Nixon's Loyalists
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NIXON’S LOYALISTS INSIDE THE WAR FOR THE WHITE HOUSE, 1972 A Dissertation Submitted to the College of Graduate Studies and Research in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History University of Saskatchewan Saskatoon By Frank Kusch © Copyright Frank Kusch, March, 2010. All rights reserved. i PERMISSION TO USE In presenting this dissertation in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a Postgraduate degree from the University of Saskatchewan, I agree that the Libraries of this University may make it freely available for inspection. I further agree that permission for copying of this thesis in any manner, in whole or in part, for scholarly purposes may be granted by the professor or professors who supervised my thesis work or, in their absence, by the Head of the Department or the Dean of the College in which my thesis work was done. It is understood that any copying or publication or use of this thesis or parts thereof for financial gain or in any commercial venture shall not be allowed without my written permission. It is also understood that due recognition shall be given to me and to the University of Saskatchewan in any scholarly use which may be made of any material in my dissertation. Requests for permission to copy or to make other use of material in this thesis in whole or part should be addressed to: Head, the Department of History University of Saskatchewan Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 5B3 ii ABSTRACT The objective of this study is to revisit the American presidential election of 1972 via the interpretive lens of Richard Nixon‟s loyal inner circle. It argues that the Watergate scandal that forced Nixon to resign the presidency two years later has minimized the meaning of that watershed event. The massive landslide victory by the Nixon administration at the polls has been lost in the details of the break-in at the Watergate complex. The result is that the connection between Nixon, his loyal White House aides, and the millions of faithful supporters is minimized and even forgotten in the scholarship on the 37th president. Nixon is too often seen as an isolated and disconnected leader, and consequently, the second greatest margin of victory in American presidential history has been largely neglected as a significant event in the literature. Supported and informed by archival documents, staff memoirs, newspaper accounts, and secondary sources, this study revisits the election through the eyes and actions of the president‟s men, concluding that his team developed a specific strategy to attract traditional Democratic voters, independents and disaffected voters, forging a post-1960s consensus. This outcome was aided by a strategy to portray Democratic opponent George McGovern as an extremist unpalatable to the American heartland. Nixon‟s image as a lonely and isolated figure inside the Oval Office has been misunderstood as it was also part of a specific strategy hatched by his inner circle after the midterm elections of 1970 to have the politician act “presidential” and remain in the White House, above the nasty fight for votes on the campaign trail. Nixon and his loyal aides used these strategies to reach the „silent majority‟ of Americans, and thereby secured an overwhelming victory. iii CONTENTS PERMISSION TO USE................................................................................i ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………..ii INTRODUCTION ………………………………………………………....1 1. “HOLY” WARRIORS…………………………………………………..18 2. HEARTLAND HOMILIES …………………………………………….35 3. UNHORSING BIG ED ............................................................................55 4. THE MAKING OF AN EXTREMIST …………………………….…....72 5. ABOVE THE BATTLE ............................................................................87 6. THE “FRONT-PORCH” CAMPAIGN ...................................................116 7. A BITTER HARVEST ............................................................................136 8. “A MANDATE FOR REALISM” ...........................................................151 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................172 INTRODUCTION ust swirled and danced through the afternoon sky as the presidential motorcade moved D through another in a long line of rural counties. As the miles flew past, Richard Nixon gazed at his fellow Americans from behind the glass of his midnight blue limousine, watching as they waved, clapped, and held handmade signs. One sign in particular caught the president‘s attention. It stated, ―No amnesty. We lost our son in Vietnam.‖ The veteran politician ordered the long automobile over to the side of the road and walked back to where the family stood. ―I talked to the mother, to the father, to the brother of the man who had been killed,‖ Nixon said, recalling the encounter as he had with so many others over his long political career. ―I shook hands with them,‖ he remembered, conscious of his appearance in his customary dark blue suit as he stood with the farm family on the side of the road. ―Anyone who has been in politics and who shakes hands a lot can tell a lot about people by how they shake hands . the feel of their hands. I shook hands with the man . he obviously was a working man . a farmer. It was a calloused hand . strong and firm.‖ The stronger impression for the president, however, came from the mother. ―Her hands also were somewhat rough . and they were red. She obviously cannot have a dishwasher, and she didn‘t have all those fancy things that you read about in Vogue . I thought about my own mother and father. My father had hard hands, too, because he worked all of his life. My mother‘s hands were not pretty, but I always thought they were beautiful because I knew how much she did and how hard she worked, all day baking pies at 4:00 o‘clock in the morning to send four kids to college . .‖1 Politics for Richard Nixon were always personal: rough hands, hard, bittersweet memories, a curious mixture of high expectations and curdled resentment. As with millions of his fellow citizens, however, Nixon‘s essential outlook on the circumstances of life was not unique. Indeed, his views were part of a larger American story shared by people across the heartland who believed in the rhetoric of hard work over patronage, national service over self- interest, and hope over despair. While in many ways an enigmatic figure, Nixon was also a significant political force who never had to go it alone in his political life, and seldom did. As with the farm family on the side of the road, the butcher‘s son drew solid support from the American people for more than a generation, supporters who had opened doors for him since the beginning of his political career and checked the box by his name on Election Day at every step along the way. Through his election to both houses of Congress, as vice president of the United States, a bid for the presidency in 1960, a gubernatorial run in California in 1962, to his triumphant return to the political arena in 1968, Nixon always benefited from uncountable committed followers. Some had rough hands and toiled in the golden fields of Nebraska and Iowa and others donned shirts and ties and occupied the halls of Brown and Georgetown. Richard Nixon‘s well documented personal contradictions coupled with his inglorious political epitaph, however, has limited discussions concerning the long-standing support the politician enjoyed among the American electorate. Too often, the weight of Nixon‘s personal demons have come to define him in regards to domestic politics, where the former president‘s image is little more than a dark and brooding persona that was ―cut off from the rest of 1 From Richard Nixon‘s address to his surrogates in the Cabinet Room, October 29, 1972. Please see memorandum from David C. Hoopes to The President‘s File, October 29, 1972, President‘s Office Files, Box 90, National Archives Records Administration, hereafter NARA, and memorandum from the President to H.R. Haldeman, July 24, 1972, Contested Files, White House Special Files, Box 35, Nixon Library. 1 humanity‖ or ―alone in the White House.‖2 Although the historical record indicates that Nixon was awkward in his personal relationships, had few close friends, and ―even his dog didn‘t like him,‖ these characteristics do not explain his exceedingly successful public career, including his controversial White House years.3 Nixon‘s inherent contradictions did not prevent him from leading a fearsome squad of committed and loyal combatants, and, in many ways, from becoming a representational figure who dominated and reflected much of the post-war political terrain in America. Some influential historians, however, contend that Nixon only reflected his own darkness: a troubled, isolated, criminal soul revealed in enemy lists, Oval Office expletives, and clumsy but determined burglars with flashlights. As respected historian Stanley Kutler has concluded, Nixon‘s long political career must be filtered through the dark lens of Watergate. The man from Yorba Linda cannot be viewed significantly beyond this scandal and the associated abuses of power. In his view, the politician is the lone, responsible player, a reference not merely to Watergate but to his entire political career. Moreover, although Kutler maintains that the president‘s men should fade into a ―well- deserved obscurity,‖ these ―spear carriers‖ were neither suits from central casting nor an infinitesimal clique of reactionary conservatism. Indeed,