Nixonland. Part 3

Memories, from that convention, of the conservative-Republican rank and file that had so long been his champion breaking for an emotional, last-minute attempt to draft the wild-eyed, right-wing cowboy Barry Goldwater.

Memories of Eisenhower, asked if Richard Nixon, running as the candidate of experience, had come up with a single one of the administration's "major ideas," saying, "If you give me a week, I might think of one." (Eisenhower's problem coming up with one might have reflected that the projects Nixon focused on were top secret: working with the Dulles brothers to overturn regimes in Guatemala and Iran; advocating nuclear weapons to break the resistance at Dien Bien Phu.) Memories of his mother, asked if she she had noticed a "new Nixon," answering, "No, I never knew anyone to change so little." had noticed a "new Nixon," answering, "No, I never knew anyone to change so little."

Memories of Walter Cronkite, asking him on the CBS news, "There are some...who would say, 'I don't know what it is, but I just don't like the man; I can't put my finger on it; I just don't like him.' Would you have any idea what might inspire that kind of feeling on the part of anybody?"

Memories of Henry Luce, the imperious publisher of Life, Life, getting cold feet and pulling at the last minute an article by Billy Graham that was to urge the evangelist's millions of devoted acolytes not to vote for a man just because he was "more handsome and charming." getting cold feet and pulling at the last minute an article by Billy Graham that was to urge the evangelist's millions of devoted acolytes not to vote for a man just because he was "more handsome and charming."

And, above all, memories of that more handsome and charming man. Another perfect enemy.

John F. Kennedy's good fortune was not built of the kind of honest paternal toil whose signs were worn on a butcher's b.l.o.o.d.y shirt. Joseph Kennedy had been a financial speculator and a bootlegger (Richard Nixon's people didn't even drink). Richard Nixon had tried to win his future wife Pat's favor by driving her on her dates with other other men; Kennedy blithely stole a wife seventeen years younger than Pat from her fiance when he needed a family to display for his political career. Kennedy's 1946 congressional nomination required no supplication of social betters; Joseph Kennedy bought it, in installments, such as his $600,000 donation to the archdiocese of Boston ("Tip," Joe Kennedy told Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill, JFK's successor in the House, "Never expect any appreciation from my boys. These kids have had so much done for them by other people that they just a.s.sume it's coming to them"). To establish a voting address in the district, Jack moved into a hotel. (d.i.c.k once lived in a hotel-during his first three months in Congress, when he couldn't find a decent family-size apartment on his congressional salary.) Then the Kennedy boys carelessly missed the filing deadline and availed themselves of a little light breaking and entering to get the papers on the pile by the opening of business the next morning. After failing to bribe the front-runner out of the race, Joseph Kennedy called in a chit with William Randolph Hearst to keep the man's name out of the newspaper. Another candidate, a city councilman named Joseph Russo, lost ground when Joe Kennedy hired a custodian with the same name to file. Jack Kennedy's opponents pinned $20 bills to their lapels-"Kennedy b.u.t.tons." The joke was too cheap by more than half: the real amount of "walking around" money per Kennedy man was $50. men; Kennedy blithely stole a wife seventeen years younger than Pat from her fiance when he needed a family to display for his political career. Kennedy's 1946 congressional nomination required no supplication of social betters; Joseph Kennedy bought it, in installments, such as his $600,000 donation to the archdiocese of Boston ("Tip," Joe Kennedy told Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill, JFK's successor in the House, "Never expect any appreciation from my boys. These kids have had so much done for them by other people that they just a.s.sume it's coming to them"). To establish a voting address in the district, Jack moved into a hotel. (d.i.c.k once lived in a hotel-during his first three months in Congress, when he couldn't find a decent family-size apartment on his congressional salary.) Then the Kennedy boys carelessly missed the filing deadline and availed themselves of a little light breaking and entering to get the papers on the pile by the opening of business the next morning. After failing to bribe the front-runner out of the race, Joseph Kennedy called in a chit with William Randolph Hearst to keep the man's name out of the newspaper. Another candidate, a city councilman named Joseph Russo, lost ground when Joe Kennedy hired a custodian with the same name to file. Jack Kennedy's opponents pinned $20 bills to their lapels-"Kennedy b.u.t.tons." The joke was too cheap by more than half: the real amount of "walking around" money per Kennedy man was $50.

And they called d.i.c.k Nixon the dirty one.

They weren't unfriendly, these two young Turks of the Eightieth Congress; they weren't unlike each other. Both had lost an older brother (the charming one, the one originally destined for greatness). Both were ideologically flexible except when it came to hunting Reds; both had run as World War II veterans. When Kennedy acceded to the Senate in 1953, he drew an office across the hall from that body's const.i.tutional officer, and they grew friendly. Though soon the corridor between their suites was a snarl of reporters, TV cameras, and swooning young Capitol Hill secretaries desperate to catch a glimpse of the bachelor senator voted the most handsome man in Congress.

In 1960, coming off his triumph outdebating the Soviet premier in Moscow, fresh from settling an epic steel strike, Nixon was the presidential election's odds-on favorite. Still he dwelled often on these matters of physical charisma. It suited his self-pity. When Walter Cronkite asked his embarra.s.sing question about all the people who couldn't put their finger on why they disliked him, Nixon answered by granting the premise, concluding that it might be his appearance. "Oh, I get letters from women, for example, sometimes-and men-who support me," he said. "And they say, 'Why do you wear that heavy beard when you are on television?' Actually, I don't try, but I can shave within thirty seconds before I go on television and I still have a beard, unless we put some powder on, as we have done today."

A man wearing makeup. That surely was the wrong thing to say.

And everyone knows what happened next.

On Monday, September 26, the first presidential debate in the history of television was broadcast from the studios of WBBM-TV in Chicago. Kennedy was six points behind in the polls. At the studio, the challenger was the first one asked whether he would appreciate the services of a makeup artist. He refused. (He was bronzed from a recent stint campaigning in California, and his aides had already dabbed him with theatrical powder.) The champion, taking the bluff, refused in turn.

That was a problem.

In his convention acceptance speech four weeks earlier, Nixon had promised to "carry this campaign into every one of the fifty states between now and November eighth." It was a flourish designed to separate Nixon in voters' minds from enfeebled old Eisenhower. Nixon was knocking off states in the South at a handsome clip when he contracted a staph infection after banging his knee on a car door. His physicians counseled three weeks in the hospital. Newspaper editorialists urged the honorable course on his opponent: to cease campaigning for those three weeks. The Democrat sent a get-well message instead. (And they called d.i.c.k Nixon the dirty one.) Ill-advisedly, Nixon kept on knocking off states: Maryland and Indiana and Texas and California his first day out, Oregon and Idaho with a side trip up to Canada the second. The next day, between Grand Forks and Peoria, Richard Nixon caught a cold. Then as he crossed a tarmac in the rain, flew the red-eye to St. Louis, and struggled to connect with a hostile Democratic crowd of union machinists on three hours' sleep, the cold got worse. Then a scratchy-voiced peroration in New Jersey; then a hop to Roanoke for an open-air address that added another line to his crowded medical chart: a high fever, something to enjoy on the predawn flight back halfway across the continent to Omaha, Nebraska.

As the day of the debate approached, Nixon was swallowing drowsy-making antibiotics, but still losing sleep; fortifying himself against weight loss with several chocolate milk shakes a day, but still losing weight; losing color; adding choler. He looked pale, awful.

His staff offered practice sessions. Nixon barked that he already knew how to debate. He was underwhelmed by the event at any rate. "Television is not as effective as it was in 1952," he had told a journalist. "The novelty has worn off."

Kennedy prepared like a monk. The afternoon of the showdown, he capped off the last of three intensified practice sessions with a fortifying nap, piles of index cards covering him like a security blanket.

While Kennedy slept, Nixon campaigned in front of another hostile union crowd. His TV advisers became increasingly frenzied as the appointed hour approached; they were kept away from him, and weren't able to brief him on the debate format. Nixon took a single phone call of advice, from his vice-presidential candidate, Henry Cabot Lodge.

The hour arrived. For security, the candidates were driven directly inside the studio building. One wonders what distraction inspired Richard Nixon's awkward egress that ended with his smashing his bad knee once more on the car door's edge. His facial reaction was recorded for posterity: "white and pasty."

Kennedy emerged from his car looking in a producer's recollection like "a young Adonis." (That the young Adonis, but for a dangerous schedule of pharmaceuticals, was sick as an old man was for future generations to find out.) He kept his suit fresh by slipping into a robe. He walked out onto a terrace, sunlight dancing on his skin, paced back and forth, all coiled energy, punching his palm with his fist: the challenger.

In the other corner, the reigning heavyweight debating champion, weighing in at- (Eight pounds less than it took to fill the shirt he was wearing.) His people had begged Nixon to let them buy him a new one. He stubbornly refused. An aide had slathered a species of makeup over a portion of his face-a product called Lazy Shave, cadged at the last minute at a corner drugstore, to cover up his day's beard growth. The concession was no doubt ascribable to Herblock's infamous caricatures in the Washington Post. Washington Post. They'd rendered Nixon's "five-o'clock shadow" a national laughingstock. They'd rendered Nixon's "five-o'clock shadow" a national laughingstock.

In lieu of a boxing arena's bell, the sickeningly sweet strains of a jingle for Maybelline mascara. In lieu of a bout card, the smiling mug of Andy Griffith, star of the eponymous sitcom, a stalk of wheat between his lips, and the announcement that the program originally scheduled would not be seen that night.

(One wonders whether Richard Nixon's egghead enemies cringed in antic.i.p.atory dread at the irony. Andy Griffith had starred three years earlier in a film, A Face in the Crowd, A Face in the Crowd, partially inspired by the Checkers Speech, about a right-wing demagogue who harnessed the malign power of TV to cast a gullible nation under his spell with a show of slick and cynical sentimentality.) partially inspired by the Checkers Speech, about a right-wing demagogue who harnessed the malign power of TV to cast a gullible nation under his spell with a show of slick and cynical sentimentality.) Andy Griffith absented the screen. The panel of reporters introduced themselves. And Howard K. Smith of ABC intoned, "In this discussion, the first of a series of four joint appearances, the subject matter, it has been agreed, will be restricted to internal, or domestic, American matters." He called the Democrat to begin his opening statement; and the Democrat opened up, staring stalwartly into the camera, with a sucker punch.

And they called d.i.c.k Nixon the dirty one.

"We discuss tonight domestic issues. But I would not want that to be-any implication to be given that this does not involve directly our struggle with Mr. Khrushchev for survival." Kennedy was bending past the breaking point the spirit of the two campaigns' formal agreement to focus the first debate on domestic issues and talking about what Nixon was not yet primed to discuss: foreign policy. The distraction was brilliant. It left Nixon with two immediate choices-calling the foul and looking as if he were ducking, or letting Kennedy get away with controlling the debate.

One thing he didn't do was counterpunch. It came, one suspected, of that phone call from Henry Cabot Lodge, the Boston Brahmin, the sort of Establishment grandee Richard Nixon had alternately been flailing against and kowtowing to his entire adult life. What Lodge told Nixon on the phone was "Erase the a.s.sa.s.sin image." Following this advice cut across every instinct that had made Richard Nixon a successful politician since 1946. But now he was running for president. president. Leader of the free world. Campaigning to join, if there was ever any way he could truly join, the Leader of the free world. Campaigning to join, if there was ever any way he could truly join, the Establishment Establishment-confidant of those mufti-clad dignitaries he met abroad, peer to the likes of Amba.s.sador Averell Harriman. And does not every man who defines himself by his battle against the Franklins secretly wish to be be a Franklin? a Franklin?

He had been campaigning as a statesman, the voice of sage experience. He would recite the number of meetings he had taken with the president(173), the times he had sat with the National Security Council (217), the countries he had visited (54), the presidents and prime ministers with whom he had had "extended discussion" (44, plus an emperor and a shah)-adding always, "incidentally, I have talked with Khrushchev." Friends advised him to smear his opponent's unpopular religion, his mendacity about his health, his loose interpretation of his marriage vows. Nixon forswore. He decided to debate as a gentleman.

Or perhaps not decided. Perhaps the only thing that coursed through Richard Nixon's head was the dull ache of stuffed sinuses, pain from his agonized knee, a heaviness born of too many chocolate milk shakes. Perhaps he wanted to fight; perhaps he just wasn't able.

Kennedy floated into an a.s.sessment of America's progress in that struggle against Communism, in rocking cadence: "I am not satisfied, as an American, with the progress we are making....

"This is a great country, but I think it could be a greater country. And this is a powerful country, but it could be a more powerful country....

"I'm not satisfied to have fifty percent of our steel mill capacity unused.

"I'm not satisfied when, last year, the United States had the lowest rate of economic growth of any major industrialized society in the world.... any major industrialized society in the world....

"I'm not satisfied when we have over nine billion dollars' worth of food, some of it rotting, even though there is a hungry world"-Kennedy's intensity was mounting-"and even though four million Americans wait every month for a food package from the government which averages five cents a day five cents a day per individual. I saw cases in West Virginia-here in the United States-where children took home part of their school lunch to feed their families.... I don't think we're meeting our obligations towards these Americans. per individual. I saw cases in West Virginia-here in the United States-where children took home part of their school lunch to feed their families.... I don't think we're meeting our obligations towards these Americans.

"I'm not satisfied when the Soviet Union is turning out twice as many scientists and engineers as we are.

"I'm not satisfied when many of our teachers are inadequately paid, or when our children go to school part-time shifts. I think we should have an educational system second to none.

"I'm not satisfied when I see men like Jimmy Hoffa, in charge of the largest union in the United States, still free."

(Are you you satisfied, d.i.c.k?) satisfied, d.i.c.k?) "These are all the things in our country that can make our society strong, or it can stand still. I think we can do better....

"That is the obligation upon our generation. In 1933 Franklin Roosevelt said in his inaugural that this generation has a rendezvous with destiny. I think that our generation of Americans has the same rendezvous.

"The question now is, can freedom now be maintained under the most severe attack it has ever known? I think it can be. And I think that in the final a.n.a.lysis it depends on what we-do-here. we-do-here."

Kennedy stabbed the podium at the words.

"I think it's time America started moving again."

He strode confidently back to his seat.

There had been a time when Richard Nixon had known just how to handle this sort of gambit. When Adlai Stevenson had made similar points in 1954, Nixon came back with, "He has attacked with violent fury the economic system of the United States." He could have put Kennedy on the defensive: "How dare he impugn all the hardworking teachers across this great land?"-something like that.

Instead, Nixon granted the point.

"The things that Senator Kennedy has said, many of us can agree with," he began his opening statement. "There is no question but that this nation cannot stand still." Though the point he was granting was a criticism of the administration of which he was an officer. "I subscribe completely to the spirit spirit that Senator Kennedy has expressed tonight-the spirit that the United States that Senator Kennedy has expressed tonight-the spirit that the United States should should move ahead." His points were lugubrious, technical, as if he were reb.u.t.ting in a high school debate: "We heard tonight the statement made that our growth in product last year was the lowest in the industrial world; that happened to be a recession year." move ahead." His points were lugubrious, technical, as if he were reb.u.t.ting in a high school debate: "We heard tonight the statement made that our growth in product last year was the lowest in the industrial world; that happened to be a recession year."

Then a glistening bead of sweat popped forth to illuminate the powder-less little valley between his lower lip and chin.

"We are for programs which will see that our medical care for the aged is-are much better handled than at the present time"-the present time being that of his own administration.

At just that moment the camera cut to the face of John F. Kennedy, filling nearly every inch of the nation's tiny TV screens. It offered little to remark upon: it was without noticeable blemish. When the close-up was on Nixon, you could write a book: the discomfited fluttering of the eyelids (it made him look fey), the deeply etched lines of his jowls (one side was deeper than the other; the dimple in his tie was also off-center), the shadow of beard that bled through when he tilted his chin at the angle he used for emphasis on key points. There had been a time when Richard Nixon had known how to take advantage of his awkwardness-to make a face like Kennedy's stand in for every smooth, slick superior who had ever done an ordinary Joe wrong. That's what he had done with Alger Hiss. Not this time. This time, he kept on subscribing completely completely to the to the spirit spirit that Senator Kennedy had expressed. that Senator Kennedy had expressed.

"I could give better examples," Nixon said at one point, then didn't; instead he moved to self-pity: "I know what it means to be poor, I know what it means to see people who are unemployed."

Perhaps ABC News's Bob Fleming began the question-and-answer portion out of sympathy by presenting Kennedy with a restatement of Richard Nixon's key campaign theme more aggressively than Nixon had been willing to make it: "The vice president, in his campaign, has said at times that you are naive and immature." It proved alarmingly easy to dispatch. "The vice president and I came to the Congress together, in 1946," Kennedy responded, then quickly bent things back to his will. "I think the question is, er, what are the programs programs that we advocate? What is the party record that we lead? that we advocate? What is the party record that we lead?

"I come out of the Democratic Party, which in this century has produced Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman. And which supported and sustained these programs which I've described tonight. Mr. Nixon comes out of the Republican Party. He was nominated by it. And it is a fact that through most of these last twenty-five years, the Republican leadership has opposed federal aid for education, medical care for the aged, development of the Tennessee Valley, development of our natural resources."

The camera now presented a Richard Nixon whose chin framed a single bead of sweat, like a big white pearl. Whose eyes shifted nervously before fixing into an expression that could only be described as a glower, and whose microphone, for some reason, squeaked like a chalkboard as he mustered his smug reply: "I have no comment." Then he swallowed, and the microphone picked that up-a gulp heard round the world. "I felt so sorry for Nixon's mother tonight," Mrs. Rose Kennedy later remarked.

"I think Mr. Nixon is an effective leader of his party"-(let's see d.i.c.k try to back out of that one)-"I hope he would grant me the same. The question before us is which point of view, and which party, do we want to lead the United States."

On the one hand Kennedy was up to something elementary: by inviting Nixon to confirm or deny his allegiance to the political party that had made him, Kennedy took advantage of the fact, obscured by Eisenhower's ec.u.menical popularity, that registered Democrats outnumbered Republicans by a great margin. On the other, he was doing something more profound-more alchemical, almost, than political. Repeatedly all evening, Kennedy held up the charge that he was young young to the light-and rhetorically embraced it. Young, fresh, exciting, even risky: that, above all else, was the spirit that Senator Kennedy had expressed. Kennedy had just as effectively framed Nixon, about the same age he was, as the candidate of the old men-if not an old man himself-whenever Kennedy said something like (this on the Republicans' position on agriculture) "I do not therefore believe that this is a sharp enough breach with the past to give us any hope for the future." to the light-and rhetorically embraced it. Young, fresh, exciting, even risky: that, above all else, was the spirit that Senator Kennedy had expressed. Kennedy had just as effectively framed Nixon, about the same age he was, as the candidate of the old men-if not an old man himself-whenever Kennedy said something like (this on the Republicans' position on agriculture) "I do not therefore believe that this is a sharp enough breach with the past to give us any hope for the future."

The future. "I think we're ready to move," Kennedy said, in closing. "And it is to that great task, if we are successful, that we will address ourselves." Nixon closed sounding like a penny-pinching old shopkeeper: presidents must "not allow a dollar spent that could be better spent by the people themselves." Kennedy was spinning the emerging zeitgeist. Nixon was caught in its web. America entered the 1960s with an almost obsessive fixation on the notion of having entered a "I think we're ready to move," Kennedy said, in closing. "And it is to that great task, if we are successful, that we will address ourselves." Nixon closed sounding like a penny-pinching old shopkeeper: presidents must "not allow a dollar spent that could be better spent by the people themselves." Kennedy was spinning the emerging zeitgeist. Nixon was caught in its web. America entered the 1960s with an almost obsessive fixation on the notion of having entered a new new decade-even a new age. The January issue of decade-even a new age. The January issue of Esquire Esquire ran an essay by Arthur Schlesinger, "The New Mood in Politics," that began, "At periodic moments in our history, our country has paused on the threshold of a new epoch in our national life, unable for a moment to open the door, but aware that it must advance if it is to preserve its national vitality and ident.i.ty. One feels that we are approaching such a moment now." ran an essay by Arthur Schlesinger, "The New Mood in Politics," that began, "At periodic moments in our history, our country has paused on the threshold of a new epoch in our national life, unable for a moment to open the door, but aware that it must advance if it is to preserve its national vitality and ident.i.ty. One feels that we are approaching such a moment now." Life Life ran a series taking stock of America's "national purpose." ran a series taking stock of America's "national purpose." Look, Look, on January 5: "How America Feels as It Enters the Soaring Sixties." These magazines were read by upward of 20 million people each week. on January 5: "How America Feels as It Enters the Soaring Sixties." These magazines were read by upward of 20 million people each week.

And how did America feel as it entered the soaring sixties? It is not too much to say: like the inheritor of a new world. The 1950s had been "a listless interlude, quickly forgotten, in which the American people collected itself for the greater exertions and higher splendors in the future," Arthur Schlesinger wrote. John Steinbeck said that month he noticed in the air "a nervous restlessness, a thirst, a yearning for something unknown." It wasn't just a Democratic mood. That same January, the Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times introduced its newest political columnist: "The decade of the Sixties should be the most dynamic in the world's modern history.... That is why, beginning next Sunday, on our editorial pages, the introduced its newest political columnist: "The decade of the Sixties should be the most dynamic in the world's modern history.... That is why, beginning next Sunday, on our editorial pages, the Times Times will present a three-times-a-week column written especially for the will present a three-times-a-week column written especially for the Times Times by the leading conservative thinker in American public life, United States Senator Barry Goldwater." In the 1960s, even conservatives had to be "dynamic." by the leading conservative thinker in American public life, United States Senator Barry Goldwater." In the 1960s, even conservatives had to be "dynamic."

Nixon might subscribe to the "spirit of what Senator Kennedy said." But grant that, and he had given up everything. Kennedy made "leadership for the '60s" a slogan, made addressing his youth not just a defensive necessity but a virtue, preached future future like it was a new religion: "The world is changing. The old ways will not do.... If we stand still here at home, we stand still around the world.... I promise you no sure solutions, no easy life.... If you are tired and don't want to move, then stay with the Republicans." like it was a new religion: "The world is changing. The old ways will not do.... If we stand still here at home, we stand still around the world.... I promise you no sure solutions, no easy life.... If you are tired and don't want to move, then stay with the Republicans." EXPERIENCE COUNTS EXPERIENCE COUNTS-that's what Richard Nixon's campaign posters read, below a photograph of his face. It wouldn't count as much as it used to. Just as in 1958, Richard Nixon had chosen the wrong issue on which to campaign. Kennedy styled himself the very incarnation of youth: of action, of charisma, of pa.s.sion, risk-taking, stylishness and idealism and even heedlessness. Nixon, so recently the fair-haired boy of postwar politics-only four years older than Kennedy!-had let himself become the race's rumpled old man. At the ballot box it was almost a tie. On television, in retrospect, it looked as if John F. Kennedy had won in a landslide.

November 6, 1962, at the Beverly Hills Hilton, the first day of the rest of Richard Nixon's life. The first Tuesday after the first Monday in November every two years was always the first day of the rest of Richard Nixon's life. He spent this one morosely, in front of a television set, in a dressing gown and necktie. (Even in an elementary-school cla.s.s photograph, he is one of only two boys wearing a necktie. "I never remember him ever getting dirty," his first-grade teacher recalled.) H. R. "Bob" Haldeman, his campaign manager, was there, and John Ehrlichman, the logistics man; Congressman Pat Hillings, Nixon's successor in California's Twelfth District; and Murray Chotiner and a young publicist named Ron Ziegler. Pat Nixon was next door weeping. The returns were coming in. Nixon had just lost the California gubernatorial election.

Press aide Herb Klein entered. The press had just implored Klein to go upstairs and fetch his candidate for the traditional concession speech so they could file their stories and go home.

"They're all waiting," Klein said in a low grumble. "You've got to go down."

The press had recently become Nixon's enemy of first resort. Later generations would remember the media's relationship to Nixon as he had wanted people to remember it: as implacably hostile from the beginning. Not so. The Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times had supported him back when he was an unknown. His working relationship with Bert Andrews of the had supported him back when he was an unknown. His working relationship with Bert Andrews of the New York Herald Tribune New York Herald Tribune on the Hiss case helped make him a national figure. Even after the Checkers Speech, coverage of Nixon was quite balanced. Balance was the fourth estate's religion. They were even, sometimes, unbalanced in his favor. In 1960, for example, the two most powerful magazines in the country, Henry Luce's on the Hiss case helped make him a national figure. Even after the Checkers Speech, coverage of Nixon was quite balanced. Balance was the fourth estate's religion. They were even, sometimes, unbalanced in his favor. In 1960, for example, the two most powerful magazines in the country, Henry Luce's Time Time and and Life, Life, were practically Nixon megaphones. were practically Nixon megaphones.

But he was the sort to spy betrayal even in the midst of affection. Of all the explanations for the margin between defeat and victory in 1960, his favorite was Henry Luce's withdrawing the Billy Graham article. Meanwhile as Nixon entered the lists in California, a new kind of bestseller was sweeping the nation. Its author was no fan; the first time Theodore White boarded the Nixon campaign train, he sported a sizable KENNEDY FOR PRESIDENT KENNEDY FOR PRESIDENT b.u.t.ton. The most flattering emotion b.u.t.ton. The most flattering emotion The Making of the President 1960 The Making of the President 1960 could muster toward him was pity ("One could listen to such a speech as Mr. Nixon gave in Herald Square and quibble and pick at its phraseology, but one could not look at the man who sat on the dais and deny that he had given all that was in him to this effort at the presidency and, looking at him, one could only sorrow for the man and his wife.") Nixon had lost that election by a whisper. In the book by which most people would remember it, his loss felt inevitable. could muster toward him was pity ("One could listen to such a speech as Mr. Nixon gave in Herald Square and quibble and pick at its phraseology, but one could not look at the man who sat on the dais and deny that he had given all that was in him to this effort at the presidency and, looking at him, one could only sorrow for the man and his wife.") Nixon had lost that election by a whisper. In the book by which most people would remember it, his loss felt inevitable.

Teddy White's bestseller opened a new kind of wound. The book Richard Nixon published as 1962 approached, Six Crises, Six Crises, was an even-tempered, even introspective rehearsal of the public dramas he argued made him so fit to lead. (Write a book, Jack Kennedy once advised him, the intellectuals will love you. Nixon had written much more of was an even-tempered, even introspective rehearsal of the public dramas he argued made him so fit to lead. (Write a book, Jack Kennedy once advised him, the intellectuals will love you. Nixon had written much more of Six Crises Six Crises than Jack Kennedy ever had of than Jack Kennedy ever had of Profiles in Courage, Profiles in Courage, which Joe Kennedy had fixed to win a Pulitzer Prize.) The conclusion to Nixon's eighty-three-page account of the Hiss case, however, stuck out like a sore thumb: "For the next twelve years of my public service in Washington, I was to be subjected to an utterly unprincipled and vicious smear campaign. Bigamy, forgery, drunkenness, thievery, anti-Semitism, perjury, the whole gamut of misconduct in public office, ranging from unethical to downright criminal activities-all these were among the charges that were hurled against me, some publicly and others through whispering campaigns that were even more difficult to counteract." which Joe Kennedy had fixed to win a Pulitzer Prize.) The conclusion to Nixon's eighty-three-page account of the Hiss case, however, stuck out like a sore thumb: "For the next twelve years of my public service in Washington, I was to be subjected to an utterly unprincipled and vicious smear campaign. Bigamy, forgery, drunkenness, thievery, anti-Semitism, perjury, the whole gamut of misconduct in public office, ranging from unethical to downright criminal activities-all these were among the charges that were hurled against me, some publicly and others through whispering campaigns that were even more difficult to counteract."

Bigamy? Thievery? Forgery? It was a curious litany. He didn't marshal facts to support it because he couldn't. He had gotten across what had become, for him, the main truth: the world was out to get him, and the campaign was headquartered in the nation's newsrooms.

He held fast to it even though by the time he got around to accepting the entreaties to run for governor the press had once more crowned a New Nixon-"relaxed and quick with a wisecrack," went a typical a.s.sessment. The Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times gave him a syndicated column. In initial polls he led the inc.u.mbent Pat Brown by sixteen points. There was an aura of inevitability. People a.s.sumed if he weren't a shoo-in, he wouldn't be running. What profit a man to come 120,000 votes from the White House, yet forfeit a statehouse? gave him a syndicated column. In initial polls he led the inc.u.mbent Pat Brown by sixteen points. There was an aura of inevitability. People a.s.sumed if he weren't a shoo-in, he wouldn't be running. What profit a man to come 120,000 votes from the White House, yet forfeit a statehouse?

The first surprise came when he announced his intentions in September 1961. A state legislator, oilman, and former USC football star, Joe Sh.e.l.l, so boring that a friend said "not to know Joe is to love him," decided to keep running even though he had only 2 percent in the polls. His far-right ideology matched a mood among Republican activists. The Los Angeles County Young Republicans' president had declared that the "difference between a 'liberal' Republican and a 'liberal' Democrat is the difference between creeping socialism and galloping socialism." At a convention of the California Republican a.s.sembly, Nixon denounced the "nuts and kooks" of the John Birch Society. A miscalculation; the CRA had been taken over by those selfsame nuts and kooks. Their leader averred, "I don't consider the John Birch Society extremists. Except maybe extremely American." Sh.e.l.l himself a.s.serted that the "middle of the road is seventy-five percent socialism." Nixon's primary victory over Sh.e.l.l was humiliatingly close. (President Kennedy plunged in the knife at a press conference: "I think he emerged from a tough one.") Sh.e.l.l then demanded concessions in return for delivering his supporters-some of whom hadn't trusted Nixon since he disavowed McCarthy in 1954.

Nixon refused Sh.e.l.l.

Another miscalculation.

Brown accused Nixon of seeking the governorship "only as a stepping-stone for his presidential ambitions." Nixon replied, "Not only will I not seek the presidency in 1964, not only will I not accept a draft, I will see to it there is no draft." There is evidence he meant it. "If I ran for governor I felt I would have to pledge to spend the full term in Sacramento," he wrote in one of the convincing lines in his 1978 memoirs. "That would leave someone else to square off in 1964 against Kennedy, his money, his tactics." But n.o.body believed him. Brown fans sent out postcards: "Would you buy a used car from this man?" Sh.e.l.l supporters heckled him. The previous Republican governor endorsed Brown. Nixon lost the statehouse. And Nixon blamed the press. He was especially livid at the Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, which, under new management, was reporting on him objectively for the first time in his political life. which, under new management, was reporting on him objectively for the first time in his political life.

Now there they were, waiting to humiliate him, in the pressroom of the Beverly Hills Hilton.

On his TV Nixon heard Klein say, "The boss won't be down.... He plans to go home and be with his family." The microphones picked up guffawing from the press.

An aide beseeched Nixon, saying that the press thought he was a chicken: "Don't let them bluff you. Go down and tell them what you think."

Another: "It looks like you're ducking."

Jules Witcover of the New house papers described what happened next: "Nixon, suddenly bristling, turned and stormed down the corridor, about half a dozen supporters trailing him, onto a waiting elevator.... On the ground floor, Nixon stepped out and started through the lobby." Someone heard him say this loss was like being bitten by a mosquito after being bitten by a rattlesnake.

He didn't even wait for Klein to finish a sentence. Shoving him aside, Nixon grumbled into the microphone, "Now that all the members of the press are so delighted that I have lost, I'd like to make a statement of my own."

His deep-set eyes looked small, racc.o.o.ned. His hands were scrunched deep into his pockets. Expectoration was observed as the words left his lips. This most disciplined of public servants broke composure, and the effect was akin to watching a train wreck.

"And as I leave the press, all I can say is this: for sixteen years, ever since the Hiss case, you've have a lot of fun-a lot of fun-that you've had an opportunity to attack me, and I think I've given as good as I've taken.... I leave you gentlemen now"-he smirked-"and you will write it. You will interpret it. That's your right. But as I leave you I want you to know-just think of how much you're going to be missing. You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference."

Then, honest to G.o.d, he said this: "And I hope what I have said today will at least make television, radio, the press, recognize recognize that they have a right and responsibility if they're against a candidate to give him the shaft. But also recognize that if they give him the shaft"-another smirk-"to put one reporter on the campaign who will report what the candidate says now and then. Thank you, gentlemen, and good day!" that they have a right and responsibility if they're against a candidate to give him the shaft. But also recognize that if they give him the shaft"-another smirk-"to put one reporter on the campaign who will report what the candidate says now and then. Thank you, gentlemen, and good day!"

No one used words like this on TV. Nixon locked eyes with his anguished press secretary. "I gave it to them right in the behind. It had to be said, G.o.ddammit. It had to be said." Time Time quoted that, p.r.o.nouncing its verdict: "Barring a miracle, his political career ended last week." quoted that, p.r.o.nouncing its verdict: "Barring a miracle, his political career ended last week."

Nixon retreated into his dark imaginings: that in salons across the Eastern seaboard, champagne bottles were gushing forth. ABC broadcast a half-hour special, The Political Obituary of Richard Nixon, The Political Obituary of Richard Nixon, emceed by correspondent Howard K. Smith. One of the commentators was an old friend late of Lewisburg Penitentiary: the convicted perjurer Alger Hiss-doing better in polite society than Richard Nixon. emceed by correspondent Howard K. Smith. One of the commentators was an old friend late of Lewisburg Penitentiary: the convicted perjurer Alger Hiss-doing better in polite society than Richard Nixon.

But Richard Nixon's 1978 memoirs had another convincing line. They recorded his thoughts the day of John F. Kennedy's inauguration in 1961. Nixon stood out in the cold on a Capitol balcony, turned to look in on the great hall of state one more time, then "suddenly stopped short, struck by the thought that this was not the end-that someday I would be back here. I walked as fast as I could back to the car."

He had learned something from enduring The Political Obituary of Richard Nixon The Political Obituary of Richard Nixon: ABC had been deluged with eighty thousand letters of complaint. It was a lesson he would never forget: Orthogonians resented the news media as just another species of Franklin.

The front-runner for the Republican nomination was Barry Goldwater. Kennedy was favored to swamp him. Then Kennedy introduced the most sweeping civil rights bill since Reconstruction, and the situation shifted. Columnist Stewart Alsop predicted "a political goldmine" for the candidate who dared to exploit the anti-civil-rights backlash in the blue-collar precincts of the North. That was exactly what Barry Goldwater appeared to be doing. Look Look ran the banner headline "JFK Could Lose." And in a poll of Republican leaders, only 3 percent said Nixon would make a good candidate. He was too liberal. ran the banner headline "JFK Could Lose." And in a poll of Republican leaders, only 3 percent said Nixon would make a good candidate. He was too liberal.

Then Kennedy was shot, the bottom dropped out of the United States of America, and anything that smacked of "extremism" lost its l.u.s.ter. Goldwater's star started fading. The field now hungered for centrists. It shook Richard Nixon out of his notional retirement for good.

In a December 6, 1963, speech, he bid fair for Goldwater's conservative supporters ("Planning an economy eventually ends in planning men's lives"). Nixon agents made inquiries in New Hampshire. His performance at the winter RNC meeting led one state chair to observe, "Most people climb aboard a bandwagon. Nixon threw himself in front of it." After the Republican moderate and amba.s.sador to South Vietnam Henry Cabot Lodge won a surprise absentee victory in New Hampshire, Nixon told the press, "I feel that there is no man in this country who can make a case against Mr. Johnson more effectively than I can." In the spring, he made another stature-enhancing trip: to Lebanon, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Taiwan, j.a.pan, Pakistan, and Saigon, where he met with the new Republican front-runner, Henry Cabot Lodge. At the airport in New York newly christened JFK, he struck a Goldwater note on Vietnam: "There is no subst.i.tute for victory." Pennsylvania governor William Warren Scranton, considered the likely liberal successor to a compromised Nelson Rockefeller, said, "I always thought they were terribly unfair when they called him Tricky d.i.c.k. Now I don't know."

A trusted aide told Tricky d.i.c.k, back in the States, ready to make his move, that Goldwater's gra.s.sroots army had locked up the nomination. In Oregon, Nixon hired operatives to set up a clandestine campaign via fifty phone lines installed in a Portland boiler room to wire a "spontaneous" primary upset. An NBC camera crew was tipped off to the scene; Nixon's managers claimed they were working on a magazine poll; Nixon finished a dismal fourth.

As the decisive California primary approached, Nixon began pinning his hopes on a deadlocked convention. He couldn't afford to alienate anyone. Then rumors surfaced that Nixon was working with the "stop Goldwater" movement of Eastern Establishment Republicans. Nixon called Goldwater headquarters in a panic, begging to be put on the phone with the candidate. Who was on the road in the middle of nowhere. Nixon groveled to be put in contact by radio. Once connected, he feigned nonchalance, said he had called to RSVP for Goldwater's daughter's wedding the next month-and added that, by the way, he had nothing to do with any stop-Goldwater movement. The last weekend before the primary, Nixon got word that his mother was ringing doorbells for Goldwater and whisked her away to visit him in New York.

Goldwater won California. Nixon told the press he supported Goldwater for the nomination.

The next week, Nixon told Michigan Republicans, "If the party should decide on me as its candidate, Mr. Johnson would know he'd been in a fight." Then, at the National Governors' Conference in Cleveland, he lobbied for a draft of Michigan governor George Romney and announced that Goldwater's nomination would be a "tragedy" for the party. Romney declared himself uninterested. Nixon attended a breakfast for exhausted Republican governors who'd been up all night trying to broker deals to stop Goldwater.

He asked for the floor. He announced he would entertain questions. An agonizing, awkward interval pa.s.sed before anyone realized that Nixon was waiting for them to ask him to run for president.

The silence, reporters learned, lasted a full fifteen seconds.

He told these same reporters he detected a "very lively interest" in his running at the breakfast.

Herblock ran a cartoon of Nixon with his arms crossed, thumbs sticking outward like a demented hitchhiker, trying to flag down two cars at once, one labeled "Pro-Goldwater," the other labeled "Anti-Goldwater."

Two weeks before the Republican National Convention, Nixon phoned the former RNC chair, and his 1960 campaign manager, Len Hall, to ask him for political advice. Hall asked him if he was finally convinced he couldn't get this nomination. Nixon finally allowed he was. Hall told him what he had to do: "Get Bill Miller"-the current RNC chair-"to switch your appearance on the convention program. Forget your Tuesday speech before the balloting. Ask to be allowed to introduce the nominee to the convention on Thursday."

And so, before the cheering throngs at the Cow Palace, eighteen years after his first election to public office, Richard Nixon delivered a paean to the man he had proclaimed four weeks before "a tragedy," whom he now said would "have the largest and most enthusiastic supporters in presidential history."

Although just in case Goldwater died piloting his plane above the Cow Palace, Nixon had set up a command center at San Francisco's St. Francis Hotel, where Bob Haldeman was poised to engineer the last-minute presidential draft.

Columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak told the whole sorry story in the November 1964 issue of Esquire. Esquire. "The Unmaking of a President" began with an epigram from the nineteenth-century British poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti: "Look in my face: my name is Might-have-been; I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell." Concluded the columnizing duo: "Each of his carefully calculated moves in 1964 was followed only by his own further political destruction." "The Unmaking of a President" began with an epigram from the nineteenth-century British poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti: "Look in my face: my name is Might-have-been; I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell." Concluded the columnizing duo: "Each of his carefully calculated moves in 1964 was followed only by his own further political destruction."

But Richard Nixon was smarter than Evans and Novak, was smarter than any of them. n.o.body else had the iron-a.s.sed will to do what needed to be done-to wait out the dozens and dozens of poker hands it would take before you had the cards you needed to really really be able to collect the only bounty that mattered, in 1968. Evans and Novak didn't control that nomination, nor Howard K. Smith, nor Teddy White (in be able to collect the only bounty that mattered, in 1968. Evans and Novak didn't control that nomination, nor Howard K. Smith, nor Teddy White (in Making of the President 1964, Making of the President 1964, he called Nixon's convention speech "nostalgically attractive")-none of those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds who could only see how short Nixon's stack of chips was just he called Nixon's convention speech "nostalgically attractive")-none of those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds who could only see how short Nixon's stack of chips was just now. now. Nelson Rockefeller didn't control that nomination, nor William Warren Scranton, nor George Romney, all of whom refused to campaign for Barry Goldwater that fall. Nor Thruston Morton, the Kentucky senator who went so far as to offer Lyndon Johnson secret advice about how to Nelson Rockefeller didn't control that nomination, nor William Warren Scranton, nor George Romney, all of whom refused to campaign for Barry Goldwater that fall. Nor Thruston Morton, the Kentucky senator who went so far as to offer Lyndon Johnson secret advice about how to beat beat Barry Goldwater. Nixon had watched the a.s.siduous cunning with which F. Clifton White had engineered Goldwater's nomination, by installing fanatical loyalists as functionaries at the gra.s.s roots (in early 1963 Nixon had even tried to hire Clif White for himself). Nixon was one of the few outsiders to understand what was happening: that the delegates he addressed at the Cow Palace would be controlling the nomination in 1968, even if Barry Morris Goldwater didn't win a single electoral vote in 1964. Barry Goldwater. Nixon had watched the a.s.siduous cunning with which F. Clifton White had engineered Goldwater's nomination, by installing fanatical loyalists as functionaries at the gra.s.s roots (in early 1963 Nixon had even tried to hire Clif White for himself). Nixon was one of the few outsiders to understand what was happening: that the delegates he addressed at the Cow Palace would be controlling the nomination in 1968, even if Barry Morris Goldwater didn't win a single electoral vote in 1964.

That was why Nixon was the only Republican of national stature not to abandon the Goldwater ticket. He gave 156 speeches for Goldwater in the fall of 1964 and repeated his every-other-year ritual of campaigning for any Republican aspirant who invited him, in G.o.dforsaken burgs in thirty-six states. The liberal Republicans treated him like a leper. The Goldwater staff treated him like a leper. They did, however, learn that he could come in handy. In the middle of October, after LBJ's most trusted personal aide was caught receiving s.e.xual favors from a retired sailor in the bas.e.m.e.nt restroom of a Washington, D.C., YMCA, Nixon made it the focus of his speech: "A cloud hangs over the White House this morning because of Lyndon Johnson and his selection of men." His selection of men. His selection of men. Lyndon's johnson might as well have been right there in that men's room with Jenkins. Lyndon's johnson might as well have been right there in that men's room with Jenkins.

Dirty jobs.