloud over the whole darned State Department, and that is something that was totally wrong. I remember one name in particular that he mentioned that indicates where he did have an innocent man. He was raising hell about Bill Bundy, Bill Bundy, who now, I believe, is the Carnegie Foundation of International Peace. But, in any event, Bill Bundy was then with the C.I.A. He is a—was a brother of McGeorge Bundy, who later became Kennedy's national security advisor. And he was going to have a Senate investigation of the C.I.A. because Bill Bundy had contributed five hundred dollars to the Hiss defense fund. I remember Allen Dulles came around after an N.S.C. meeting one day and asked me for—as a personal favor if I couldn't stop him, because, he said, "You know, we can't have the C.I.A. investigated." And he said, "You have seen," as I had, "Bill Bundy at some of our meetings, and he's just not a Communist." I said, "I know that. I know that." So I talked to Bill, and Bill said, "But why did he contribute"—when I—I—after I had tal—when I talked to Joe after that—Joe McCarthy—I got him off the Senate floor, and I said, "I wish you'd lay off this. I think you should. I know Bundy. I've seen him. And I can vouch for him." But he said, "Why did he contribute to that traitor Hiss?" And I said, "Joe, Bundy went to Harvard, and, you know, everybody in Harvard since c—who was approached, or virtually everybody, to contribute to the Hiss defense fund—they support their own." I remember, for example, that President Conant, who, incidentally, was appointed to go to Germany by Eisenhower and that McCarthy opposed, was certainly an anti-Communist. But President Conant said that he couldn't possibly imagine how any member of the Commu—of the Harvard faculty could be a Communist. Now the point that I make is—was making to Joe was the fact that someone had contributed to Hiss's defense fund when he had gone to Harvard didn't indicate that that fellow himself was a Communist, because he just may have just been mistaken. He may have contributed before Hiss was totally exposed. Well, in this case, my intervention with McCarthy worked, but that is an example of an innocent person who was attacked because McCarthy had not done an adequate job of investigating.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:34:45
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think—the image that people have of McCarthy is someone sort of threatening and truculent. What was he like personally?

Day 3, Tape 3
00:35:00
[Richard Nixon]

McCarthy personally was a very charismatic figure. I say "charismatic" because he—he had a—a vigorous, magnetic personality. He had been a very successful candidate in Wisconsin against a La Follette, and believe me, the La Follettes were very, very effective political properties in that state and in the nation over a long period of time. He had a strong handshake, and--almost like a vise, as a matter of fact. He was a very, very strong man. He had a marvelous sense of humor. He was an interesting man to sit around and talk to, not about Communism, but about things generally. He was a great ladies' man. My goodness, you the—s—around that Senate, I'm telling you, the secretaries and the rest were panting to go out with Joe McCarthy because, of course, he was a bachelor for most of the years, at least, that I knew him. A—and of course, as you know, he was a great favorite of the Kennedys—went out with one of the Kennedy sisters, used to spend time at Hyannis Port playing touch football and the rest. So he was an attractive personality personally. He was, however, one who, when you got down to a serious discussion of an issue that required very, very careful investigation to avoid doing harm to in—to innocent—because charging someone with being a Communist in this period, when the Russians were basically our enemies in the Cold War, was indeed a very serious thing. And in that respect, McCarthy lacked judgment and was subject to criticism and unfortunately I was the one that had to carry the message.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:36:47
[Frank Gannon]

In terms of the civilized fabric of American society, did Joe McCarthy do more harm than good?

Day 3, Tape 3
00:36:58
[Richard Nixon]

I know that that is a proposition th—that is generally accepted, I think, by most observers in this country. I would have to question it. I—I think that in terms of the individuals, uh, the—as it finally turned out, that I cannot—I cannot name the individuals who were harmed. As I say, some certainly had the potential of being harmed and so forth. However, I would say that McCarthy did more harm that good in a more general sense. He hurt the cause that he claimed to be serving. When one becomes the issue himself, rather than the issue itself that he's trying to address, then he hurts that cause. And that's what McCarthy did. McCarthy became the issue, rather than Communism the issue. And all the work that we had done on the Hiss case, for example, after McCarthy, every time there was an investigation of Communism, a legitimate investigation, people would shout and holler McCarthyism. So in that respect he certainly did more harm than good. Incidentally, just to point it up, I—I'll never forget—I was so, of course, honored to receive a wire from Herbert Hoover after the conviction of Alger Hiss. And he said, "Thanks to your efforts"--as I recall it—"the stream of treason in our government has finally been exposed for all to see." That was after the Hiss case. Then came McCarthy. He blurred the issue. He overstated it. By overstating it, he injured the issue, and from that time on, it became almost impossible to do effective work in investigating those who might be in that stream of treason. That's where he did the harm.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:38:50
[Frank Gannon]

Let me read you something that Lillian Hellman, the playwright, wrote about the Communists, McCarthy, and the Communist-hunters, including Richard Nixon, of the McCarthy era. She said, "People would have a right to say that I, and many like me, took too long to see what was going on in the Soviet Union, but, whatever our mistakes, I do not believe we did our country any harm, and I think they did." Do you think they did our country harm?

Day 3, Tape 3
00:39:16
[Richard Nixon]

Well, for her to say that they did no harm is just fatuous nonsense, and she knows better because she, from what I've heard, is an intelligent person.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:39:26
[Frank Gannon]

She's written a whole—she's written a whole book called Scoundrel—

Day 3, Tape 3
00:39:28
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, I know.

[Frank Gannon]

--Time to say that—

Day 3, Tape 3
00:39:29
[Richard Nixon]

I know.

[Frank Gannon]

--that isn't the case.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:39:30
[Richard Nixon]

A b—a book—very favorably reviewed, as we would expect from those that review books in The New York Review of Books and the other respected publications in this area. But let's look at the situation. When we look at harm in terms of the national security of this country, what about the secrets with regard to the development of atomic bombs? Now, sure, the Russians got one, but they would have gotten it later had it not been, certainly, from the secrets they got, not only from the Rosenbergs and others in the United States, but also from the British group, the—Maclean and Burgess and the others who were exposed, and some of whom had--had've [sic]--have admitted it. Let's look, for example, at what has happened just recently, to give you an example in a broader sense of what could happen. When they say that Communists in government don't do any harm or Communists that—that it's just another idea and all that sort of thing—not to be concerned about—here we have Mitterand in France, who has four Communists in his cabinet, having to get—to send out of the country a hundred and fifty Soviet diplomats due to the fact that they were stealing French technical material that could be effective in helping the Soviet develop their military capabilities. Now, let's look at the facts. The Communists are engaged, day after day, in espionage. That's their business. It's a vocation for them. With us, contra—espionage, and we engage in some, too, is an avocation. With them, it is a policy, a—and there's no question that they're trying desperately to get industrial secrets, technological secrets, and so forth. That's one side. Another side, I think, however, is even potentially more profoundly d—different, and also dangerous. And that is, if you can get someone who is under Communist discipline in a government position, he is able subtly to affect policy. And, third, just to give you an example, General MacArthur once told me, and this is now part of the historical record in any event, that he was confident that one of the reasons they suffered the losses they did when the Chinese attacked after he moved toward the Yalu was that there had been leaks from our side to the Russians, which of course got to the Chinese, and that it cost American lives as a result. Now, what I am talking about here are facts, and I would say that, as far as Miss Hellman are [sic] concerned, when she says that those that were members of the Communist Party—certainly maybe ones that were members, as she was—a writer—a—an unpopular idea, but we've got to accept that—that's one thing. I--doesn’t bother me a bit. I don't care how many speeches they make, and—whether in Hyde Park or—or out here in—in New York City. But I care very much as to whether they're in government or whether they're in an industrial plant or what-have-you.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:42:50
[Frank Gannon]

Do we need a responsible McCarthy today to expose the amount of Communist infiltration into government?

Day 3, Tape 3
00:42:57
[Richard Nixon]

I think we have now, and I would say this in both administrations, whether they were Democratic or Republican—I think there is awareness now in the country as a result of Soviet, frankly, overplaying their hands, not only here but in France and England, and, you know, Sweden—there have been a number of instances in which they've had to throw out the Russians. I think that we have, in the Justice Department and in the regular channels, the F.B.I. and so forth, an adequate program of investigating and ferreting out these people. There was a time when we didn't have such an adequate program. After the w—a—after the war and so forth, World War II, when people s—had the naïve belief that these people were—were sort of obnoxious because of their ideas, but we could afford to tolerate that, but they really weren't a danger to the country—they are a danger to the country, and they must be, of course, exposed, investigated, and so forth. I think it can be done, however, with the existing government officials without having it done by somebody in the United States Senate.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:44:10
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think there are moles, highly placed moles, in the State Department today or—or in the C.I.A.?

Day 3, Tape 3
00:44:19
[Richard Nixon]

I would be surprised if there were not, and I think that anybody in a position of power, be he a Democratic president or a Republican president or a Democratic secretary of state or a Republican secretary of state or head of the C.I.A., had better well assume that that might be the case, because when you look at how effectively they were in the government in the World War II period and thereafter, before World War II, here, Britain and the rest, and how nobody knew it—let me say we've got to be very sure that they're not there. So I would just assume there are, and that's why, I think--another reason why it's necessary to run a very tight shop in terms of revealing everything you know, because, unless you're very sure, it may be sent right on the enemy.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:45:06
[Frank Gannon]

How—how can one act on an assumption like that, though, because if you—if you—if you don't assume that you can't trust your closest friends and highest aides and closest colleagues, how can anything get done?

Day 3, Tape 3
00:45:18
[Richard Nixon]

Well, first of all, your closest friends and highest aides and closest colleagues, that's one thing. When we're talking about a mole, I would seriously doubt that one of those would be able to pass that kind of a test.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:45:35
[Frank Gannon]

At—you mentioned before that you never look at yourself on television. Why is that?

Day 3, Tape 3
00:45:43
[Richard Nixon]

Many years ago—I always have to think historically—when I was a sophomore in high school, I had a marvelous teacher. They had a class called "Oral English." I never took a—a course, incidentally, in public speaking or political science. They didn't have any in Whittier College, or in high school, for that matter. But this was called "Oral English." The teacher's name was H. Lynn Sheller, I remember, and he had a very—for that period of time, a very unique way of teaching. That was a period when the old-style oratory—this was before the days of television—was very much in vogue, and you were supposed to know how to gesture and all that, and they taught that. And he didn't teach any. He said, "Look. Speaking is conversation. Above everything else, be natural. Speak naturally. Don’t use any gestures unless you—unless it just comes naturally. Don't practice anything. Don't practice before a mirror, because the most important thing in conversation is to be yourself, to be natural." And I knew from that day forward, and I believe even today, that it was best not to listen to myself on radio, not to watch myself on the television and the tape and so forth. Oh, I know it's bad advice. I shouldn't be giving it to others because I know that most political people these days, they make a speech, they practice it in the television, they look at the tape, they get rid of their idiosyncrasies, the bad gestures, and so forth and so on, but by the time they get through it may be a superb upf--performance, but over the long haul, in my view, it is not going to come through effective. Now I don't hold myself out as being the most effective person, but it is me, for whatever it's worth. And I am sure that I—that if you do look at yourself on television, you begin thinking of your image and how you are appearing, rather than in terms of what you really are. You've got to be yourself. And, therefore, don't be too consumed by looking at yourself.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:47:48
[Frank Gannon]

Will you cross a room to turn a television set off if—if—

Day 3, Tape 3
00:47:51
[Richard Nixon]

Always.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:47:52
[Frank Gannon]

--as you come on?

[Richard Nixon]

I always do. No, I walk out.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:47:53
[Frank Gannon]

You do.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:47:54
[Richard Nixon]

I do, yes. I've never—I've watched these things today because we have to in ever—in order to have the running commentary, but I haven't seen my acceptance speeches on television. I haven't seen my inaugurals on television. I have never seen the fund speech, not the whole thing, on television—my resignation speech. And, frankly, I don't intend to. I'm doing it here—

Day 3, Tape 3
00:48:14
[Frank Gannon]

(Laughing.) Nixon tapes?

Day 3, Tape 3
00:48:15
[Richard Nixon]

I have to do it here now, because I understand we have to c—make comments on the program.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:48:21
[Frank Gannon]

By, uh—

[Richard Nixon]

In other words, what I'm saying is—this may be helpful to some of our younger people who plan to be president someday, or at least run for it—that—or whatever—is the most important thing is not to be self-conscious. The moment you begin to practice in front of a mirror or watch yourself on the tube or listen to your voice, you're going to become artificial. You're going to become something that you really aren't, and if you can't win it being what you are, you shouldn't win it.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:48:52
[Frank Gannon]

By—along those lines, by the end of 1954, with Joe McCarthy on the skids, you were pretty much installed as the bad guy of American politics. We have a—a Herblock cartoon that appeared in the Washington Post that summed up a lot of the cartoons that were done on you at the time. How did it feel to be arguably the most vilified man in American politics?

Day 3, Tape 3
00:49:29
[Richard Nixon]

Well, it didn't bother me that much, but, believe me, it bothered the family. I say it didn’t bother me because I thought that was just part of the price you had to pay, but, you know, with our youngsters growing up, and they learned to read at a fairly early age, and, of course, a Herblock cartoon, you don't have to read, a--and seeing a man come out of a sewer or what-have-you, but—and Mrs. Nixon was greatly concerned about it, and she became more and more turned off by politics as to whether it was really worth it, because she had known—she was so magnificent on our trips abroad, you know. She—on one occasion, for example, on one of our trips—and this is hard for some people to believe—she used to go to hospitals while I would have—and children's homes and orphans' homes and old folks' homes, et cetera, et cetera, schools, while I was having meetings with the V.I.P.s and so forth. And one time in one country, she went to a leper colony and shook hands with lepers. And it's the first time it had ever been done by any visitor of that sort. It was safe, as she later pointed out. But, having said that, she knew how hard we'd worked. She knew that--that under the circumstances—that we weren't getting any credit—credit for the positive thing and that Eisenhower was looking good, which she l—which she loved, but that, as far as many on his staff were concerned—they were blaming me for anything that went wrong, that I was doing all the tough campaigning and getting a lot of heat and very little credit. And, naturally, she didn't like that. And I must say, at times it bothered me, particularly when I got tired.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:51:15
[Frank Gannon]

You point out that from a very early time, Mrs. Nixon really was a pioneer in terms of doing things that—in—in prior administrations the wife of a vice president would have gone shopping while her husband was doing things on—on official trips. And in the White House, she had a very active—she was a very active First Lady. That never came across, though, and indeed, the—the—she was called "Plastic Pat" by—in—in some of the press. Why do you think she was misunderstood in this way?

Day 3, Tape 3
00:51:47
[Richard Nixon]

Well, she was called "Plastic Pat" because she was my wife. If she had been the wife of a liberal, my God, they would have canonized her. But because she was my wife, they had to find ways to knock her, and she never got any credit for the things that she did, her foreign travels on her own. She went to Africa. She went on to earthquake zones in Peru and so forth, and did things that were rather dangerous. She was active in the programs for bringing parks to the people, for literacy, et cetera, et cetera. Part of the reason, too, was that she did not seek the publicity, and she didn't really care whether or not she got it. But I must say, one of the reasons that she didn't receive it, without any question, was that you can be sure that our friends in the media, whoever they may be, were (laughs) not going to give her any credit if they thought it might help me. I understand that. That's part of the game—not right, but that's the way the worl—real world is—political world.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:52:53
[Frank Gannon]

How does that make you feel?

Day 3, Tape 3
00:52:55
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, I don't particularly like it, particularly where she's concerned, you know, because she did work so hard. But, let me say, the American people are not stupid. I—it's quite remarkable, despite--that she had not had a particularly positive press, not nearly what she deserves—that—that she has been in the top ten of the most admired women for years, after we even left Washington. The Good Housekeeping poll, for example—she has never been off of that, and the reason is that people remember her as being dignified, they remember her as one devoted to her family. They remember her, too, as one—she may not have weared—worn designer gowns, but she was blessed with natural beauty. She really didn't need them.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:53:41
[Frank Gannon]

What quality do you think of Mrs. Nixon as having that people would be most surprised if they knew, but don't know about?

Day 3, Tape 3
00:53:54
[Richard Nixon]

Well, perhaps a good sense of humor. She's fun. You know, she has a good time. She doesn't believe in, however, in public demonstrations of-of affection and that sort of thing. We never held hands in public. She isn't a public kisser. I am not either, for that matter. And—and I think another thing they might be surprised at—they shouldn't be, but they might be—is that she probably is one of the most intelligent women ever to have been First Lady. She had a remarkable, of course, career in school, worked her way through college and through the University of Southern California, graduated with honors, taught for a couple of years. She's a very smart person. And also the fact that in dis—political discussions, she doesn't say much, but she can always go to the heart of her matter. She's got an enormously good intuition. I think these are factors. The average person just thinks of her as somebody that went along for the ride and so forth—Plastic Pat, as they called her, although I'm sure some of them didn't believe it. You see, when you—the people that give that kind of image are basically the women reporters. You know, we talk about men reporters, but the women reporters are more bitchy than the men and that isn't because they're women, but that's the way it is. I don't mean they're all—

Day 3, Tape 3
00:55:29
[Frank Gannon]

W—

[Richard Nixon]

--like that.

[Frank Gannon]

Why is that the way it is?

Day 3, Tape 3
00:55:30
[Richard Nixon]

Well, because basically it—it is just natural for them to stick a needle in, and, fortunately, I am glad that, after the beginning, when they were giving Nancy Reagan hell, that they're now beginning to see that she's quite a person and giving her credit for what she's doing in the drug control and other areas. And she does deserve credit. In fact, I can't think of any first ladies who have—in recent times who have gotten the approval that they should have gotten. Jackie Kennedy did because she was glamorous and because she was married to Jack Kennedy, but Mrs. Johnson didn't get the approval that she should have, and she worked her tail off in that job. I don't think that—that certainly—that Mrs. Nixon did.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:56:19
[Frank Gannon]

Was Mrs. Nixon hurt by the lack of appreciation—not that she sought appreciation specifically, but by—the lack of it can sometimes be hurtful.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:56:29
[Richard Nixon]

No, I—I wouldn't say so. She—she was not surprised. You know, after all, we grew up very—very young. Many of these people came into high office without having really experienced some of the tough times that we did. They hadn't gone through the terrible, brutal beating I took during the Hiss case, during the fund, during the campaign of '54, '56, '58, sixties, Caracas, and so forth and so on. She had been through a lot, so, consequently, she rather expected things to be as they were. She expected them to be rather bad, and they were bad.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:57:12
[Frank Gannon]

Have—have you ever wished that you, after 1954--the 1954 elections, which we're about to talk about, that were very bitter and brutal and—that you didn't run again, that you had just retired and maybe moved back to California or New York and become a lawyer and spent some time with your family, with the girls as they were growing up and with Mrs. Nixon?

Day 3, Tape 3
00:57:35
[Richard Nixon]

Not really. At the time, I felt that way, but—but—but that's one of the downers you have. You see, I—you got to understand that I worked fairly hard. I didn't have a speechwriter, not in '52, not in '54, not in '56. So I had help, but I had to do the work, and I worked long, long days and so forth, and at the end of a campaign, frankly, I was bushed. In the '54 campaign, I was out carrying the load. The Eisenhower cabinet was a non-political p—cabinet, just like the Reagan cabinet, except, for example, for Mr. Watt. And so, consequently, somebody out—had to be out there leading the charge, and I did it, and I was glad to do it. And Eisenhower, incidentally, was very appreciative of that. He wrote me at least three letters during that '54 campaign saying, "I appreciate what you're doing."

Day 3, Tape 3
00:58:25
[Frank Gannon]

Do you have a lot of Beach Boys records at home?

Day 3, Tape 3
00:58:29
[Richard Nixon]

The Beach Boys? No, I don't follow that sort of thing. I—I've noticed those—some of the argument about it.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:58:35
[Frank Gannon]

Do you—do you—do you think that—

Day 3, Tape 3
00:58:36
[Richard Nixon]

Rock music.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:58:37
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think that Secretary Watt is—is a net minus or plus for the Reagan administration?

Day 3, Tape 3
00:58:42
[Richard Nixon]

You know, I'm not even going to get into that. I—all that I know is that he is one who's making a lot of news, and—and of course, the problem is that poor Watt—he gets out there and leads the charge in defending Reagan, "Let Reagan be Reagan," and attacking the opposition, and he catches hell for it. So that makes all the rest of the Cabinet gun-shy. And the difficulty is that, when the campaign comes along, here's Reagan going to have to do it by himself. Who's going to be out there taking on the opposition?

Day 3, Tape 3
00:59:15
[Frank Gannon]

Which is what you did for Eisenhower.

Day 3, Tape 3
00:59:17
[Richard Nixon]

That was my job, and I did it and did it gladly, and I think I did it quite well. At least he thought so, which was the most important thing. Incidentally, I must say, in 1954, it was a tough campaign—

Day 3, Tape 3
00:59:28
[Action note: Screen goes black.]

The following text appears in the original transcript but does not appear on a tape. It has not been edited.

[Richard Nixon]

--and some of Eisenhower's associates thought that I was campaigning too hard against the opposition, but Eisenhower didn't. He wanted me to take them on. And what happened was that Gallup, in his last poll before the election in '54, indicated that the Democrats were going to have a mini-landslide. He didn't put it that way, but if you projected his numbers, we would have lost thirty-five seats in the House of Representatives. Now, when we lost only sixteen and only two in the Senate—"only two," I said--that was too many, because we lost control of both—the—Gallup later said, after the campaign, that my campaigning and some that Eisenhower did at the last three or four days, that it turned the tide and closed the gap. So we got a little credit.

[Frank Gannon]

[Two lines of text blacked out in original transcript.]

Day three, Tape four of four, LINE FEED #4, 4-8-83, ETI Reel #23
April 8, 1983

Day 3, Tape 4
00:00:58
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Day 3, Tape 4
00:01:03
[Richard Nixon]

--idered it, had a long talk with Mrs. Nixon about it, but that was one of those times I didn't go through what Churchill described as "black dog"—that's a period of depression. But after you've had tremendous effort devoted to a cause, there is a letdown. It's that--those are when you're depressed. You make mistakes, and that is the time never to announce anything you're going to do. I didn't announce anything publicly, and I rebound fairly fast. So I came back after that, and within a few months, we were in Central America on a Central American tour. We had positive things to do that Eisenhower gave us to do—Central America in '55, another round-the-world trip in 1956, a trip to Austria to welcome the Humbar—Hungarian refugees in '56, Africa in '57, Latin America in '58. Doing something positive is the way to—to recover from such things. Let me put it another way. You say I was considering—sort of abused, and I was, and let down, not by Eisenhower but by some of the critics after I had carried the load that others weren't carrying. What cures you of it? The most—the thing that it cures you of it the most is to quit thinking about yourself. I realized I was thinking about myself, and then I realized the bigger cause. I was doing my job, and I thought it was helpful. Eisenhower thought it was helpful, and as long as I kept my eye on that, I no longer had fits of, shall we say—well—I—going to throw it all in and—

Day 3, Tape 4
00:02:49
[Frank Gannon]

It's "grey dog."

Day 3, Tape 4
00:02:50
[Richard Nixon]

That's right.

Day 3, Tape 4
00:02:52
[Frank Gannon]

After all you'd been through and all the—the loyal soldiering you had done for Eisenhower and the party, as the 1956 presidential elections approached, there was a "Dump Nixon" movement that developed in the party, and in which Eisenhower was at least passively involved. Why—why was that? Why were you—after all you'd done, why were you unpopular?

Day 3, Tape 4
00:03:18
[Richard Nixon]

Well, the reason that Eisenhower was involved was that some of his associates, and Harold Stassen in particular, were bombarding him with polls showing that I was less popular than others might be on the ticket, that I would be a bigger drag.

Day 3, Tape 4
00:03:36
[Frank Gannon]

Were you?

[Richard Nixon]

No. There were other polls that indicated the contrary. As a matter of fact, if I had thought that I would be a drag I would have gotten off without any question. But I knew there was another side to this. If I had left the ticket, just as if I had left the ticket during the fund crisis, it would have split the Republican Party right down to its gut, and Eisenhower wouldn't have won. That is my view, at least. But, in any event, Eisenhower read about these things, and that's when he talked to me, and Foster Dulles did separately, about possibly not being on the ticket in 1956 and maybe taking a cabinet post, secretary of defense, and Dulles also said secretary of state after he, Dulles, decided to retire at the age of seventy.

Day 3, Tape 4
00:04:18
[Frank Gannon]

Were those suggestions as naïve as they sound today?

Day 3, Tape 4
00:04:22
[Richard Nixon]

No. I think they were well-intentioned. I—I don't think that Dulles had anybody's interests at heart but my own, or Eisenhower either. I think what had happened was, in Eisenhower's case, he—now, I'm—have to say he was thinking of himself, too, as he should've--but he felt from the polls he saw that I was a drag, and second, he knew I was young enough to take a cabinet post, and, as he pointed out, Herbert Hoover had gone from secretary of commerce to president. He didn't see any reason why, in a cabinet post, I couldn't be in—gain experience in management, which would qualify me better to run for president later than simply being his vice president. That was the argument he made.

Day 3, Tape 4
00:05:02
[Frank Gannon]

How did you feel about the outcome of the '56 elections? It was another landslide, but it had some bitter elements.

Day 3, Tape 4
00:05:12
[Richard Nixon]

Well, in the '56 elections, it was not going to be a landsk—slide until two weeks before. Two weeks before it was going to be comfortable. The polls indicated that, because it was a r—a rerun of the Eisenhower-Stevenson campaign, Stevenson was not as effective even in this campaign as he had been in the '52 campaign. About his only issue was that Ei—Eisenhower'd had a heart attack and that Eisenhower, therefore, might die, and that if he did, that they were voting for me for president. But that rather ghoulish suggestion backfired. It seemed to be reaching a bit much. And—

Day 3, Tape 4
00:05:51
[Frank Gannon]

Did you think you were—

[Richard Nixon]

--fifty—

Day 3, Tape 4
00:05:52
[Frank Gannon]

I'm sorry. Did you think you were going to become president during—

Day 3, Tape 4
00:05:54
[Richard Nixon]

No.

Day 3, Tape 4
00:05:55
[Frank Gannon]

--Eisenhower's heart attack?

Day 3, Tape 4
00:05:56
[Richard Nixon]

I never felt that. I remember when I—

Day 3, Tape 4
00:05:57
[Frank Gannon]

Or the stroke.

Day 3, Tape 4
00:05:58
[Richard Nixon]

When I heard about it—well, when I heard about the heart attack, as a matter of fact, the thing that ran through my mind, and I told this to Jim Shepley—I said, "Maybe it isn't a heart attack." He called me on the phone from Denver. Because I remembered [General Slim], who was one of the World War II generals from Australia. I had met him in Australia in 1953. And I remember to this day very vividly—we sat in the government house looking out over the bay down in Australia, in—in—in Sydney, Australia, and his first words to me—he said, "How's Ike? How is his tummy? I always remembered Ike had a bad tummy," and then I thought, "Well, maybe it's just a stomach upset." Jim said, "It's a heart attack." So that was that. And I was rather numb about it, but I didn't expect that—anything to happen. Incidentally—and others did. I remember—believe me, when the president has a heart attack, the vice president becomes a very popular figure, not only the media--of course, they put the death watch out in front of the place, and I had to evoi—evade or avoid the press as much as I could. But on the—but—the other hand, the parade of politicians. I acquired a lot of new friends there. Harold Stassen came in and pledged his support to me for president and so forth. It was then, however, in '56, later, that Harold Stassen led the charge to get me removed from the ticket. So, that's politics.

Day 3, Tape 4
00:07:28
[Frank Gannon]

I think you—you've written somewhere that polit—that most people in polit—are in politics because what they can do—what people can do for you or what people can do to you.

Day 3, Tape 4
00:07:37
[Richard Nixon]

Mm-hmm.

Day 3, Tape 4
00:07:38
[Frank Gannon]

Is that a fair summary of American politics?

Day 3, Tape 4
00:07:40
[Richard Nixon]

Exactly. Exactly.

Day 3, Tape 4
00:07:41
[Frank Gannon]

Isn't that a—sort of a cynical prescription?

Day 3, Tape 4
00:07:43
[Richard Nixon]

No, it's—it's—it's—call it cynical, call it what you will. It's a fact of life. I mean, the—the—the idea, the thing that they're taught in-- shall we say, among the brightest and the best—that people are in politics and do things because—they're doing it solely because of their interest in better government and so forth, not for their own advancement, not thinking of themselves, and so forth. I wish it were that kind of world, and to an extent we're all motivated by that—I hope we are, but, on the other hand, in the political world, and it's true of all worlds, let's face it, you—if you are facing somebody or dealing with somebody that can do something to you or for you, you're going to treat him a lot differently than if he's somebody that doesn't matter in your future. And so, unless you have either the power, which means the power to do something for somebody or to do something to him, believe me, you have very little leverage from—with people. Now, there are a few, let me say, where there are deep, loyal friendships that overrides all of that, but, believe me, I could count most of those on perhaps two hands--that I think of these types. For the rest, and there are a lot of good people among them, but they're looking out after themselves. "Can you do something for me?" Or to you? In other words, when I was up, I always knew it because they were flocking around. When I was down, they were gone, and I had just a few who stuck with me all the way. That's life.

Day 3, Tape 4
00:09:25
[Frank Gannon]

In nineteen fifty—

Day 3, Tape 4
00:09:26
[Richard Nixon]

Incidentally, in this—I think the most—one of the most amusing conversation that President Eisenhower had—he—he was checking with all of his friends as to whether I should stay on the ticket. And, incidentally, what kept me on the ticket in 1956 was not anything that I did, not a—but the voters of New Hampshire. Styles Bridges, who didn't like Sherman Adams, felt that Sherman Adams was trying to get me dumped. I don’t know if that was true. So Styles s—

Day 3, Tape 4
00:09:55
[Frank Gannon]

Sherman Adams was Eisenhower's chief of staff.

Day 3, Tape 4
00:09:57
[Richard Nixon]

He was his chief of staff, and so what happened is that Bridges, who had a lot of s—of clout in New Hampshire, went up there, and he helped stimulate a write-in campaign for me of twenty-seven thousand votes. After that, that decided it. Eisenhower felt that I was not a liability, and, incidentally, to show that that was not just a—a—a fluke, a few weeks later there were thirty-four thousand who wrote my name in in Oregon. So, I did have some grassroots support. Now, that didn't indicate—because these were Republican primaries—that I had the support of a majority, but it did indicate that that twenty-seven thousand in New Hampshire and that thirty-four thousand in Oregon would be turned off in the event I was dropped from the ticket, and Eisenhower was practical enough, I think, to realize that.

Day 3, Tape 4
00:10:43
[Frank Gannon]

Some people have said that the—the traumatic experience—talking about Sherman Adams—when Eisenhower a couple of years later used you to take the message to Sherman Adams that he had to go, that he had to be fired from the White House staff, that the memory of that experience affected your condec—conduct years later in Watergate, when the same situation in some ways was created or existed, but there was no Nixon for Nixon to do what Nixon did for Eisenhower.

Day 3, Tape 4
00:11:16
[Richard Nixon]

It probably had some effect, yes. I—I felt, after it was done, wh—

Day 3, Tape 4
00:11:24
[Frank Gannon]

Why was it done? Why did it have to be done?

Day 3, Tape 4
00:11:25
[Richard Nixon]

Political reasons. Sherman Adams was an honest man, in my opinion. He was a selfless man. He was abrasive. He was no friend of mine—no enemy either. He was just a friend of the president's, and he did what the president wanted, and he was blamed many times when he said no abruptly, in his abrupt way, and he could be nothing but abrupt. He was blamed when actually he was just doing what Eisenhower wanted him to do. Bedell Smith, who was Eisenhower's chief of staff in Europe during the war and a great chief of staff, was my neighbor when I was vice president. And th—this was the period just before the 1956 elections, and Bedell was sick at that time. He'd had ulcers and so forth, and he was very thin, and a couple of drinks would loosen his tongue a bit in an uncharacteristic way. And I remember one night we were sitting having scotch and soda, and Bedell got very emotional, a—and he said, "I want to tell you something about Ike. Ike'll never do anything for anybody else." He says, "I was just Ike's prat boy. Ike always have [sic] to have a prat boy." Now, what he meant by that was t—in effect, that Sherman Adams was his prat boy. I was his prat boy. Doing—he says, "Ike has to have somebody do the dirty work that he doesn't want to do so that he can look like the good guy." So it was Bedell Smith, for example, that had to carry the bad news to Patton, as you remember in the movie Patton. Coming back to Sherman Adams, however, he was getting a lot of heat from the Republicans, but Re—Republicans were going to lose in 1958 in any event, not because of a—a vicuna coat or whatever it was—according to Jerry Persons, it was a cheap vicuna, too, which made it even worse. But he was going to—we were going to lose because the economy was bad. It was a bad recession—not as bad as this last one, but the worst one since World War II, except for the one we've just going through now [sic]. But, nevertheless, the Republicans were all running to the hills and raising hell generally, and finally Eisenhower felt that he could—couldn't afford to keep Bedell any longer, and his friends, as he called them, his Augusta friends, all said that Sherman Adams had to go. So he left. It didn't do any good. It didn't do any good at all. They—all it did was to take Adams out as a target, and then our Democratic opposition concentrated more on the economy. I would have rather had them talking about Adams than about unemployment, frankly. And so, after that, I felt—I felt reluctant to—to dump anybody when he came under attack, unless I became absolutely convinced that the individual was guilty. I mean, I—if—if—when people come to me and say, "You've got to dump him for political reasons"—that isn't enough reason, in my opinion. I didn't think it was. Now, in retrospect, probably that is short-sighted.

Day 3, Tape 4
00:14:43
[Frank Gannon]

Your counsel in the White House, I think, said that your loyalty to some of your aides spoke well of you as a man but ill of you as a president.

Day 3, Tape 4
00:14:54
[Richard Nixon]

That was Henry Petersen. That's right, the—the attorney general. But in any event—

Day 3, Tape 4
00:14:57
[Frank Gannon]

Is that a fair judgment?

Day 3, Tape 4
00:14:58
[Richard Nixon]

What?

Day 3, Tape 4
00:14:49
[Frank Gannon]

Is that a fair judgment, do you think?

Day 3, Tape 4
00:15:00
[Richard Nixon]

I—it may be. It may be.

Day 3, Tape 4
00:15:04
[Frank Gannon]

In y—in your—

[Richard Nixon]

As a matter of fact, we've got to face it. I—we have the famous t--the famous dictum of Gladstone, the great Liberal prime minister-- capital "L"—in England, Disraeli's great rival back in the nineteenth century, when he said, "The first requisite of a prime minister is to be a good butcher." I must admit I wasn't a very good butcher, but, frankly, neither was Eisenhower. It was difficult. But if you don't--if you're not yourself, you've got to have somebody in your staff who is, who can carry it out. Take Haldeman. Haldeman got a lot of heat because he was doing things for me that I didn't do for myself. He had to be tough, say no when people wanted me to dedicate this or something else, when they—and then take the heat rather than have me blamed. The same was true of Adams. Adams got a lot of—he got a—he got a lot of criticism for doing exactly what Eisenhower wanted him to do. And, therefore, I'm pretty sympathetic with Adams. He was a fine chief of staff.

Day 3, Tape 4
00:16:03
[Frank Gannon]

Is the—is the difference that you didn't have the temperament to be a good butcher, whereas Eisenhower had the temperament as long as he had someone else to actually go and—with the cleaver?

Day 3, Tape 4
00:16:14
[Richard Nixon]

Eisenhower, in his military experience, knew that it was necessary to make changes of command. As a matter of fact, the records of World War II indicate time and again that if he had an officer, even a—a—an officer of field rank, a general, who wasn't doing the job, Eisenhower was absolutely ruthless in having him removed. But he never did it himself. Eisenhower, as Bedell Smith well put it, always had to be the good guy.

Day 3, Tape 4
00:16:45
[Frank Gannon]

Did Eisenhower believe that loyalty was a two-way street?

Day 3, Tape 4
00:16:50
[Richard Nixon]

Yes, he did, but, on the other hand, he—he had the military belief that the most important attribute that a junior officer, government official, or whatever—subordinate can have, as he put it one time with me, was selflessness. That means that the subordinate must always feel that he's expendable, that all of us are there to serve the chief, and, frankly, I'm inclined to think that is the case. I—I think--I think sometimes—and incidentally, we've got to say the same is true of Truman. Truman wasn't a good butcher. Truman stood by his people, stood by Hiss too long, stood by some of the others who were involved in the scandals, and that hurt him. I—Roosevelt was a good butcher. Roosevelt was ruthless. That's the second Roosevelt I'm talking to [sic], as the first one as well. Eisenhower was not, but Eisenhower knew how to get it done. He had the process, and he didn’t hesitate to make the decision that he considered to be in his best interest and, in his view, also the best interest of the country.

Day 3, Tape 4
00:18:06
[Frank Gannon]

It seems that—looking back over the vice-presidential years, it seems that time after time, from Eisenshower's [sic] ambivalence in the fund crisis, his using you to—to jettison McCarthy, his ambivalence to the "Dump Nixon" movement, his using you--pushing you out to do some heavy partisan campaigning in '58, which had to hurt your prospective chances to be the nominee in '60, and then the—the ultimate irony in the '60 campaign, when you really needed him, his—his main contribution was the—"Give me a week and I'll think of something." He contributed a gaffe, and--and—and then—not doing much campaigning for you. It seems—

Day 3, Tape 4
00:18:52
[Richard Nixon]

Now, that's part—may I say—may I interrupt you there. That's part of the mythology. Eisenhower wanted to do more, and he did—did make about three effective speeches at the last, particularly knocking down—trying to knock down Kennedy's charges about a miss-a missile gap, which Kennedy, of course, had to repudiate after he got in and found out we had about a fifteen-to-one advantage over the Soviet rather than being a gap. But Eisenhower really wanted to do more. He had become very, very irritated by Kennedy's attacks, particularly in the missile gap area and on dealings with the Russians. And I remember as if it were this day I—my going into the office at the White House, and Eisenhower was enthusiastic about his schedule. One of the places he wanted to go was downstate Illinois and also into Missouri, where he had invitations, as well as all over the country. Particularly those two he picked out. And as I left the office, I was met by his doctor, and—General Snyder, and he says, "Can I talk to you, Mr. Vice President?" I shaid [sic]--said, "Sure." And we walked over--around in the Rose Garden there, and he said, "I want to beg you," he said, "don't let him do it." By that time, Eisenhower'd—of course, had had his stroke as well as his heart attack. He said, "I am very concerned about his condition, and I think a campaign--too much campaigning'll kill him. Don't let him do it." That was only the half of it. Mamie Eisenhower called Pat, Mrs. Nixon, and spent a half-hour on the phone with her on that same day, almost in tears. She says, "You know, I'm so worried about Ike. He's—can’t sleep. His blood pressure is up. His face is flushed." He [sic] says, "I'm just afraid if he campaigns, it's going to kill him." So I had to go in and tell Eisenhower that—I really had to lie this time--(laughs) and you have to sometimes—that I really didn't think that he ought to do it. I couldn't put it on the basis of his illness. He would never accept that. But I said I thought possibly we would be better off if he didn't campaign in these areas, because otherwise it'd appear that I couldn't carry the load myself. He's too smart, of course, to believe that, and I think he was deeply hurt, and therefore even more disappointed than otherwise would have been the case when we lost the election in '60, because if he had gone to downstate Illinois—we only lost it by eight thousand votes—we would have won it. Had he gone to Missouri—we only lost it by ten—we would have won that. And as a result, we'd have won the presidency.

Day 3, Tape 4
00:21:25
[Frank Gannon]

I think we have reached the end of our hour.

Day 3, Tape 4
00:21:33
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Day 3, Tape 4
00:21:38
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Day 3, Tape 4
00:21:42
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Day 3, Tape 4
00:22:12
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Day 3, Tape 4
00:23:14
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