Richard Nixon/Frank Gannon Interviews,
September 7, 1983 [Day 9 of 9]

interviewer: Frank Gannon
interviewee: Richard Nixon
producer: Ailes Communications, INC.
date: September 7, 1983
minutes: approximately 237
extent: ca. 306kb
summary: This interview, comprising four video tapes, or just under 4 hours, is the ninth and final in a series of taped interviews with former president Nixon. The primary focus of this conversation is Nixon's political career up through his election to the presidency in 1968, including why Nixon lost the 1960 presidential election, the impact of the loss on his family, the 1962 California governor's race and Nixon's subsequent move to New York, the political climate following John F. Kennedy's death, the 1966 congressional elections, Nixon's decision to run for president in1968, the campaign, and his eventual victory. Other topics discussed include Ted Kennedy and Chappaquiddick, the deaths of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., the John Birch Society, the 1983 World Series, the death of Nixon's mother, Japanese political leaders and the possibility of Japanese rearmament, and the difference between public and private behavior by leaders. Nixon's political speeches, the fairness of his treatment by the media, and liberal bias in the media are also covered. He discusses Nelson Rockefeller, Barry Goldwater, Charles DeGaulle, Ronald Reagan, Bebe Rebozo, and Spiro Agnew. They also discuss the attack on Nixon's motorcade in Caracas, Venezuela. Nixon gives his opinion of the way his presidency, and those of Kennedy and Johnson, will be evaluated by future generations.
repository: Walter J. Brown Media Archives, University of Georgia Libraries (Main Library)
collection: Richard Nixon Interviews
permissions: Contact Media Archives.

Day Nine, Tape one of four, LINE FEED #1, 9-7-83, ETI Reel #62
September 7, 1983

Day 9, Tape 1
00:00:05
[Richard Nixon]

--silly damn thing, anyways.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:00:07
[Action note: Picture appears on screen.]

[Frank Gannon]

It is interesting, though. I mean, it's--it's as vivid as that, the--the light suit, and even--your suit's in shadow, but even not in shadow how much he stands out with the--how much the dark [inaudible].

Day 9, Tape 1
00:00:14
[Richard Nixon]

You see, the other point is that it was--if it'd been in color it would've been different.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:00:19
[Frank Gannon]

Mm-hmm.

[Richard Nixon]

The light suit in color is fine.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:00:20
[Frank Gannon]

[Inaudible.]

Day 9, Tape 1
00:00:21
[Richard Nixon]

It's--

[Action note: Picture fades to black and returns.]

[Richard Nixon]

--in black and white--

Day 9, Tape 1
00:00:22
[Frank Gannon]

It just fades into the [inaudible].

[Action note: Picture fades to black and returns.]

Day 9, Tape 1
00:00:23
[Richard Nixon]

In black and white, always wear a dark suit. That's something we should--

[Action note: Nixon laughs.]

Day 9, Tape 1
00:00:27
[Action note: Tone sounds.]

[Richard Nixon]

Oh, well, hell.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:00:28
[Action note: Tone sounds.]

Day 9, Tape 1
00:00:32
[Offscreen voice]

Stand by, studio. We go in ten seconds.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:00:34
[Action note: Screen goes black.]

Day 9, Tape 1
00:00:43
[Action note: Picture appears on screen.]

Day 9, Tape 1
00:00:45
[Frank Gannon]

Why did you lose in 1960? Was it--was it the debates?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:00:51
[Richard Nixon]

Well, when you lose an election by the closest margin in history, where a difference of just twelve--let's start again. Uh--

Day 9, Tape 1
00:01:00
[Offscreen voice]

Let's take it from the top. Keep rolling tape. [Inaudible.]

Day 9, Tape 1
00:01:02
[Frank Gannon]

Can we--

Day 9, Tape 1
00:01:03
[Richard Nixon]

Yeah.

[Frank Gannon]

When I--

Day 9, Tape 1
00:01:04
[Action note: Screen goes black. Sound goes off.]

Day 9, Tape 1
00:01:08
[Action note: Picture appears on screen.]

Day 9, Tape 1
00:01:12
[Frank Gannon]

Why did you lose the presidency in 1960? Was it--was it the influence of the Nixon-Kennedy debates?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:01:21
[Richard Nixon]

Well, the debates certainly had some effect, as all observers have pointed out. But when you lose an election by a margin of only twelve thousand votes scattered in three critical states, where that many would have made the difference, then any number of factors could have done it. With regard to the effect of the debates, it's interesting to note that the polls between the time before the first debate and between--and then on Election Day remained relatively the same. Kennedy was ahead, actually, fifty-one-forty-nine, according to Gallup, before the debates. He won by approximately fifty-and-a-half to forty-nine-and-a-half. So, when you put all the debates together, assuming that the debates only were affecting the result, you can't say that they were critical. It's a myth to suggest that I was way ahead before the debates and that the debate turned it around. It just didn't happen. I think, of the factors that might have made a difference, and any one could have made a difference, these were the ones that come to mind. One, we were outspent. Kennedy had a lot more money than we did. We were well-financed, but we didn't dream that he would be able to do as well as he could. Second, the media was very, very strongly against us, by a margin of five- to six-to-one. That has been since pretty well documented. Third, there was the economy. Unfortunately, a recession occurred--a very small one, it was true--i--in that year, 1960. And it reached its depth in October, the m--worst possible time, when four hundred thousand more people became unemployed. And, fifth, in the big states, i--it was the fact that the Catholic vote was so overwhelmingly for Kennedy. I got the lowest percentage of Catholic votes of any candidate in history, lower even than Herbert Hoover did against Al Smith in 1928. A--and that made an enormous difference in the big states, like New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania. So, under all these circumstances, then, you would have to say that any one of those factors might have made the difference. But I would also say, in fairness, that John Kennedy was a very good candidate. It was a good contest. It was tough right down to the end. Who knows?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:03:40
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think it would have been different if you had had a different running mate, if you hadn't chosen Henry Cabot Lodge and/or if Eisenhower had campaigned more for you?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:03:51
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I wouldn't knock Lodge, in the sense that I think Lodge did the best that he could in the area that we had chosen him for. His expertise was in foreign policy, and he was extremely effective in that respect. I do think, in retrospect, that a better running mate would have probably been Thruston Morton, because of [inaudible].

Day 9, Tape 1
00:04:10
[Frank Gannon]

The senator from Kentucky?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:04:11
[Richard Nixon]

The senator from Kentucky, who, incidentally, became national chairman for that very campaign. Morton would have helped in the states that could have made the difference. He would have helped in downstate Illinois, where Lodge could not help. He would have helped in Missouri, that we lost by only twelve thousand votes. He would have helped in South Carolina, that we lost by only twelve thousand votes. When you add up those votes, you have a net change of twelve thousand over--overall that would have made a difference.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:04:41
[Frank Gannon]

How about the Eisenhower involvement, where not only didn't he campaign for you much, but there was the--the gaffe at the end, or the statement, at a press conference that if they gave him a week he could think of something you'd done in the administration?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:04:55
[Richard Nixon]

I don't think there's anything that has ever embarrassed Eisenhower more than the way that so-called "gaffe" was played. He pointed out to me afterwards that he was just leaving the press conference--he had one every week--and somebody gr--asked a question, as they often do Ronald Reagan as he's walking out of a press conference--you know, he puts his hand to his ear--I hope with a hearing aid he won't have to do that again--and tries to answer them. Well, Eisenhower, in this instance--usually didn't try to answer them, but one of them shot at him, "Can you name any single one der--one--any thing that Vice President Nixon has contributed to?" and he said, "Well, give me a week and I'll give you an answer." He said what he meant was that, "Next week, ask me the question." He just didn't want to answer it then. Well, be that as it may, it had--it did have a detrimental effect, because it was a highlight, one of the highlights, of the first debate, when [Sander Vanocur], who was working very closely with the Kennedy group, we found later, asked me that question. Kennedy was prepared to answer it, and I was not. The second point is that I suppose that many people have the impression that Eisenhower was reluctant in supporting me. That was not true. Exactly the opposite was the case. He wanted desperately to get in that campaign. He was insisting, for example, in the last three weeks, particularly because he didn't like what Kennedy was saying about the missile gap. Eisenhower was a military man. He was very proud that the country was strong, and he didn't like this "upstart," as he often called him, who knew nothing about military activities, or at least in the sense that Eisenhower knew about them, to criticize what he had done militarily. He knew that instead of having a missile gap that it was a missile gap for the Russians, that we had about a fifteen-to-one advantage, which of course Kennedy had to admit at the time we had the Cuban confrontation, after he became president. But, in any event, why then didn't Eisenhower campaign? And the reason was that none of us could really talk about. It hasn't come out. It's come out only lately in books. The problem was that he had had, of course, a heart attack. He had also had a stroke. He had high blood pressure. And Mrs. Eisenhower, after talking to his doctors, called Mrs. Nixon on the phone--had her on the phone for a half-hour before the decision was made as to whether Eisenhower would campaign in those last two weeks and how much and begged with--she said her--Mrs. Eisenhower--Miz Eis--Mrs. Nixon told me that Mrs. Eisenhower's voice was choked. She says, "It's going to kill Ike. He just mustn't do it, Pat. He just mustn't do it." And she, of course, told me that. That was not all. Eisenhower's doctor talked to me before I went in to see him about the balance of his schedule. And he said to me, "Mr. Vice President, I want you to know that I think it would be very detrimental to the general's health. It might risk his life. He wants to do it. Don't let him know that I have said this." So I had to go through and--to see President Eisenhower when he said, "What can I do?" And he laid out the schedule, and I had to make all sorts of lame excuses about why he shouldn't do it. But actually the reason he didn't do it and the reason I did not agree to his going forward and doing it as he wanted to was because of those personal considerations.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:08:17
[Frank Gannon]

How did it feel on election night to--as the results began to come in, or as--as trends began to emerge, to realize that at best you were losing and at worst, because of the substantial vote fraud, that you were possibly, literally, having the election stolen away from you? How did--what was that night like?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:08:37
[Richard Nixon]

Well, election night's--after all of the regulars of the campaign and I hadn't slept for about forty-eight hours before that election night, because we'd had telethons--we'd flown in through Alaska and Detroit and Chicago and so forth. As a result, you're physically drained, emotionally drained, mentally drained. And so you're just numb. The only thing that'll pick you up--if you win. And when you lose, you become more and more numb. And as a matter of fact, insofar as the election fraud was concerned, it didn't really come home to me that night, except for one call I got from Everett Dirksen's administrative assistant. He called and got me on the phone--it was the only call I think I took that night. He begged me--he said, "Don't concede. Don't concede in Illinois. Downstate we're coming in right on schedule, and they're not going to be able to override it in Cre--Cook County." Well, by that time that I decided to go down and make what was interpreted as a concession statement, then that apparently did have a detrimental effect, because I understand that at that time the people downstate quit counting. They quit watching the polls. And the people upstate, of course, were under the control of Mayor--Mayor Daley. So we lost it by eight thousand votes. So, under the circumstances, I was not aware that night of the immense fraud. I had ideas about it. That came later. The second point, however, I should make, is that what goes through the mind of a losing candidate--and I'm an expert on this, having lost a couple of them--is primarily thoughts not about himself, but about his family, the impact on them, his workers, his supporters, everything that he has done. You just really have a feeling. "What can I do to justify what we've been through?"

Day 9, Tape 1
00:10:35
[Frank Gannon]

It's almost painful, looking at the film of that statement when you went down early in the evening, of Mrs. Nixon trying to control her emotions.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:10:44
[Richard Nixon]

[Inaudible.]

[Frank Gannon]

How did she and Tricia and Julie take the impact of that loss?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:10:50
[Richard Nixon]

Well, for her, because she had campaigned so hard herself--she's one of the great troupers. She's the better campaigner of the two, all of my even most passionate admirers will admit. And so it was a terrible disappointment for her. She didn't want to go down to concede. She says, "I don't"--and--and one of the reasons she didn't was that the--the media had been very much against us, she thought. She says, "I'm not going to go down there in front of those people after what they have done and said." And, of course, they were against us by a margin of at least five or six to one. "But," I said, "we've got to do it for our supporters. They're out there, too." And so, being the good trouper that she is, she agreed to go down. And it was a brave thing for her to do. Tricia came into the room at a time that we had decided that we’d have to make the concession statements, and--and she bursts into tears, and she said, "Oh, Daddy." She said, "I'm not crying for myself. I'm crying because you and Mommy have worked so hard." And I thought that was a very touching thing to say. Julie was not up at that time. She was only twelve years old. And it was the next morning--I had gone to bed and--hoping, perhaps, that the same thing would happen to me as happened so many years ago, when Charles Evans Hughes went to bed and woke up in the morning and found that he had not been elected president. I felt hope that it'd be the other way around, although I didn't expect it. In any event, somebody--I was in a dead sleep, I'd only slept about four hours--was shaking the bed, and it was Julie. And she said, "Daddy, how did the election come out?" Well, that was about as tough a little speech as I ever made. I said, "Well, this is the way that it happened. It was very, very close. We--we think we may have even won it, but under the circumstances I'm afraid we've got to lose--we have lost." And she tr--started to cry, and then she said something which I thought was quite profound. She said, "Well, we may have lost the election, but we won in the hearts of the people." And that, of course, was Julie. From then on, she never gave up--Julie, like her mother--like Tricia, too, but even more so--is a fighter. After that, I recall often s--talking to her. I'd go in to kiss her good night, and she would say, "Daddy, can’t we still win?" And this was months later. Even a year later, she said, "I still think we've got to have a recount in Cook County." That's Julie.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:13:29
[Frank Gannon]

How did it feel in January of 1961 to stand on the platform and watch John Kennedy take the oath of office as thirty-fifth president of the United States?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:13:42
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I suppose one who had lost a very close election, and particularly under the circumstances where there was strong evidence that he might not have lost it, but that it had been stolen that you're supposed to feel rather bitter and all that. I didn't really feel that way. Inaugurations are, for me, and I think for most Americans, almost a--a religious experience. Here, the change is occurring. It's a changing--change occurring peacefully in a great democracy, the greatest in the world, and so one feels, as I did, that you're just fortunate to be th--there, to see and to participate in a moment of history. I must say that, as I heard John Kennedy's speech, I thought it was very effective. And he delivered it as he--as I would have expected--very, very well. It had a great impact. But as far as the content was concerned, may I say, I could just hear Eisenhower's teeth gri--grating--grating because President Kennedy--President-elect Kennedy was saying, "The torch of leadership has passed to a new generation of Americans, born in this century, tempered by war, and with the promise of peace," et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And when he went on to say that--"let the world know that we will fight any place, any time, in defense of freedom," I thought back, as I'm sure Eisenhower did, to the fact that during the campaign he had urged that Eisenhower apologize to Khrushchev for the U-2 incident. He had urged Eisenhower not to defend Quemoy and Matsu against the attacks of the Chinese Communists. So, under the circumstances, those thoughts did go through my head, but, on the other hand, they were overridden by simply the feeling almost of awe of being in the presence of such a great moment.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:15:45
[Frank Gannon]

How did--do you remember how you spend your last night as--in Washington as vice president?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:15:53
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I remember the day, and the night, as well. Right after the inauguration there was a delightful luncheon at the [F Street Club], given by Admiral Strauss, Eisenhower's close friend and his nominee for secretary of commerce, who had been rejected, much to Eisenhower's displeasure, by the United States Senate. After that luncheon, we went home. I don't remember too much what happened then--had a very light snack at--at night. And then I decided to take a last ride around the Capitol, because I knew the next day I wasn't going to have the car. You see, a vice--former vice president at that point--when he leaves office, he doesn't have a car, he doesn't have Secret Service, et cetera, from that moment. But they did allow it for the--the balance of the day. So John Wardlaw, our driver, drove me through the streets of the city. I'd said, "Take us up to the Capitol." And as we drove through the streets of the city, it was really an eerie sight, a--almost like New Year's in a way, because it was snowing, and as the flakes of snow began to come down I saw the ladies with their marvelous ball gowns trying to get through the snow, stepping over the gutters with the help of their escorts, all in white tie and tails and so forth. You could hear the singing and the noise. It was a great celebration, after all, and I understood that. I would have celebrated, too, if they had been part of that campaign and had won. And finally we got up to the Capitol, and I got out of the car, and I walked into the Capitol Building, which was totally deserted at the time. The guard was very surprised to see me, but nevertheless I went on. I went up to my favorite place in the Capitol for what is my favorite view in the world. It's on the balcony looking down from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Memorial down through the mall. And this was the most beautiful sight I've ever seen. It's always beautiful. We used to put it on our Christmas cards that we sent out as vice president. The snow on the mall--mall--the snow was still falling and hanging on the leaves at this time. I looked out--out across there. You could just see the Lincoln Memorial far off. Of course, the Washington Memorial you could see quite clearly because it was closer and, of course, taller. I stood there for about five minutes, and then--

Day 9, Tape 1
00:18:34
[Frank Gannon]

What were--

Day 9, Tape 1
00:18:35
[Richard Nixon]

--some way--

[Frank Gannon]

What were you thinking?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:18:36
[Richard Nixon]

I--I s--stood there for about five minutes, and then suddenly a thought just rushed into my mind--not consciously, but then it seemed almost to overwhelm me. And it was, "I'll be back." And as that thought came into my mind, I just turned on my heels and walked very quickly away, back to the car.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:19:04
[Frank Gannon]

What were the--what were the options that you saw for yourself as you prepared to leave Washington after so many years and become a private citizen again?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:19:15
[Richard Nixon]

Well, the options were, frankly, very enticing, particularly from a financial standpoint. As I was leaving Washington, despite the fact that I had been in the House for two years--for four years--no. As I was leaving Washington, despite the fact that I had been in the House for four years and the Senate for two years and served as eight years for vice president at a very handsome salary--which was handsome then--of thirty-five thousand dollars a year, my net worth at the end of all that service was only forty-seven thousand dollars and a--a battered old Oldsmobile which needed some repairs. So, consequently, the financial rewards that might be available for our family--the girls were going to be ready for school very soon--was, I must say, somewhat enticing. And they were several. Jack Dreyfus, who had been one of our strong supporters during the campaign financially--I didn't know him well. I'd only met him very briefly after he had made a very big contribution--just rode downtown with him once in New York when I was there to make a speech, and he told me that he was particularly supportive of my foreign policy. And he came to see me in Florida. I can remember him to this day. He had an open shirt on, very informal--this very, very wealthy, brilliant man. And he said he thought I should come to New York. He offered me the position of chairman and chief executive officer of the Dreyfus Corporation. Salary seemed very handsome then, tremendously handsome--even now it sounds pretty big--two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, stock options, et cetera. If I had taken it, I would have been a very, very wealthy man at the present time. But I knew that if I did that, that I in effect would not be able to continue to injustice--do justice to him and to do anything in the political arena, although he had assured me that he wouldn’t object to that, particularly if it were in the area of foreign policy. Then there was another offer that appealed to me, I must say, a little bit more. I'm somewhat of a baseball fan, as most people are aware, and Del Webb, who was the owner of the New York Yankees, was a little dissatisfied with the leadership in the commissioner's office, and he came to see me in California when I was out there on a trip determining what I was going to do. And he asked if I would mind if he submitted my name as a candidate for commissioner of baseball. I'm sure if I'd said yes I would have gotten it, because he was a very powerful man. Well, I must say, that meant a lot to me--first, to be offered it, and second, just the idea of being able to spend time going to the baseball games, even traveling with the teams and so forth. But I knew that that wasn't for me, and so I said no to that. And then there were, of course, the offers from law firms and so forth and so on, and I finally decided that I would take an offer, not from the biggest law firm in Los Angeles--the biggest one did make me an offer, a very handsome one--Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher--but it would have required full time with no time off for any political activities. So I went with a smaller firm, the firm which I felt was better suited for what I was going to do.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:22:43
[Frank Gannon]

We agreed that because of time constraints there would be no digressions today, but I can't resist a quick one just to get you on the record. Who is going to play in and who's going to win the World Series?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:22:54
[Richard Nixon]

Well, this year, of course, as far as the American League is concerned, Chicago will win the West, a--and I have a feeling that Chicago might beat Baltimore. Baltimore will probably win the East, although you never discount Baltimore. It's going to be Chicago or Baltimore--a slight to Chicago because they’re the new boys in town. In the World Series, it'll be probably the Dodgers in the West. I can't even guess as to the East. I hope it's Montreal. I'd like to see the Canadians have the W--World Series. But, in any event, I will predict that the National League, if Chicago wins the American League, will win the World Series, because this year the National League rules, which do not allow for a designated hitter, apply--Chicago--one of its major threats is [Luzinsky], who can only hit as a designated hitter. He can no longer field. His legs are gone, but he can sure hit the ball. So he'd be sitting out except as a pinch hitter. Without [Luzinsky], the Chicago White Sox would not be able to beat the Montreal Expors--Expos, or the Los Angeles Dodgers, if they should win it.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:24:04
[Frank Gannon]

Do you--do you ever regret not taking the baseball commissionership if you had developed that and it had been offered?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:24:11
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, yes. I regret that. You--I regret, for example, maybe not bec--not having become a baseball writer or football writer or commentator and so forth. it's an interesting life, a fascinating life.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:24:26
[Frank Gannon]

It's never too late.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:24:27
[Richard Nixon]

Well, it's a little late now.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:24:29
[Frank Gannon]

Never too late, though.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:24:31
[Richard Nixon]

No. They should have a younger, non-controversial person in that job.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:24:35
[Frank Gannon]

Someone like Howard Cosell.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:24:38
[Richard Nixon]

Yes, he would--

Day 9, Tape 1
00:24:39
[Frank Gannon]

[Inaudible] both.

[Richard Nixon]

Well, I'd like to get him off the air, but that'd be something else again. Now, I don't mind him for boxing, but, my God, when he gives his opinions on baseball--huh!

Day 9, Tape 1
00:24:52
[Frank Gannon]

Do--when you moved out to California then, did you have--you still had political ambitions?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:25:00
[Richard Nixon]

No, a th--not really political ambitions. As a matter of fact, I moved to California not for the purpose of staying in politics or engaging in politics but perhaps to keep my options open. I would put it that way. I knew that going to New York--that I would be foreclosing political participation. I felt that as the titular head of the party that I should continue to speak out on issues. I would continue to make speeches around the country and so forth. And I felt, because I had a huge number of invitations to go around and do that sort of thing--I thought I owed it to the party. And, consequently, I felt I should take a position which was afforded to me in the Earl Adams fum--in the Earl Adams firm, Adams, Duque, and Hazeltine, a position that would provide adequate income for me but which would allow me the freedom, which they gave me, to participate in political activities. That's why I went to California.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:26:01
[Frank Gannon]

Did you see it as a viable option, then, that you might run, or--or would run, against Kennedy again in '64?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:26:07
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, yes. Oh, yes. After that--after the closest election in history, there was no doubt that I saw it as a viable option, and--and there's no doubt, too, that the Kennedys saw it as a viable option, because they continued to harass me once they got into power. Most things you forgive in politics. You do if it's aimed at you personally, but, on the other hand, when it's y--aimed at your family it's very hard to forget or forgive. And Bobby Kennedy, for example, initiated an investigation of my mother and my brother with regard to the [Hughes loan], which she had satisfied, of course, with property that was worth many times--that is worth today many times more than the loan. And they were going to have a criminal investigation. That was revealed in 1972, when some of the Kennedy papers began to come out.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:27:03
[Frank Gannon]

Did you know it at the time?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:27:04
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, of course not. I knew nothing about it. I did know something else, though. The Internal Revenue Service three times audited my income tax returns. And I wondered, "What in the world is this all about?" This was in 1961 and 1962 as I was preparing then to run for governor. And we learned later from a letter that was written by the one in charge of the audit in Los Angeles, who wrote to Rose Mary Woods--said that he was the one who three times messaged Washington, "I have examined this. I have conducted a full field audit. There's no change," because there was no--no money owed. And he said, "Three times I got orders from the very top to continue the audit and try to find something that they could ask for more money." That kind of harassment, I thought, was a bit beyond the pale, particularly because the election was close, particularly since I did not contest it. But, on the other hand, they play hardball. They had me down, they knew I wasn't out, and they wanted to put a couple of nails in the coffin. They almost succeeded.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:28:16
[Frank Gannon]

Could it be argued that your--that the investigations of Ted Kennedy in--during the first several months of your administration were really an equivalent of that?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:28:27
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I would say that they having done what they had done--we certainly were motivated, I would say, to a certain extent, to investigate what we thought were activities which were politically detrimental as far as they were concerned and not let it be covered up. And certainly that is one of the reasons that--that when we talk about the investigations of Ted Kennedy--what we're talking here, assume, is the Chappaquiddick--

Day 9, Tape 1
00:28:56
[Frank Gannon]

Chappaquiddick, yes.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:28:57
[Richard Nixon]

That's right.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:28:58
[Frank Gannon]

Do you consider running for governor of California to be your greatest--looking back now and--and given that you were--looking back now and, as you say, you were considering running against Kennedy again in '64--do you consider running for governor of California in 1962 your greatest political mistake?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:29:20
[Richard Nixon]

Yes and no. And I--this is not an equivocal answer, because it is a yes-and-no proposition. From a personal standpoint, yes, because we lost the election. On the other hand, if you look at it historically, if I had not run for governor, I then would certainly have probably been drafted to, even though I had not wished to, to run for president in 1964. And I would have lost. I would have run better against Johnson than Goldwater did. But nobody was going to beat Johnson in 1964. Having run for governor and lost, I was dead as far as 1964 was concerned. Now, let me say, I didn't plan it that way, because I didn't plan to go in and lose so I wouldn't have to run for governor. I didn't plan to go in and be governor so that--I--I didn't--I--I s--lost my train of thought there. I didn't run and lose because I didn't--I--I didn't run for governor and--and--

Day 9, Tape 1
00:30:23
[Frank Gannon]

Let's strike that, and we'll start again.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:30:24
[Richard Nixon]

Yeah. I didn't run for governor and then lose because of my concern that if I didn't lose I'd have to run for president in '64 because I had every i--every view that perhaps I would be the strongest candidate in '64. But that's the way the thing happened. And so, while I don't go along with the Pollyanna-ish idea everything happens for the best, in this case it did happen for the best for me politically. I would have been--because if I had run again in '64 and become a two-time loser for president, as Dewey had been after losing in '44 and '48, I would have been kaput as far as '68 was concerned. Now, on the other hand, running for governor was not something I wanted to do under any circumstances. I didn't want to be governor, and, incidentally, my best friends--not all of them, but some of my best friends felt it would be a great mistake. I remember Herbert Hoover and General MacArthur, who lived about five floors apart in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel--when I went to see them prior to making this decision on a visit to New York, I asked for their advice. Each of them, independently, without having talked to the other, said, "Don't go to California." They urged me to run for Congress, as John Quincy Adams had over a hundred years before. He said--and both of them said this, MacArthur first and then Hoover, whom I saw later in that same day--they said, "You should be in Washington, not in California. California basically is a great state, but it's quite parochial. You belong on the national and international scene. You can't do that in California." On the other hand, my political friends--like Len Hall, Cliff Folger--said, "You've got to go back. You've got to run." Len Hall's argument--he said, "If you don't run and somebody else does and somebody else wins, who's Dick Nixon going to be? He's the guy that lost for president. You've got to run in order to have a new base." So, after all those considerations and the feelings also expressed by some of my California supporters, I finally decided to run. Cap Weinberger, incidentally, the--now the secretary of defense, was then the young chairman of the Republican Party, a moderate Republican in a relatively conservative state at that point. And he was the one that told me I was the only one that had a chance to beat Pat Brown. And Dwight Eisenhower--President Eisenhower, after talking to his friends, wrote me a long letter saying that he had finally determined that I should run. Incidentally, in that respect, one other intriguing possibility that was raised for me before I came to California was raised by [Raymond Mulley], the columnist. Raymond Noley--Mulley had followed politics for years in Britain and the United States, and he urged me to become chairman of the Republican National Committee. He said, "There you'll have a forum. You can be the head of the loyal opposition. You're a great organizer. You can organize the party and strengthen it." That also was a proposition that I considered but did not follow through on.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:33:41
[Frank Gannon]

Coming just two years after this searing defeat for president, how did--and--and presumably enjoying the life back in California--how did Mrs. Nixon and Tricia and Julie feel about your re-entry into the political arena?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:34:00
[Richard Nixon]

Not enthusiastic, if I c--may use British understatement. Tricia and Julie, to an extent, were more resigned to it, because they were--they were still quite young. But as far as Mrs. Nixon was concerned--she was adamantly against it. She said, "We've just been through a campaign. We're just getting back on our feet. We owe time to the girls," which we did. "We owe time to ourselves. We just can't go through this again so soon.' She knew very well sh--what she was talking about.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:34:35
[Frank Gannon]

How did you--

[Richard Nixon]

She knew it was tough.

[Frank Gannon]

--break the news to her?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:34:37
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I had th--we had a family conference. I mean, you have that when you're a candidate for president, or governor, or vice president, whatever the case might be. And in this instance, I went over the pros and cons. And she said, "Well, let me just make one thing clear. If you decide to run, you're going to run on your own." She says, "I'm not going to be there campaigning with you as I did when you ran for the House and the Senate and vice president and president." And so she left the room, and the girls were in tears. So I went up to my study in our place and sat down in the easy chair, as I usually did, with the yellow pad, and--because I had to have a press conference the next day to announce what I was going to do. I had already indicated that I would. And I was making notes as to why I would not run for governor of California. The light was rather dim, and she came into the room. She came over, and she said, "You know, Dick," she said, "I've been thinking about this thing. I think it's a terrible mistake for you to run, but if you decide to do it," she said, "I'll be there with you." And she leaned down and kissed me on the forehead and left the room. Well, since she had agreed, I went ahead and did it. But she was right, because we, of course, did lose.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:35:57
[Frank Gannon]

We have some film of a famous event in Richard Nixon's political career.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:36:09
[Action note: They watch film of Nixon's 1962 concession speech.]

Day 9, Tape 1
00:36:33
[Frank Gannon]

Why did you hold your last press conference?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:36:38
[Richard Nixon]

You know, my main regret, and, frankly, only regret about that conference, curiously enough--I didn't do it sooner. Those of us, particularly on the conservative side, in politics--we take so much crap from the media. And w--we hyp--hypocritically go through this charade that we think the press is fair, that they're just doing their job, and so forth. They're not fair. They're deliberately unfair. When you--when you look, for example, at the polls taken of Washington correspondents in terms of 1960, they were in the neighborhood of four to five to one for Kennedy. In the case, for example, in 1968, when I was running against Humphrey, the top Washington correspondents, the two hundred--this is in television and also among newspapers as well--the top Washington correspondents were for Hubert Humphrey by eighty percent to twenty percent. In 1972, when sixty-one percent of the people voted for Nixon, the Washington and national correspondents in television and the media were eighty-two percent for McGovern. Well, that's got to tell you something. And so I had been going through this through all these years. Oh, I don't mean that I didn't have good friends in the press. I did have some. I don't mean that--too, that all of them were against me all the time. I think particularly when I went to Moscow in 1959 that I got a relatively good press. But, on the other hand, generally speaking, they're just against me--against me because they didn't agree with me. And so I understood that, but, on the other hand, I was not going to continue to go through the charade that I felt they were fair. And so now--in the California campaign it was worse than ever. I made a number of--of what I thought very constructive speeches and proposals about government in California, what we would do about crime, what we would do about jobs, getting more jobs into the state, a better industrial climate, and so forth and so on. Didn't make a blip. Just couldn't get it covered. All they wanted to go into was to whether or not I was running for president again, and particularly badgering me about the Hughes loan--other things which they knew were phony issues--political issues raised by the opposition. Well, in any event, that morning it was all over. I had made a concession statement--in other words, sent out a written statement, congratulated Brown and so forth and so on-- by wire, and I happened to tune in the television, and here was Herb Klein, one of the kindest, most gentle men who's ever been a press secretary--he's really too good for them. He never criticizes them. He never talks to their publishers or their editors or bitches about them in any way. He's always trying to be nice to them, thinking that if he's nice to them, they'll be nice to us. I don't mean he's a soft man, but I mean that's just his way. He's a gentleman. He's a gentleman in a business where there are damned few gentlemen. And so, in any event, here they were, badgering per--poor Herb Klein, saying, "Why doesn't Nixon come down and conc--concede?" I said, "Fine. I'll go down and concede," but when I conceded, I was going finally to tell them exactly what they'd been up to. I have no regrets about saying that, and, incidentally--one of the best things I ever did politically, because from that time on, and I think perhaps for the first time, the press began to respect me a little more. They were afraid that maybe I'd crack them again, and, believe me, I would have if they'd come at me.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:40:27
[Frank Gannon]

There--there are some, perhaps many, who will watch and hear you say what you've just said and say that this is a classic expression, casebook quality, of Nixon media paranoia. How do you--are you aware of that, and how do you respond to this--this continuing response to your claims, or to your objections, that you are unfairly treated by the media, that this is--that you just have a paranoid blank on this subject?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:40:27
[Richard Nixon]

No. I'm not paranoiac about it at all. I just say let's look at the record, and all the media has to do is to look at its record in 1960, look at its record in 1962, 1968, 1972. And they will find that they have been very heavily prejudiced--I'm speaking of "they" in the broadest sense, the majority--that they haven't given me the same fair treatment that they have given to some of the candidates on the other side who support their political views. It's only a honest statement, and--and anybody who sits there and says, "Well, really, they're all very fair, they're treating us objectively," is just wrong. I think the problem is this. The media constantly harps on credibility--are political figures credible. Well, I think the media's got to look at their credibility, and, as I say, when you look in 1972 and find eighty-two percent of the media, the top honchos, going for McGovern, and only thirty-eight percent of the people going for him, I don't know who's out of sync here. But for me to sit here and say, "Oh, in spite of that, the media were very fair to me"--that's just not true. They aren't. And weren't.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:42:21
[Frank Gannon]

Why do people put up with this? Because if--if reporters are as liberal as you say they are, that certainly doesn't represent the mass of public opinion. Why does the average person sitting at home who is not that kind of liberal accept this kind of liberal treatment of people like yourself, or of news in--

Day 9, Tape 1
00:42:40
[Richard Nixon]

[Inaudible.]

[Frank Gannon]

--general? Doesn't the market establish itself and demand more neutral or, indeed, right-of-center news coverage?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:42:46
[Richard Nixon]

The market does. For example, my famous "Silent Majority" speech in 1969 proved that. The media was about ninety percent to bug out of Vietnam, and yet we went up to sixty-eight percent in the polls when I came out strongly for the silent majority to stand up rather than to bug out. The people are smarter than you think in this thing. I think, too, though--let's look at politicians. Why don't politicians speak up as far as the media are concerned? I mean, those that think they're getting a bad rap? And the reason is the same reason that I--that motivated me up until that conference in 1962. They got the whip hand. You try to answer them. You try to defend yourself, and they'll write it, or they'll go on the air and--and come back at you. They have the last word. And so, under the circumstances, and this is where Herb Klein, professionally, was probably right when he advised, "Well, there's no use to take them on, because they'll be even worse." That was his view. My own view is--in retrospect, though, as far as I was concerned, they couldn't have been worse, in my opinion--more unfair. At least I got some degree of respect, because, basically, deep down, they're not the bravest people in the world when they write these words. And if you take them on, they then have got to show a little bit of deference--

Day 9, Tape 1
00:44:25
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think--

[Richard Nixon]

--to your views, at least.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:44:27
[Frank Gannon]

Do you think it's possible for a conservative commentator or reporter or analyst to rise through the ranks of network news as it now exists--which is another way of saying, I guess, do you think that there's any hope that the situation you've described, as you see it, will ever be changed?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:44:44
[Richard Nixon]

None at all. It's a fact of life. It's something that commentators have got to recognize as a fact of life. There is not a conservative commentator on the air today. There's nobody that I would even put in the center at the present time. I don't mean by that that Howard K. Smith was not a very responsible man. He's now off the air. John Chancellor at times can be very, very fair in the field of foreign policy and so forth. And I don't mean that they're s--all unfair all the time. I'm saying that deep down, as the [Rothman-Lichter polls]--and they basically are not conservatives--as they've all indicated, the overwhelming majority of the media feel that way. L--let's look at the polls, for example, of the top media people in television and newspapers in the year 1980. Reagan wins by a landslide. As far as those commentators were concerned--you know how they came out? Carter had over fifty percent, about fifty-one percent. You know who was second? John Anderson. Reagan ran a poor third. In other words, if the media was going to determine who was president, Jimmy Carter would be president today, and the country would be in a terrible shape. Now, my point is this--it isn't going to change, but political leaders like Ronald Reagan who can fight against this thing effectively and go over the heads of the media are the only hope to appeal to that silent majority that is still out there. I still insist that it's very important for anyone who is in politics to recognize that if he filters all of his views through the media, assuming he's a conservative, he's dead. Therefore, he must find ways to go over them and around them, and that's what I was trying to do as president.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:46:47
[Frank Gannon]

Do you have a twenty-five-word-or-less assessment of Dan Rather's credibility as a reporter-slash-anchorman to fill Walter Cronkite's shoes?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:46:58
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I think Dan Rather is perhaps the most effective anchorman of all at the present time. He's intelligent. He's tough. He's considered pretty credible. After the rough edges that he had at the beginning, he's gotten a little bit more of the soft-shoe manner that Walter Crankite--Cronkite used so effectively over the years. He comes on with that good automatic smile at the end, when he says--when they usually put one of those softline things on at the end--and it's rather endearing, as I'm--I'm sure that he hopes it will be. Now, as far as his credibility is concerned, it isn't as high as Cronkite's because of his background of having been more partisan. Cronkite was partisan. There isn't much question about that. I think he'd be the first to admit it, because he's an honest man. But, on the other hand, Cronkite was clever enough to know that he didn't want to be--appear to be that way, and Rather is beginning to learn that. I think that he is smart enough and, after all, when he's earning up to two million dollars a year, he isn't going to throw that baby out. So I think he's going to be smart enough to keep his ratings up by not going too far overboard in not providing balance. But, believe me, though, if Ronald Reagan's possibilities of being reelected president depended upon what kind of favorable treatment he's going to get in C.B.S., he might as well go back to that ranch right tomorrow. There's no way that he'd make it. But I think he's going to override them.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:48:39
[Frank Gannon]

What kind of person do you think becomes a reporter?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:48:43
[Richard Nixon]

Very intelligent people, people that are publicly oriented, people that want to be in public life, and people that are willing to make great sacrifices in order to succeed.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:49:00
[Frank Gannon]

On--right after your 1962 election, A.B.C. ran a network show called "The Politch--Political Obituary of Richard Nixon." How did it feel to sit in front of the tube and watch your own obituary?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:49:15
[Richard Nixon]

Well, neither you or our listeners will believe this. I didn't see the program. I don't look at programs of that sort. I got reports, of course, from the family, who did watch it, because it had been well-publicized. Incidentally, Howard K. Smith had been the man who presided over that first debate with Kennedy. He did it very fairly. And during my presidential years, I found him to be one of the most responsible reporters, particularly on Vietnam, that we could possibly find. I consider him objective, a good friend at this point. At that time, I think he thought it was news to put Alger Hiss on a program which was entitled "The Political Obituary of Richard Nixon." I learned later, too, however, that he had put Jerry Ford on to defend me, and, I understand, Jerry Ford did a very good idea [sic]. So I was pleased to hear that. So my reaction was, "Well, what's new? So now they've trotted Hiss out." And I thought that's just an indication of how low my fortunes were. But all hell broke loose as far as the networks were concerned. I guess A.B.C. got more wires on that than they've ever gotten before that time, objecting. Eisenhower was furious. He got some of his friends to become motivated on it. And Howard Smith wrote me a letter years afterwards and tried to make it clear that he hadn't done the program simply as a hatchet job. And I don't think he had intended that. He had done it because he thought it was newsworthy.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:50:52
[Frank Gannon]

Why did you move to New York after your defeat in the California gubernatorial race? Wasn't that burning your--not only burning, but sort of mining your bridges and blowing them up in terms of a political future?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:51:06
[Richard Nixon]

It was time to move--time to move because, had I stayed in California, I would still be this titular head of the Republican Party. Now, being titular head is about as useful as being the fifth tit on a cow. But, on the other hand, it is a responsibility that you have, and I didn't feel that I could do a very good job on that. The second thing I think was that I--I was tired of campaigning, really worn out from it. I'd been through it in '60. I'd been through it in '62. That year, for example--in '62--that I ran--'61 and '62--one of the hardest of all my life, because I wrote a book, Six Crises, I worked in my legal activities, I made speeches around the country, and, of course, did the campaign. So you just get bushed, and at that point I decided that it was time to leave California--get out of the political arena. I know that--I felt that coming to New York there'd be no problem being involved in the political arena, because that was Nelson Rockefeller's turf, and I know that--that he didn't play softball either. So that motivated me. I think another motivation was the family. It was very hard for our two girls out there. You see, in that primary campaign in California in 1962, the right wing was out after me--the John Birch Society, for example. I was heckled at stop after stop. I mean, heckling me as being soft on Communism!

Day 9, Tape 1
00:52:42
[Frank Gannon]

Why were they after--why were you considered--of all people, considered to be soft on Communism--

Day 9, Tape 1
00:52:46
[Richard Nixon]

Even--

[Frank Gannon]

--by the John Birch Society?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:52:47
[Richard Nixon]

Even after Caracas, after Khrushchev and the kitchen and so forth--because I had been part of the Eisenhower administration and so forth--because I had been part of the Eisenhower administration, and the John Birch Society had criticized Eisenhower as being soft on Communism, and Foster Dulles was a conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy, and I defended both. And so they raised the devil about that. And so, under the circumstances, I remember that it was pretty tough in that campaign, because when--when you--when you look at how it happened, I started out with a lead of about ten points over Pat Brown, and Pat Brown was a--was a genial--I thought rather ineffective but not too controversial governor. So that helped him on that side, because there are more Democrats in California. He was not considered to be on the left. If he'd been on the left, he would have lost for sure. But, in addition to that, in this primary we had the problem that we were split, and Shell, from the right, got a third of the vote in the primary. And in this case, many of them did not come back. They thought I was too left-wing, which I think is perhaps a pretty good indication of where I stood as well.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:54:04
[Frank Gannon]

Did you ever--

[Richard Nixon]

And let me say that, as far as the Birchers were concerned--many of them and their children--children can be very cruel--had been--made it pretty rough on Tricia and Julie at the private school they were attending. And so when I announced that I felt, after talking to Pat, that I thought we should move, they jumped up and down. Tricia went in, I remember, and got all of her homework out of the drawers and threw it away in the wastebasket. She thought we were going that very day. Of course, we didn't. We went toward the end of the year.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:54:37
[Frank Gannon]

Did you ever support the John Birch Society and/or do you--do you feel that it did any good or does any good today?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:54:46
[Richard Nixon]

Well, far from supporting it, I would say that I was perhaps its most effective opponent. I did so certainly with a great deal of concern, because some of my friends were in it--Edgar Hiestand, a former congressman from California, Johnny Rousselot--two of my strongest supporters. They joined the John Birch Society, but I could not do anything but take on a society that had called Eisenhower soft on Communism and John Foster Dulles a conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy. That was the nuts. I mean, you could just hear them crackling there in the head. They were scary. Matter of fact, I remember one time a lot of the far right had infiltrated the Young Republicans. The Young Republicans are supposed--the young are supposed to be liberal. But not in the Republican Party--they're very, very conservative. And I was speaking to them in San--in Sacramento at their convention, and they began to heckle me about something I was saying on foreign policy and so forth. I brought them up a little short, though. I said, "Just remember--I've been heckled by experts." That quieted them down fast. It reminded them of the fact that at one time they had supported me in the kitchen, in Caracas, and so forth. But be that as it may, as far as the John Birch Society is concerned, I would have to say that in their hearts, their motivations, nobody can quarrel with them. I mean, there is a Communist conspiracy. Our policies have not been effective. I think, however, they've done more harm than they've done good, because they overstated, like McCarthy who overstated his case. He had a very good case about the State Department having people who belong to Communist front [sic], but when he went so far as to say they're--there were sixty-one card-carrying Communists, he overstated it, and as a result that cleared the rest of them as well. And so it is with the John Birch Society. They give sort of a kooky feeling to the responsible conservatives--responsible hawks--and that doesn't help us at all.

Day 9, Tape 1
00:57:08
[Frank Gannon]

After you--after your move to New York, you began a fairly extensive series of foreign trips that--that went on from then up until your campaign--you began your campaign for president. You saw--as you traveled abroad, you saw business leaders, political leaders, everybody from President Nasser to Paul Getty. Was this part of a--a conscious plan to keep your political options open, or indeed to build political bases?

Day 9, Tape 1
00:57:38
[Richard Nixon]

No. That foreign travel was due to two things. It was due, first, to the fact that the law firm I was with, a very fine firm, had some international clients. And so it fitted in with my legal responsibilities. The second was that I was very interested in foreign policy, and I welcomed the opportunity to travel abroad. And I think there was a third factor as well. I received a lot of invitations to come abroad from government leaders that I had known over the years as vice president. And so I welcomed that chance. For example, I went to Europe several times during that period. I was in Asia six times. There were six trips to Tokyo. There were five to Vietnam. The purpose of it was not to travel, until the 1967 trip, for the purpose of simply becoming a candidate again. But, on the other hand--

Day 9, Tape 1
00:58:38
[Action note: Screen goes black.]

Day 9, Tape 1
01:02:00
[Action note: Time coding ends.]

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

[Richard Nixon]

--all of that foreign travel helped me enormously, not so much in getting publicity, and I got some, but more in terms of learning what the world was all about, how the world works. So that by the time I ran for president again, in 1968, I was far more experienced, had a better understanding of the world, all the world, than I had in 1960. So I was better qualified in '68 to be president than I was in 1960.

[Frank Gannon]

What did you learn about the world from J. Paul Getty?

[Richard Nixon]

Well, J. Paul Getty is a fascinating man. I mean, he's the richest man in the world, and so obviously I was--

Day Nine, Tape two of four, LINE FEED #2, 9-7-83, ETI Reel #63
September 7, 1983

Day 9, Tape 2
00:00:00
[Richard Nixon]

--happy to see him. He had been a contributor--not a heavy contributor--to our campaign in 1960, and so I wanted to express my appreciation, and when he invited us to come to his famous place in London, outside on the outskirts of London, this huge mansion and so forth. Mrs. Nixon and Tricia and Julie and I welcomed the opportunity. And I remember he was very gracious. He had a very, very deep voice. He used to sit and say very, very little. He was kind and well-mannered and the rest, but when he went in to lunch one thing impressed me enormously. It was a magnificent room. We were served on gold plates, gold silverware--ware--it wasn't just gold-covered--gold--solid gold silverware and gold goblets. A gourmet French chef prepared beautiful delicacies. There were vintage wines. So I looked up at the head of the table, and here sat J. Paul Getty, the richest man in the world. You know what he had? Graham crackers and milk. And so I realized that there are other thing [sic] than being rich. We were fortunate to have our health, despite those defeats.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:01:20
[Frank Gannon]

I think we’ve come to the end of an hour. We'll take a short break. Have some graham crackers and milk.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:01:26
[Richard Nixon]

Yeah.

[Offscreen voice]

We'll take a ten-minute break here. And everybody back [inaudible].

Day 9, Tape 2
00:01:31
[Action note: Picture fades to black.]

Day 9, Tape 2
00:01:33
[Action note: Color bars appear on screen.]

Day 9, Tape 2
00:01:36
[Action note: Picture appears on screen; tone sounds.]

Day 9, Tape 2
00:01:38
[Action note: Color bars appear on screen.]

Day 9, Tape 2
00:02:19
[Action note: Picture appears on screen.]

[Richard Nixon]

--in the end that's the way it happened.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:02:20
[Frank Gannon]

Hm.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:02:21
[Richard Nixon]

The campaign didn't change that much.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:02:22
[Frank Gannon]

Didn't change that much, yeah. Or--

Day 9, Tape 2
00:02:24
[Richard Nixon]

But on the other hand, who is to say, for example, what could happen when you stop [inaudible], stop looking for the--

Day 9, Tape 2
00:02:31
[Action note: Picture fades to black.]

[Richard Nixon]

--Catholic vote, you stop looking for the recession--

Day 9, Tape 2
00:02:37
[Frank Gannon]

Just a cyclical--

Day 9, Tape 2
00:02:43
[Richard Nixon]

[Inaudible.]

Day 9, Tape 2
00:02:44
[Offscreen voice]

Five.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:02:52
[Frank Gannon]

Did President Kennedy's death make you reassess your own political situation in terms of running in 1964?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:02:58
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, yes, it did. And in part it did because many of my friends talked to me thereafter and said, "Well, now, it's very important for you to consider running again." I considered it, but only briefly, because when I analyzed the situation I could see that Barry Goldwater was way out in front. He had done a superb job, and his supporters had done a superb job, of mobilizing the party faithful across the country. It seemed to me that it was his turn and that he was going to get it.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:03:31
[Frank Gannon]

Who else was in the field then?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:03:33
[Richard Nixon]

Well, of course, Governor Rockefeller. Nelson Rockefeller was still in the fields [sic], and the possibility--remote possibility--that George Romney might get in, and, of course, Bill Scranton made an abortive push right at the last. But any realist would know there was no way anybody was going to get that nomination from Barry Goldwater. I knew it. What I felt was important, and President Eisenhower felt the same thing--that he not get it without having some kind of a contest. We felt he sh--we should have interest in the campaign, and also enough of a contest that some of Barry's rougher edges might be tempered a bit before he got into the final campaign. We didn't do a very good job at accomplishing that, however. He rolled over the opposition so easily at San Francisco that he just got more the way he was. Let Goldwater be Goldwater.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:04:28
[Frank Gannon]

You wrote in your memoirs that you were almost physically sick as you sat on the platform, having introduced him to the convention in San Francisco in 1964, and listened to his acceptance speech. Why was that, and--and why did you then campaign up and down the country for him right through November?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:04:47
[Richard Nixon]

Well, you have to know the background. I introduced him. That was the role I had at the convention. It was only a twenty-minute speech, and I would rate it probably the best political speech I ever made. Every line had been written out, carefully crafted. I remember the peroration very well. I said to the audience out there, because I knew that Goldwater had gotten a very, very bad press--I said, "You've heard about this man. You've heard that he's an extremist," et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. "Listen to him. Judge for yourselves." And then I said, "Now I present to you the man who, by his work in the vineyards over the years has earned the title of Mr. Conservative, who, by the action of this convention, is now Mr. Republican, and who, with your support, will become Mr. President--Barry Goldwater." The place came apart. Goldwater came in and got a huge, huge ovation. And we sat down and waited to hear this man that I had urged the w--the nation, as well as the delegates, to listen to. He started by reading out of the party those that didn't support him, after I in my speech had tried to bring Romney people and Scranton people and Rockefeller people in behind our new candidate. He said, "Those that were not for us, we don't want you." And then he made a very famous statement. He said, "Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue." Now, you take those two sentences and read them. They're okay, but not from Barry Goldwater, because they were nailing him with the idea of being an extremist, of being a little kooky on foreign policy, and domestic policy as well. Now, he wasn't a kook, but, on the other hand, every time he opened his mouth he proved their point. And so I sat there and listened to that, and I knew it was down the tube. I th--thought there was very little chance before that, but he had split the party. He was appealing to his own constituency only, and he had given Johnson and the Democrats the opportunity to tag him with the extremist label.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:07:11
[Frank Gannon]

Didn't you know what he was going to say?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:07:12
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, my, no. I didn't see the speech.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:07:15
[Richard Nixon]

Weren't you part of the--didn't they show it around to leaders of the party and--

Day 9, Tape 2
00:07:18
[Richard Nixon]

Didn't show it to me. If it--if they had, it would never have been in that speech.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:07:25
[Frank Gannon]

In the wake of the Goldwater debacle, did you--how did you assess your political chances in terms of coming back and running in 1968?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:07:38
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I should first point out why I campaigned for Goldwater after that. President Eisenhower, with whom I was in very close contact, and I met with Goldwater and other Republicans at Hershey, Pennsylvania. We were attempting to get him to moderate some of his positions--not to become a mushy moderate, which is the worst thing. Far better to be a liberal or a conservative than to be a mushy moderate--stand for nothing. We didn't want him to do that, but we wanted him at least to be responsible. And so we had a long talk with him. Eisenhower particularly really read the act and said, "Barry, you've got to quit saying these cockeyed things," and words to that effect, and so forth, and Barry said, "Well, that's the way I am, but I'll try to." So we all went out and had a joint press conference, and Barry made it worse than ever. They asked some question about what he would do insofar as the use of nuclear weapons was concerned in Europe. He said, "Well, I think we ought to give the responsibility and the power to launch those weapons to our commanders in the field." Well, Eisenhower just practically cringed, because he knew that was, first, politically inadvisable, and also militarily the wrong decision. You can't leave that decision, one that would bring nuclear war, in the hands of a field commander in Europe, no matter how good he is. Afterwards, I rode from Hershey back to Gettysburg with Eisenhower in the car. He gritted his teeth. That's-that's what he usually did when--he just gritted his teeth, and his forehead would get all flushed up. He said, "You know, before Barry met with us today, I thought he was just stubborn. Now I think he's just plain damned dumb!" And--which, again, was only his immediate reaction. Goldwater wasn't dumb. It's just the way he is. He's irrepressible. He says anything that comes to the top of his head, and, consequently, it was not easy. Now, as a matter of fact, in campaigning for him I did it for a number of reasons. One, I knew the party was in trouble. I knew we were going to lose, but defeat is not fatal unless you don’t fight. It was very important to fight. Rockefeller wouldn't help. Scranton couldn't do very much. Most of the other moderates "stood it out"--so-called. I was the only one around that could help, and the candidates around the country--people in the Senate and the House--were begging me to come in. I'll never forget, though--it was pretty tough to come in. I'd go into campaign in this state or the other, and the candidate in advance would get the word to me. They'd say, "Please, please, when you endorse Goldwater, could you put it in another part of the speech? Don't put him with me." So, the way I did it--I worked it out that at the very beginning I would endorse all the local candidates and the candidate for the House and the Senate. And then in the peroration I'd go all-out for Goldwater. That seemed to cut it all right. In any event, I drew huge crowds in that campaign--actually made more speeches for Goldwater than he made for himself. But I have no regrets about it. It was the right thing to do. The party was still alive, although weakened as a result of the campaign. And from a personal standpoint--and I didn't do it for that reason--but from a personal standpoint, it proved to be indispensable to my winning in 1968, because that hard core of Goldwater people, with Rockefeller deserting them and others not supporting them--they felt a debt to me. So when we came to '68, I had the support, not only of Goldwater personally, but of those workers out there, because they felt I had stood by them when others had not. In other words, the old saw "This is the time for good men to come to their [sic] aid of their parties"--that was the time to do it, when the party is down. Easy to support the party when it's on the way up or going to win.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:11:31
[Frank Gannon]

You say that that 1964 convention speech was, y--as you look back on it, your best political speech. Do you have a memory of one that you consider to be your worst, or least best, political speech?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:11:45
[Richard Nixon]

No, I--there would be too many candidates there for me to select them out. I have never made a speech that I considered to be basically perfect. I've never felt one--I've never made a speech that I felt could not have been improved upon. I felt, for example, that my 1960 acceptance speech was better than my 1968 or '72 acceptance speeches, although each was quite effective. But, on the other hand, in 1960, if I had it to do over again, I would have perhaps cut three or four minutes out of it--out of the early part, so that I could have greater impact at the end. But who knows?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:12:21
[Frank Gannon]

Do you have--or maybe it's a busman's holiday for you to go to speeches like this--but do you remember a--a speech that you heard that--that you considered to be the best, that you found moving or inspiring or persuasive?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:12:33
[Richard Nixon]

Well, there's no question about the first candidate there. That's MacArthur. MacArthur's famous speech--"no"--"old soldiers never die"--when he came back from Korea was the most moving speech I've ever heard. He was a master.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:12:52
[Frank Gannon]

In the wake of the debacle, the Goldwater debacle in 1964, did you reassess your own position in terms of running in 1968 for president?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:13:05
[Richard Nixon]

Yes, I did. I first, incidentally, read Nelson Rockefeller out of the party. It wasn't personal, but what really got me down--after Goldwater lost, Rockefeller proceeded to kick him, and he tried to read Goldwater out of the party. And so--

Day 9, Tape 2
00:13:23
[Frank Gannon]

How did he do that?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:13:24
[Richard Nixon]

Well, he just had a press conference, and he said that this election had been a rejection of Barry Goldwater and everything he stood for and so forth and so on. Well, now, you don't do that--particularly not then. Let the election speak for itself. So I had a little press conference, and I said that Rockefeller had not supported the candidate. He was therefore the last one that should speak out now, the last one the party would turn to, and I said the party was not going to turn for new leadership to those that had not supported the candidate in 1964. I also used a rather colorful phrase. I said, "He's had his pound of flesh. Let him subside." And so that handled that problem. Then in 1965--I guess it was my birthday, 1965--I began to reassess my situation. I have a sort of an old--a quaint old custom on birthdays. I used t--always sit down and make a list of things that I might like to do in the next year. And so I listed various things I would hope to do in the year 1965. And as I did so, the thought occurred to me then that everything that I should do or would do between 1965 and 1968 had to be done in the context of the possibility of running again. I didn't decide to run then, but I opened my mind for the first time to the possibility thereof, because after 1962, for example, the defeat for governor of California--the idea never occurred to me to run again. I thought I was dead, and I still thought I was dead after 1964. But after the Goldwater defeat, after Rockefeller had sat it out, I realized there was the possibility that I might be the one that could bring the party together and possibly win. But I didn't cross that bridge then. I just felt, however, that everything that I would do then had to be--had to fit into that particular pattern.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:13:34
[Frank Gannon]

What was--what was Rockefeller like? One--one gets the sense that he didn't sit around just crumbling up graham crackers into milk, with all his money and power and ambition.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:15:48
[Richard Nixon]

Rockefeller was a--a--a very attractive individual, attractive in the sense that he not only was rich, but he--very gregarious. He'd usually come up--"Hiya, fella!" That's the Rockefeller trademark and so forth. It turned some people off. It didn't turn me off. But he--he--you could have a good talk with him. He could be very candid at times, and at other times he could be perhaps a bit on the devious side. He was a good politician, no question about that. I remember very well how blunt he could be. He lived, of course, in the same building that we did. And in 1967, after the 1966 elections, I remember that he talked to me about the possibility of his running in 1968. He made a very interesting point. He was very direct. He said, "Look." He said, "In 1968, it's got to be certainly somebody other than Goldwater." He said, "You know, Goldwater isn't too smart. He only went to college for two years." I was almost tempted to s--ask him, "How many years did Lincoln go to college?" It was a little bit arrogant and so forth on his part, but he--

Day 9, Tape 2
00:17:07
[Frank Gannon]

Was he a snob?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:17:08
[Richard Nixon]

Subconsciously, yes. He'd--not consciously, but when you're that rich and have had everything on a silver platter all your life, it's very difficult not to show just a little bit of that arrogance. It's the subconscious, or even, I should say, unconscious arrogance of unlimited wealth. And he said, "Well, Scranton is waiting for a draft, and there's no draft around with his name on it." He says, "Only you or I can do it." And he said, "You aren't going to run, or shouldn't run, because you're too smart to do that right at the present time." I said, "I will run, and then if I can't make it, I'll support you." Well, we didn't make any deal.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:17:50
[Frank Gannon]

You--you say that Rockefeller was a good politician and therefore partly devious. You are a past master politician. How devious are you?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:18:01
[Richard Nixon]

Well, when necessary, one has to be devious. President Eisenhower, I think, is the best example of that. He--he was devious himself. He used others to do things that he did not want to do himself, and he respected that quality in others as well.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:18:19
[Frank Gannon]

What is your definition of "devious"?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:18:21
[Richard Nixon]

It means not doing directly something that may lose you support when you can find some other way to do it indirectly that will accomplish the end.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:18:36
[Frank Gannon]

As you looked at the political landscape from '64 to '68, what use did you consider making, or what use did you see to be made, of the 1966 congressional elections?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:18:52
[Richard Nixon]

Well, the 1966 congressional elections were vitally important to 1968 for a fundamental reason. In 1960 when I ran, I knew that one of the reasons that I lost was that the Republican Party was so weak. After the 1958 elections, we only had fourteen Republican governors out of the fifty. We only had thirty-four Republican senators. We had only a hundred and fifty-five members of the House. I had to run five percent ahead of the ticket in 1960 if I were to win. I did run five percent ahead, but I still lost by that minimal amount. So I realized that in 1968 we had to close that gap some, because after 1964 the party was down to the same level it was in 1958. So we had to increase the number of governors. We had to increase the number of senators, increase the number of congressmen. It wouldn't be equal to what the Democrats had, but the Republican candidate for president wouldn't have to run five percent ahead--maybe two to three percent ahead. And that's exactly what we accomplished in that 1966 campaign. In that campaign, I was pretty perceptive. I must say I didn’t have any polls to base this on. I just sensed this as I campaigned around the country. But a month before the election, I made the flat prediction that we were going to have a great victory. Somebody said, "Well, could you give us the numbers?" I said, "Sure." I said, "We're going to win forty new members of the House. We're going to elect three new members to the Senate. We're going to elect six new governors and seven hundred state legislators." Everybody thought I was crazy--that it wasn't possible. Well, as a matter of fact, after the election was held, and we got the returns that night, it was even a little better than I had expected. We had actually won a hundred--we'd actually won forty-seven new House seats, three senators, eight governors, and a great number in the state legislatures. So that gave the party the new life. It created a new plateau, a higher plattoo--plateau for the president campaign--candidate to pole-vault from in order to win in 1968.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:21:10
[Frank Gannon]

Towards the end of that campaign, President Johnson in a press conference dropped what turned out to be a--a bombshell, and it turned out that he dropped it directly on you. We have a film of that.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:21:26
[Action note: They watch film of Lyndon Johnson.]

Day 9, Tape 2
00:22:11
[Frank Gannon]

How did it feel like to be called a "chronic campaigner"?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:22:14
[Richard Nixon]

Well, first, I must say that President Eisenhower called me after that, and he said, "You've got to answer this." He says, "Every time anybody raises that goddamned 'Give me a week' thing, it just raises my blood pressure." He was really t--pretty teed off by it. As far as being called a chronic campaigner by Johnson--he could have called me a lot worse. He knows a lot worse words than that.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:22:37
[Frank Gannon]

What did you do to capitalize on the positive results, t--to get a--get a--a running start on this pole vault that you described, as a result of the results of the 1966 elections?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:22:50
[Richard Nixon]

Well, w--we should first understand why Johnson said this. He doesn't use such rhetoric unless something had been effective. And what had happened there is that he came back from Manila, and there was a communiqué about the Vietnam War, which, in a public statement, I just tore to shreds. Bill Safire was very helpful in preparing that statement, incidentally. It was reprinted in full in the New York Times and across the country. And that just sent him right up the cotton-pickin' wall. That's why he responded as he did. But after that, I got national television time and made what I consider to be one of my top two or three best television addresses--again, totally without notes--in which I said, in effect, to President Johnson--I said, "If you're listening"--I said, "I want you to know that I know how tired a man can be when he's done all this work in the office. And I know--I--I realize that you're one of the hardest-working men that has ever served as president. And when that happens--that maybe you say things that you might not really--should n--you shouldn't say, you wouldn't have said if you weren't tired," and so forth. Well, of course, I figured that'd drive him up the wall a little bit more. I understand that it did.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:24:11
[Frank Gannon]

How did--

[Richard Nixon]

But the broadcast was very effective and may have helped get the margin up to what we had hoped--the great gains and the victory of 1966.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:24:23
[Frank Gannon]

How did you use the combination of the publicity from this broadcast and the results of the '66 elections to--to sort of give you a--a r--a running start for that pole vault towards '68?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:24:36
[Richard Nixon]

Well, I--I did something very unique and very unexpected. Everybody after the '66 elections assumed that now the race for the roses begins, or the brass ring, or whatever you want to call it. I remember that the news magazines had on their covers the winners of 1966, and there, of course, were Romney and Scranton, et cetera, et cetera--others who had won--the new faces, particularly. And then I remember one commentator in particular--and I think other columnists may have made the same point--said that the big loser in 1966, ironically, was Richard Nixon. "He, after having labored for the candidates across the country, probably more responsible than anybody else for the great victory, has, in effect, weakened his own chances because there are so many new faces on the scene." So I read that. I didn--incidentally, I didn't consider that to be unfair reporting, because I think it was quite accurate that that was the case, because Romney--unless he'd have won as he did in 1966, he would not have been a national figure. And so, under the circumstances, I had to determine what was I going to do. Now, my friends all urged me, when we all sat down for--at El Morocco that night in 1966, after midnight celebrating the great victory--we had spaghetti, incidentally, and red wine, and--

Day 9, Tape 2
00:26:05
[Frank Gannon]

Why do you remember that?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:26:07
[Richard Nixon]

Because I didn't go to El Morocco very often. I think that was the only time I went there while I was living in New York.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:26:12
[Frank Gannon]

Why did you have spaghetti at El Morocco?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:26:14
[Richard Nixon]

Because late at night it didn't seem to me that anything more exotic would go down. And I like spaghetti.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:26:21
[Frank Gannon]

Two good reasons.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:26:22
[Richard Nixon]

That's right. And I thought--and I think it goes well with red wine. In any event, my friends then--"Now you've got to get in. You've got to announce for president. and so forth, and get the ribbon clerks out." I said, "No, I'm going to think about it." And the way that I made the decision is very interesting--a decision that shocked all of my supporters, and also my opponents as well. I had to go on Meet the Press or Face the Nation, one of those talk shows, and, I--as usual, I was preparing the q's and a's that I thought might come up during the program. And I knew the inevitable question is, "Well, now, Mr. Nixon, what are you going to do? Are you going to run for president?" or what-have-you. And I tried to think--"How in the world can I answer it?" And then the thought struck me--this is one of the advantages of preparing things yourself, because it forces you to think a problem through, and the best strategy comes from getting the mind engaged in dealing with a problem. And the thought came--came to me, "I'm going to answer that question, 'I'm not going to do anything. I'm going to take a holiday from politics--a holiday for six months.' Well, I announced it on the program, to the consternation of everybody, because I didn't inform anybody in advance. Some of my friends thought, "All is lost. The guy's out of his mind," and so forth. But I knew exactly what I was doing. I did it for several reasons. One, Tom Dewey, years before, had given me very good advice. He said, "There are times when a person in public life should get out of the public view. People get tired of hearing their politicians over and over again." Now, I know this--this isn't something that will be accepted by the pipsqueaks that advise most of our political leaders today. They think unless their man's on the evening news and the morning news and the radio or what-have-you twenty-four hours a day--that he isn't dominating the dialogue. They don't realize that people sometimes would prefer not to have the man on, to go away and then come back in--back and forth. To engage in the great rhythm of politics is very, very important to know. So, first, I knew that it was well for me to get offstage for a while. Second, I was tired of campaigning, of making speeches and so forth. Third, I thought people might be tired of me because I'd been out there so long. And then another reason was I wanted the opportunity to think things through. By that I meant that if I had the chance to travel abroad--and I announced at that time--shortly thereafter--that I was going to make trips around the world, to the four big areas of the world--a trip to Asia, a trip to Latin America, a trip to Africa, a trip to Western Europe. I found that after six months of traveling, I would refurbish my foreign policy image--call it what you like, but particularly what I knew about foreign policy. I knew that if I were going to run in 1968, I wanted to be the best prepared candidate in history in what I thought was going to be the major issue, the issue of foreign policy. So all of these reasons certainly motivated me in--in making that decision. And another reason was that I felt that it was probably, from a political standpoint, advisable to let the new men in town--to get out and show what they could do, to see whether they, after hitting in the minor leagues--they could play in the big leagues. And very few could, just as George Romney discovered. He was a fine governor and an excellent candidate at the Michigan level, but he turned out to be a flop at the national level. So these were the reasons that motivated me, and, as it turned out, it was one of the best decisions I ever made.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:30:13
[Frank Gannon]

Some analysts say that you--you did--you did it for precisely the reason of sort of forcing--flushing out the potential opposition before they were ready, in the same way that some analysts have applied the same analysis to what Senator Kennedy did recently by taking himself out of the race and thereby forcing everybody else in prematurely, at least by what they conventionally would have expected to be their timetable. Did you have--did you have that in mind then, and do you think Senator Kennedy may have had that in mind now?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:30:46
[Richard Nixon]

No. My primary reason was not that. My primary reason were [sic] the ones I mentioned first, the idea that I was tired of campaigning. I thought the people were tired of me. I thought I should get out of the public scene for a while. And, second, I wanted to travel abroad. I wanted to find out more and more about how the world worked, so that I would be thoroughly prepared in a foreign policy issue. I think all of these were the circumstances that motivated me. The other one was a secondary motivation, which turned out to be very effective. As far as Senator Kennedy is concerned, if he had asked for my advice as to what he should do, I would have told him to do exactly what he's done if he wants to be president--president--

Day 9, Tape 2
00:31:28
[Frank Gannon]

Are you saying that he doesn't ask for your advice?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:31:31
[Richard Nixon]

Not lately. But, in any event, in this particular instance, the best policy for him is to allow his potential opponents to get out there, cut each other up, and then to have the party come to him. He has been seeking it for some time, and under--and he has some liabilities. He's completely aware of that. But if the party has to come to him, that would have a much greater effect. That probably isn't going to happen, although it could happen, but only if it appears from polls that are taken about six months from now, or, I would say, just before the Democratic convention, that he and only he could beat Reagan. If the polls show that, watch out. He'll be the candidate.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:32:23
[Frank Gannon]

Was this a--a real holiday from politics in terms of everything that was being done to further or develop your candidacy?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:32:31
[Richard Nixon]

Oh, by no means. As a matter of fact, prior to taking off on my trips I got together with some of my closest friends and political associates, people like [Bob Hill] and John Lodge and others, in the Waldorf Hotel in New York. We had an all-day session. I said, "Look, I'm not going to play any games with my closest friends here. I think it's time to start an organization for the presidency in 1968. I want you to do everything you possibly can to develop the--the funds, to raise the funds, to develop the organization, to get the commitments that you can, so that when I do make a decision--that the game play will be there ready to go into force." And so, consequently, that's when it all began. The amazing thing, incidentally, in retrospect--I think the remarkable thing, in retrospect, that happened in that year, 1967 and 1968--that we were able to do it with so little. Rockefeller had unlimited money. He had hundreds of people--not just ten, not just twenty, but hundreds of people, paid people, on his staff--pollsters and speechwriters and political operators and local people and the rest. We had four. We had Rose Mary Woods and Pat Buchanan and Ray Price and Dwight Chapin, and Bob Ellsworth part-time. That was it in the year 1967. We had no money. Al Cole, of Reader's Digest, went out and raised money, enough to finance some of my foreign travels. I financed a lot of it from my writing and legal activities and so forth and so on. But with very little money and very small staff throughout that year, we were able to stay even with the Rockefeller forces and so forth. We did it through volunteers. Let me say this. It's very important for candidates to realize that a big staff is not always an asset. The bigger the staff, the less the candidate does his own thinking. The smaller the staff, the more dedicated, first, they will be. But even more important, the more the candidate is going to have to sit on his fanny and do the hard work to think the problem through. And that's what it forced me to do, so that by the time 1968 came around, I was ready. I was ready not simply because I could have a staff to give me this paper or this paper or that paper, or put something on the TelePrompTer for me to read. I was ready because I had it all up here in my head. And so "being poor"--quote, end quote--at that particular time politically turned out to be an asset, in my view.

Day 9, Tape 2
00:35:22
[Frank Gannon]

Wasn't it at this time that your mother died?

Day 9, Tape 2
00:35:27
[Richard Nixon]

She died in September of 1967. That was right after I finished the fourth of my trips. In fact, the trip was to Africa. The African trip was the last one. And I--I remember very vividly how I got the news. I was in the office, actually, doing--working on some legal work, and I had a call from Rose Mary Woods--buzzed me. She said, "Your brother Don's on the phone." And I said, "Well, tell him I'll call him back," and--"because I've got some people in the office with me right here." and she said, "No, you'd better take the call." She said, "Your mother just died." Well, it was not a surprise. She had had a stroke about a year or two before, but it's always a shock. And the worst part of it, of course, was telling Mrs. Nixon on the phone, and telling Tricia and Julie. So we got on the plane and we went out to the funeral. Funerals are always difficult, but, of course, in this case, it was perhaps the most difficult one I've ever attended, because I was so close to my mother, and my father as well. The funeral was held in the little church where I used to play the piano in Sunday school and where we used to go, I remember, with my mother and father twice on Sunday and even to prayer meeting sometimes on Wednesday. So there was a very closely-knit group of friends and family. The--however, the church was simply thronged with people, and there were scores outside, because my mother was one who had no enemies but had--tremendous number of friends. She--she was a very, as I have remarked on occasion, quite remarkable woman, as are most of our mothers. But she was very special. I know, for example, one thing that's rather amusing. My grandmother, her mother, lived two miles up the road from us on Whittier Boulevard--that's now Route 101 [he pronounces it "one-oh-one"]--and my grandmother and my mother were alike in one respect. In the Depression years, in 1934 and '35, '36, '37, the tramps would come along. And they'd have, I understood later, a piece of ribbon hanging on a tree bef--in front of those houses that were soft touches. My grandmother's house always had the ribbon, and no tramp ever stopped that didn't get a meal there. And no tramp ever stopped at my mother's place that didn't get a meal, as well. But that was only one--only part of it. I remembered particularly vivid memories of what