BGuthrie Photos: CA -- Yorba Linda -- Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Birthplace

CA -- Yorba Linda -- Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Birthplace:

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. NIXON1_130722_055.JPG: Model of Casa Pacifica, also known as the Western White House, was President and Mrs. Nixon's home in San Clemente, California, from 1969 to 1980. The model was built in 1999 by San Clemente artist Malcolm Wilson for The Heritage of San Clemente Foundation. The model was donated by The Heritage of San Clemente Foundation to the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in December 2010.
2. NIXON1_130722_100.JPG: The Resolute Desk: America's Official Desk: A reproduction of the desk used by almost every President in the White House Oval House. It was made from the timbers of the HMS Resolute, an abandoned British ship discovered by an American vessel and returned to the Queen of England as a token of friendship and goodwill.
3. NIXON1_130722_104.JPG: H.M.S. RESOLUTE forming part of the expedition sent in search of SIR JOHN FRANKLIN IN 1852, was abandoned in latitude 74 degrees 41 minutes N longitude 101 degrees 22 minutes W[2] on 15th May 1854. She was discovered and extricated in September 1855 in latitude 67 degrees N[3] by Captain Buddington of the United States Whaler "GEORGE HENRY." The ship was purchased, fitted out and sent to England as a gift to HER MAJESTY QUEEN VICTORIA by the PRESIDENT AND PEOPLE of the UNITED STATES as a token of goodwill & friendship. This table was made from her timbers when she was broken up, and is presented by the QUEEN OF GREAT BRITAIN & IRELAND to the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES as a memorial of the courtesy and loving kindness which dictated the offer of the gift of the "RESOLUTE."
4. NIXON1_130722_120.JPG: Apollo 16 EMU Space Suit (reproduction) The Apollo era EU (extravehicular mobility unit) suit resembles the one worn by Apollo 17 Astronaut and Geologist Harrison Schmitt in this December 13, 1972 photograph. The suit, which was used during the last three Apollo missions, was quite different than those used during the first Apollo missions. Unlike earlier missions, this EMU allowed astronauts to sit and drive the LRV (Lunar Roving Vehicle) and it could be removed so they could more easily sleep while on the lunar surface. Also, the EVA (extravehicular activity) backpacks were modified to carry more oxygen, power, and cooling water for much larger EVAs. With these improvements, the astronauts of Apollo 15, 16, and 17 stayed much longer -- over two days more than Apollo 11 -- and, with the help of the LRV, explored much more of the lunar surface. The red stripes indicate that this EMU was worn by the Mission Commander.
5. NIXON1_130722_126.JPG: The Birthplace: Frank and Hannah Milhous Nixon bought the land and built this farm house in 1912. He planted orange and lemon trees on eight acres. They had one child at the time, Harold, who was about three years old. The following January 9, their second son, Richard, was born. Of the five Nixon boys, Richard was the only one born at home. Edward, the youngest son, was born in Whittier and never lived in the house. The Nixons left Yorba Linda in 1922 when the groves failed, and they moved to Whittier. About 1925 the Yorba Linda School District purchased 5-1/2 acres and erected a school where the Library stands today. In 1948, the district purchased the house and it was rented to the school district's maintenance men and their families for $50 a month. The school was renamed the "Richard M. Nixon Elementary School" when he was elected Vice President. In 1968, Richard Nixon was elected President of the United States. In order to preserve the home, six Yorba Linda businessmen purchased the home and one acre of land in 1977. Facing declining enrollments, the school closed in 1987. Plans to build the Nixon Library in San Clemente were at a standstill. The City of Yorba Linda saw just a glimmer of hope and they approached the school district with a plan to buy the land. They offered the Nixon Library Foundation the chance to build in Yorba Linda. President Nixon did not hesitate: "When the City of Yorba Linda had entered the competition with an offer of my father's farm, it took me less than a second to say, 'Do it!'"
6. NIXON1_130722_132.JPG: The Replica: Construction of the replica began in August of 1991. The scale is 1" = 1'. Construction time totaled 180 hours. The replica is electrified, even the embers in the fireplace grow a warm red. When it was half finished, the docents, Library staff, employees, and friends signed up to sponsor the miniature furnishings and room construction costs. The furnishings closely resemble the originals and many were made by hand by the docents because they could not be purchased. The building of the base was by Phil Jones. The photography of pictures, sheet music and books was by Callie Jones. All of us have events in our lives we remember vividly. I remember the night I began placing the items everyone sponsored. It was at that moment that the replica shell became the Birthplace. My sincere thanks to everyone. My thanks also to my family who suffered through some less than award-winning meals during the three months of construction. To our visitors, I hope you will enjoy looking at the replica and its details, some of which were whimsical. When you are finished, stroll leisurely through Mrs. Nixon's beautiful garden and enjoy the real Birthplace.
7. NIXON1_130722_139.JPG: An All American Homecoming 40th Anniversary of the White House Dinner in honor of returning Vietnam POWs May 18, to Labor Day 2013
8. NIXON1_130722_145.JPG: When Richard Nixon took office on January 20, 1969, the American people were sharply divided over Vietnam. According to the Gallup Poll, 52 percent of the public believed it had been a mistake to send American troops to Vietnam. Nevertheless, no clear consensus existed about what the United States should do going forward. Although the public was split about the war, the American people were clearly united in support of the hundreds of American men who were being held as prisoners of war by North Vietnam or were missing in action. The plight of the Prisoners of War (POWs) was also never far from President Nixon's mind. The return of the POWs was a critical element of the Paris Peace Accords. They were warmly and enthusiastically welcomed home, across the length and breadth of America, to their own homes…and to the White House. An All American Homecoming documents the White House salute to POWs, which remains the largest dinner ever hosted at the White House.
9. NIXON1_130722_157.JPG: Freedom Bear Signed by 152 Vietnam POWs: The POW/MIA teddy bear on display was presented to the Richard Nixon Foundation to honor President Nixon's successful efforts in 1973 to release the Vietnam POWs from the Hanoi Hilton and other prison facilities in North Vietnam. It is signed by 152 NAM-POWs who attended the Foundation's 40th anniversary celebration of the homecoming dinner hosted by President Nixon at the White House on May 24, 2013. The signature were gathered by Air Force Commander William Y. Arcuri (Ret.) who was shot down on his 44th combat mission on December 20, 1972 and imprisoned at the Hanoi Hilton. "Freedom Bears" by Forgotten Soldiers Outreach, are sent to soldiers fighting abroad, inspiring hope, strength and courage, while separated from their loved ones.
10. NIXON1_130722_175.JPG: Performer Tony Orlando's Gold Record: This Gold Record was presented in 1973 to performer Tony Orlando by the Recording Industry Association of America, commemorating the sale of one million records for his hit "Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Old Oak Tree" which topped US and UK charts for four weeks. He first sang the song in public at the invitation of Bob Hope to welcome home the NAM-POWs at the '73 Cotton Bowl in Dallas, Texas. Tony Orlando presented the record to the Richard Nixon Foundation to honor President and Mrs. Nixon on the 40th Anniversary of the homecoming dinner gala they hosted at the White House May 24, 1973.
11. NIXON1_130722_198.JPG: Composer Irving Berlin gave President Nixon this sheet of "God Bless America" during the dinner honoring the POWs. During the dinner, Mr. Berlin sang the song for those in attendance.
12. NIXON1_130722_205.JPG: Seating chart floor plan, May 24, 1973. This chart shows the seating arrangements at the White House dinner honoring the returning prisoners of war. Accompanying the seating chart is a list of the attendees at each table.
13. NIXON1_130722_238.JPG: The First Campaign: It was the right offer at the right time, and Richard Nixon did not hesitate. Would he be interested in running for Congress? The answer was decidedly "yes". But it was to be a fight all the way, first to gain the nomination and then to defeat a popular Democrat incumbent with ten years of experience. The thirty-three year old Richard Nixon faced the greatest challenge of his life, and the jubilation that he and Pat felt on election night was never again to be equalled in his political career.
14. NIXON1_130722_244.JPG: A Candidate for Congress: A letter that changed his life. An enthusiastic "yes" was not enough. He didn't own a civilian suit. It was September 1945 and Lt. Richard Nixon had returned from overseas and was renegotiating Navy contracts in Baltimore, Maryland. His wife, Pat, was expecting their first child and, as World War II came to an end, the Nixons looked ahead to see what the future might hold. The answer came in the form of a letter from an old family friend in Whittier, California, who inquired if Richard Nixon would like to be a candidate for the House of Representatives on the Republican ticket in 1946. It was an offer that not only had immediate consequences but ultimately set Richard Nixon on the road to the Presidency. After discussing the offer with his wife, Richard Nixon's response was an enthusiastic "yes". But he soon learned that the question was not so simple. The letter was written on behalf of the Committee of 100, a candidate search committee composed of small businesses and professionals from California's Twelfth Congressional District, and the committee was considering several candidates for the nomination. Richard Nixon was not being handed the nomination; instead, he would have to compete for it. The Committee purchased plane tickets, and on November 2, the Nixons flew to California. Wearing his Navy uniform -- he didn't own a civilian suit -- Richard Nixon was the last of six candidates to speak before the committee. The first speech of his political career, in which he denounced the government control of the New Deal and promised to wave an aggressive campaign against the Democratic incumbent, was brief and to the point. It was also effective. Nixon received sixty-three votes from the committee; his nearest competitor received twelve. He was now a candidate for Congress.
15. NIXON1_130722_249.JPG: Coffee and Constituents: Return to California: Meeting the Twelfth District voters: A joint effort: The Nixons hastily packed their few belongings, returned to California, and launched the campaign from an old storefront office in Whittier. Richard Nixon was a familiar face around Whittier but a stranger in many of the district's far-ranging towns. If he was to win the election, Nixon realized that he must become better known throughout the Twelfth District. With the help of his wife, Pat, the candidate organized a series of "house meetings" in the homes of Republican supporters. Over tea and coffee, the Nixons met hundreds of voters and learned what was on the minds of their constituents. It was a joint effort; Pat was at her husband's side at coffee hours and comprised his entire volunteer full-time office staff. For the Nixons, this was grassroots politics and its best. The loyalty and dedication of this first wave of local supporters welcomed them to a political career that would span nearly three decades.
16. NIXON1_130722_257.JPG: "Had Enough?" "A vote for Nixon is a vote for change" Richard Nixon's greatest advantage in the election of 1946 was that after the hardships of World War II, Americans were fed up with shortages in housing and consumer goods. During the early 1940s, Americans had endured rationing and deprivations for the sake of the war effort. With the end of the war, President Truman had promised a return to normalcy, but in July 1946, faced with massive unemployment, crippling labor strikes and a soaring cost of living, he announced an extension of price controls. For millions of Americans who were eagerly anticipating postwar prosperity, it was devastating news. National sentiment turned against the government regulation and intervention associated with the New Deal. The Republican campaign slogan in 1946 was simply, "HAD ENOUGH?" As prices skyrocketed, some butchers in the Twelfth District put signs in shop windows that said, "No meat today? Ask your congressman." Richard Nixon's ads asked voters, "Are you satisfied with present conditions? Can you buy meat, a new car, a refrigerator, clothes you need? Where are all those new houses you were promised? A vote for Nixon is a vote for change."
17. NIXON1_130722_260.JPG: An Uphill Fight to the Finish: In the June 4 primary, Richard Nixon won the nomination of his own party but was running behind Voorhis in combined Democratic-Republican totals by about 7,500 votes. He faced an uphill fight and knew that he would have to maintain the intensity of his primary campaign until the very end. On November 6, 1946, Richard Nixon won the election with 56 percent of the total votes cast, receiving 65,586 votes to Jerry Voorhis' 49,944. At age thirty-three, Richard Nixon was the Twelfth District's new congressman. "... nothing could equal the excitement and jubilation of winning the first campaign. Pat and I were happier on November 6, 1946, than we were every to be again in my political career." -- RN
18. NIXON1_130722_266.JPG: Put a Needle in the PAC: "In five Lincoln-Douglas debates, [Nixon] bested his opponent, New Dealer Jerry Voorhis, who admitted, 'This fellow has a silver tongue.' " -- Newsweek, November 1946 In mid-September, a Pasadena political group invited Nixon and Voorhis to meet in a joint appearance. This first face-to-face session opened what became the most famous and controversial issue of the 1946 campaign: the endorsement of Jerry Voorhis by a left-leaning political action committee. The Political Action Committee of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO-PAC) had been established as a political arm of organized labor; its sister organization, the National Citizens Political Action Committee (NCPAC) was set up to permit non-union participation. Both PACs had common leadership, both provided funds and campaign workers to political candidates they endorsed and, most importantly, both were known to have Communists among their membership. At a time when Communism and Socialism were viewed by Americans with increasing suspicion, support from a pro-Communist group was almost certainly a negative factor for a political candidate. The CIO-PAC withheld support for Jerry Voorhis in 1946, but NCPAC had indicated in its spring bulletin that it did intend to endorse Voohis regardless of what the CIO-PAC did. At the Pasadena joint appearance, Richard Nixon pulled from his pocket a copy of this bulletin to prove that Voorhis had indeed received a PAC endorsement. Voorhis rushed to deny the endorsement, later even demanding that the PAC withdraw its support of his candidacy, but the damage had been done. Candidates Nixon and Voorhis met four more times that fall in a series of popular debates that drew the largest crowds ever in the district. The last debate, held in San Gabriel a week before the election, crammed more than a thousand people into the hall and provided loudspeakers for the hundreds gathered outside.
19. NIXON1_130722_272.JPG: License plate attachment, "Vote for Voorhis for Congress," 1946. When used for campaigning, this automobile accessory would have been attached to the license plate for somewhere on a car's bumper. Congressman Voorhis had been a five-term incumbent in 1946 with a well financed campaign which this license plate accessory notably attests to.
20. NIXON1_130722_280.JPG: Draft of reply from Richard Nixon to Herman Perry, October 6, 1945: "I feel very strongly that Jerry Voorhis can be beaten and I'd welcome the opportunity to take a crack at him. An aggressive, vigorous campaign on a platform of practical liberalism should be the antidote the people have been looking for to take the place of Voorhis' particular brand of New Deal idealism." "You can be sure that I'll do everything possible to win if the party gives me the chance to run. I'm sure I can hold my own with Voorhis on the speaking platform and without meaning to toot my horn I believe I have the fight, spirit and background which can beat him."
21. NIXON1_130722_291.JPG: Letter from Herman Perry to Richard Nixon, September 29, 1945
22. NIXON1_130722_301.JPG: Going Places: When Richard Nixon entered the House in January 1947, he was so young and unknown that one Washington newspaper dubbed him "the greenest congressman in town." But Representative Nixon soon made a name for himself through his involvement in the key issues of the era: labor reform, foreign aid, and subversive control. His aggressive role in the Alger Hiss case increased his visibility further still, and by the end of his two terms in the House he was, by many accounts, the best known congressman in the nation. He was, in short, going places.
23. NIXON1_130722_306.JPG: Representative Richard Nixon: A new home town: An ideal time for a young Republican: 1948: a year to celebrate: In December, 1946, Richard and Pat Nixon left California for Washington, DC, the city that would become their home for the next fifteen years. Leaving Tricia to come East with her grandparents, the couple drove more than three thousand miles with their belongings packed into the trunk and backseat of their car. Representative Nixon soon embarked on a busy first term in the Eightieth Congress. Although President Harry Truman kept the White House under Democratic control, the Republicans won a majority of seats in both the House and the Senate in the 1946 election. It was an ideal time for a young Republican, and Rep. Nixon was appointed to two congressional committees and quickly made his voice heard on Capitol Hill. In the House and at home, 1948 was a banner year for the Nixons. In June, Rep. Nixon swept both the Democratic and Republican primaries, ensuring a landslide victory in his November re-election. And in July the Nixons had another cause for celebration: the birth of their second daughter, Julie, who missed being born on the Fourth of July by just three hours.
24. NIXON1_130722_325.JPG: The "Bill of Rights" for American Workers: Labor unions: How strong should they be? A year of crippling strikes: "The Truth About the New Labor Law" The Education and Labor Committee's work took up most of Richard Nixon's time during his first year in Congress. As part of the Labor Committee, the congressman was a member of the subcommittee holding hearings on the Taft-Hartley bill, a proposed amendment to the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. The legislation sought to reduce the strength of labor unions through a variety of measures, including banning closed shops and secondary boycotts, legalizing right-to-work laws, and requiring a cooling-off period before a strike that could threaten national health of safety. Labor leaders objected to the bill, but many Americans supported it. In 1946, the country had been brought to a standstill by repeated strikes -- by coal, steel, railroad, auto, meatpacker, maritime and electrical workers -- and Republicans especially came to resent the power that the unions wielded. Throughout the months of congressional hearings, Rep. Nixon supported the bill and worked hard to see it in place as soon as possible. He circulated a summary of the issues involved, called "The Truth About the New Labor Law," and took to the House floor: "In 1935, the New Deal Congress enacted the National Labor Relations Act which granted unrestricted sovereign power to the barons of union labor. Now, I submit it is the responsibility and the opportunity of this Congress to grant to American workers their bill of rights." Despite President Truman's veto, Congress passed the Taft-Hartley bill, 308 to 107.
25. NIXON1_130722_338.JPG: The freshman members of the Eightieth Congress, including Richard Nixon (far right) and John F. Kennedy (third from right), January, 1947.
26. NIXON1_130722_341.JPG: A Trip to Save Europe: In June 1947, Secretary of State George Marshall unveiled a controversial proposal calling for billions of dollars in US aid to postwar Europe. Rep. Richard Nixon was quickly appointed to a select committee to evaluate the Marshall Plan, as it became known, and the nineteen-member committee departed for Europe the following month. Rep. Nixon was shocked by the state of the countries he visited. Malnutrition and disease were common, and postwar leadership was no less a cause for concern. For the first time, Nixon met with Communist leaders face to face. In London and Trieste, Berlin and Athens, the young congressman recognized the threat Communism held for Europe and was convinced that the United States must do all it could to restore stability and prosperity in Western Europe. Returning to the United States, Richard Nixon advocated support for the Marshall Plan. He discovered, though, that many of his California constituents were against supporting any policy associated with the Democratic administration in Washington. Rather than bow to political pressure, the young congressman took a stand, explaining America's obligation in local speeches and newspaper articles. "In every country we visited the situation was the same: without American aid, millions would starved or die of diseases caused by malnutrition before the winter was over. The political facts were equally evident: without our food and aid, Europe would be plunged into anarchy, revolution, and, ultimately, Communism." The House voted 313 to 82 in favor of the Marshall Plan, and Richard Nixon emerged successfully from his first involvement in the making of foreign policy. He considered his service to the Herter Committee the most important of his Congressional career.
27. NIXON1_130722_345.JPG: Combatting Communism: The House Committee on Un-American Activities: A young lawyer to "smarten it up": Gerhard Eisler, Communist: Created primarily to combat fascism during World War II, the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) was revived when US attitudes toward Communism hardened as the Iron Curtain fell across the Eastern Europe in the late 1940s. Most freshman congressmen serve on only one congressional committee, but Speaker of the House Joe Martin asked Richard Nixon to serve on HUAC as well as the Education and Labor Committee. HUAC, said Martin, needed a young lawyer to "smarten it up." In 1947, as Richard Nixon entered Congress, HUAC launched a widely-publicized series of investigations to prove that the nation had allowed Communist subversion to reach alarming levels. Congressman Richard Nixon had little to do with these early hearings. It was not until 1948 and the investigation that centered around Alger Hiss and Whittaker Chambers that Richard Nixon stepped into the forefront of the committee's investigations. Richard Nixon's maiden speech in the House of Representatives was the presentation of a contempt of Congress citation against Gerhard Eisler, a man identified as the top Communist agitator in the United States. Eisler eventually fled the country and became director of propaganda for the Communist regime. Representative Nixon spoke for only ten minutes, and concluded: "It is essential as members of this House that we defend vigilantly the fundamental rights of freedom of speech and freedom of the press. But we must bear in mind that the rights of free speech and free press do not carry with them the right to advocate the destruction of the very government which protects the freedom of an individual to express his views."
28. NIXON1_130722_348.JPG: The Mundt-Nixon Bill: Working closely with Representative Karl Mundt of South Dakota, Richard Nixon prepared a bill in the spring of 1948 that called for the registration of all Communist Party members and the identification of all printed and broadcast material issued by the Communist Party. The bill was an alternative to outlawing the Communist Party entirely -- a strategy favored by many anti-Communists. Before the full house, Nixon argued convincingly that outlawing the Communist Party would only drive the movement underground, while registration would push the Party and its functions into the open. The Mundt-Nixon bill passed the House on May 19, 1948 by a vote of 319 to 58, but did not pass the Senate. It was not until 1950 that some of its provisions were made into law as part of the McCarran Act.
29. NIXON1_130722_352.JPG: "A Fighting, Rocking, Socking Campaign". A year-long battle: The issue of Communism: On November 3, 1949, Representative Richard Nixon entered the California Senate race, promising to put on "a fighting, rocking, socking campaign." During the year-long battle that followed, he was confronted by three Democratic contenders who ensured that the contest was everything he had promised. Rep. Helen Gahagan Douglas took the Democratic lead and was beset by criticism from her own party. Democratic opponents deemed Mrs. Douglas part of a "small subversive clique of red-hots" and called attention to similarities between her voting record and that of Rep. Vito Marcantonio, an admitted friend of the Communist party. The issue of Communism became central of the campaign, capturing the attention of a nation in the midst of the Alger Hiss conviction, the Korean War and congressional investigations of accused subversives. Taking his cues from the Democrats, Nixon continued to link Douglas and Marcantonio and pinned his opponent on issues of internal security, foreign aid, Communist control and the Cold War. Douglas in turn accused Nixon of being more pro-Communist than she -- and unlikely charge in light of the Hiss case -- and the campaign grew bitter. The voters of California in 1950 were not prepared to elect anyone with a left-wing voting record or anyone they perceived as being soft on Communism. Richard Nixon won the election by a substantial margin, garnering the votes of thousands of Democrats as well as Republicans.
30. NIXON1_130722_359.JPG: Drew Pearson Nails the Big Lie! (has it fooled you, too?) HITLER invented it STALIN perfected it NIXON uses it Let's look at the record... You pick the Congressman the Kremlin loves! Compare the voting records of Richard Nixon and Helen Gahagan Douglas on the vital bills that concerned Korea. Compare their votes with those of Vito Marcantonio, American Labor Party (Pro-Communist) Congressman. Mrs. Douglas... "The way to keep Communism out of America is to keep democracy in it." -- quoted from the Congressional Record. Mr. Nixon... Cries "Communist" ... but on the Korean issue voted consistently in agreement with Mr. Marcantonio, the Communist "line" follower. United States Senator Helen Gahagan Douglas
31. NIXON1_130722_370.JPG: The Greatest Good: "Your victory was the greatest good that can come to our country," wrote former President Herbert Hoover to newly-elected Senator Richard Nixon in 1950. The step up to the Senate was the logical progression for the California congressman, who was voted in by the largest margin of any senator elected or re-elected that year. It was a campaign victory that won the attention of the nation, and it could have been the start of a long and successful Senate career. By 1952, the 39-year-old senator was ready to make an even greater climb -- to the Vice Presidency.
32. NIXON1_130722_373.JPG: Korean War Section Under Renovation
33. NIXON1_130722_377.JPG: A Meeting With the General: A genuine statesman: A case of mutual admiration: In May 1951, Senator Nixon was sent to Geneva, Switzerland, as an observer to the World Health Organization Conference. While in Europe he also attended another significant meeting -- a one-to-one encounter with General Dwight D. Eisenhower at NATO headquarters in Paris. During their brief half-hour session, the Senator and the supreme commander of the NATO forces discussed politics and international affairs. Nixon was impressed and later wrote, "I felt that I was in the presence of a genuine statesman, and I came away convinced that he should be the next President." The admiration was mutual. Eisenhower had read accounts of the Hiss case and told Nixon, "The thing that most impressed me was that you not only got Hiss, but you got him fairly." The following year when it came time for Eisenhower to select a vice-presidential running mate, his thoughts turned once again to the youthful senator from California.
34. NIXON1_130722_384.JPG: The Hiss-Chambers Case: It was a case that unfolded like a spy thriller and gripped the nation. It was a mystery in which one man's word was pitted against another's, a drama that involved foreign agents and microfilm, informers, and traitors, false names and uncertain identities. And at the center of the storm was Congressman Richard Nixon. As a member of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Representative Nixon was present when Time editor and admitted former Communist functionary Whittaker Chambers named former State Department official Alger Hiss as a fellow member of his Communist cell. When Hiss appeared before the committee and denied the charges, Nixon was the only member of the committee who could find reason to doubt Hiss' brilliant performance. The Committee agreed to continue the investigation as a result of his insistence. It was a crisis for the young Congressman. At stake were the lives of two men, one of whom was lying. The case meant defending the reputation of a Congressional committee already under fire and taking on a host of critics, ranging from the majority of the press corps to the President of the United States. Yet despite the difficulties, "I could not go against my own conscience," Nixon believed, and in the end, his conscience, and his perseverence, were vindicated. "This case involved more than the personal fortunes of Hiss, Chambers, myself or the members of our Committee. It involved the security of the whole nation and the cause of free men everywhere." -- RN
35. NIXON1_130722_389.JPG: This was the Woodstock typewriter that Whittaker Chambers typed up the so-called "Pumpkin Papers". Who typed the papers? The identity of the typist of the sixty-five State Department documents was a major point of contention. The government argued, and successfully convinced the second Hiss jury, that the documents were typed on Woodstock typewriter, number N230099, owned by the Hiss's in early 1938. The 1938 papers, according to experts who did comparisons, were typed on the same machine as produced other Hiss typing from the earlier 1930s. The government maintained that Hiss's wife, Priscilla, typed the documents (Alger was a hunt-and-peck typist) because he could not risk keeping the originals more than overnight, and that Chambers collected material for the Soviets only every seven to ten days. Simply put, the government asked jurors in the Hiss trial who--other than Alger or Priscilla Hiss--had access both to the State Department documents and the Woodstock typewriter, and therefore could be a possible source of the Pumpkin Papers? Hiss argued at trial that neither he nor his wife could have typed the documents because the Woodstock typewriter identified as having been used to type the documents was given away by them in 1937. The defense made much of the fact that no documents known to have come from Hiss's Woodstock typewriter (originally purchased by Priscilla Hiss's father in 1927) could be found bearing a date of later than May 1937. Hiss testified that he gave the typewriter in 1937 to Mike Catlett, a man who did odd jobs around the Hiss household. Catlett confirmed that he received the Woodstock typewriter from Hiss, but could not remember the date he took possession of the machine. Mike's son, Pat Catlett, on the other hand, told defense lawyers that the family received the typewriter in the spring of 1938, a date more helpful to the prosecution than the defense. The above from http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hiss/pumpkinp.html
36. NIXON1_130722_392.JPG: The Accusation: The testimony of Whittaker Chambers: An unimpressive witness: The members of the cell: For Richard Nixon, the case began on the morning of August 3, 1948, when Whittaker Chambers testified before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC). HUAC had launched a series of investigations, beginning the previous year, to look into Communist subversion in the United States. Chambers, an admitted Communist Party member in the 1930s, had been called upon to corroborate the testimony of a previous witness. A senior editor at Time magazine, Chambers was an unimpressive witness. Short and pudgy, his clothes were wrinkled and he spoke in a near monotone. He told HUAC of his gradual dissatisfaction with Communism and his break with the Communist Party in 1937. He also testified that before his break, he had belonged to an underground Communist "cell" whose purpose was to infiltrate the U.S. government. Chambers went on to name the other members of the cell, among them was former State Department official Alger Hiss.
37. NIXON1_130722_398.JPG: Representative Richard Nixon (top left) with other members of the House Un-American Committee: Representative John McDowell, Chairman Parnell Thomas, Chief Investigator Robert Stripling and Representative John Rankin, 1948.
38. NIXON1_130722_411.JPG: The Denial "I am not and have never been a member of the Communist Party." -- Alger Hiss A brilliant performance Denial under oath A "red herring," says Truman Alger Hiss, a graduate of Harvard Law School, served as a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes and practiced law before accepting a post in President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal administration. Joining the State Dept. in 1936, Hiss quickly rose through the ranks, serving as an advisor to President Roosevelt at Yalta in 1945 and as general secretary for the first UN Conference in San Francisco in 1946. When Alger Hiss learned of the charges leveled against him by Whittaker Chambers, he immediately sent a telegram to HUAC requesting an opportunity to appear in public session to deny under oath all of Chambers' allegations. On August 5, HIss appeared before the Committee. Hiss' performance was as brilliant as Chambers' was lackluster. Hiss denied that he had ever been a member of the Communist Party of a Communist front organization, and said that to be best of his knowledge none of his friends was a Communist. Furthermore, he denied ever having known a man by the name of Whittaker Chambers. Shown a photograph of Chambers, Hiss commented that Chambers "looks like a lot of people." By the end of the day, virtually all of the media and most of the Committee members were convinced that Hiss had been wrongly accused. President Truman, upon hearing about the Hiss hearing, labeled the entire HUAC spy investigation a "red herring" cooked up by a Republican Congress to discredit his Democratic administration.
39. NIXON1_130722_430.JPG: The Case Unfolds "[E]ither you or Mr. Hiss is lying... and whichever one of you is lying is the greatest actor that America has ever produced." -- HUAC member Rep. Ed Hebert Resuming the investigation Whittaker Chambers, or George Crosley? With its bizarre twists and turns, its contradictory claims and counterclaims, the Hiss-Chambers case captivated the nation. It was to be nearly two years before a jury came to a decisive conclusion. Led by Nixon, the Committee resumed its investigation by further questioning of both Chambers and Hiss. Chambers provided detailed information concerning Hiss and his family during the period in question, ranging from Hiss' conversational style with his wife to his bird-watching hobby. Hiss persisted that he did not know Chambers, although he again looked at photographs and acknowledged that Chambers' face was "not completely unfamiliar." When Hiss was confronted with the details about him and his family that Chambers had provided, Hiss claimed that such information might have been known to a freelance writer by the name of George Crosley. The details provided by Chambers compared almost exactly with the story Hiss told about his relationship with George Crosley. Hiss said that he had rented an apartment to Crosley, given Crosley a car, and even had Crosley and his family as guests in the Hiss home. As to whether Chambers and Crosley were one and the same, Hiss said he could not state categorically whether or not he had ever met Chambers without "seeing the man, hearing him talk, getting some much more tangible basis for judging the person and the personality." He was soon to have his wish. "I concentrated my sole attention on one question -- had Hiss known Chambers? ... What should one man know about another if he knew him as well as Chambers claimed to know Hiss? I worked into the small hours of the morning making notes of literally scores of questions that I might ask Chambers which would bear on this point." -- RN
40. NIXON1_130722_433.JPG: The Challenge "If he had lost both eyes and taken his nose off, I would be sure." -- Alger Hiss, identifying Whittaker Chambers as George Crosley The guise of a freelance reporter Grounds for libel On August 17, 1948, Nixon brought Hiss and Chambers together before the committee at New York's Commodore Hotel. There, in an executive session meeting in which Richard Nixon led the questioning, Hiss watched nervously as Chambers entered the room. At first, Hiss said he could not be sure if this man was the so-called George Crosley, and demanded that he "open his mouth wider" so that he could see his teeth. Hiss said that Crosley had bad teeth, and upon learning that Chambers had undergone some dental work, Hiss said that he would have to speak with the dentist before he could be certain. Nixon could barely contain his amusement. "Before we leave the teeth, Mr. Hiss," he said, "do you feel that you would have to have the dentist tell you just what he did to the teeth before you could tell anything about this man? Hiss had overplayed his hand. The committee was now convinced that Nixon was right. Chambers had been telling the truth. Later in the session, Hiss admitted that Chambers was indeed the man he had known as George Crosley. Yet Hiss maintained he had never a [sic] been a Communist Party member. Chambers, in turn, denied ever having gone under the name of Crosley. Speaking directly to Hiss, Chambers again avowed, "I was a Communist and you were a Communist." The meeting was adjourned with resolution, but before it was over, Hiss invited Chambers to make the same statements out of the presence of the Committee. In this way, Hiss said, he could sue Chambers for libel. "I challenge you to do it," Hiss stated angrily, "and I hope you will do it damned quickly."
41. NIXON1_130722_444.JPG: Charge and Countercharge "Mr. Hiss represents the concealed enemy against which we are all fighting..." -- Whittaker Chambers A lack of corroboration "Mr. Hiss is lying" As the days ticked by, Committee members were convinced that it was impossible for the two men not to have been closely associated. Yet the Committee was unable to corroborate either version of the relationships that Hiss and Chambers described. There was no record of a George Crosley. There were contradictions regarding the apartment lease. And the eventual discovery of a Department of Motor Vehicles certificate indicated that Hiss had not transferred a car to anyone named either Chambers or Crosley, but instead of a third person who the Committee determined was a Communist Party member. The certificate provided incontrovertible evidence that Hiss had lied about the car, but it didn't solve the puzzle. On August 25, 1948, in the first major congressional hearing ever to be televised, Stripling and Nixon once again led the questioning. His changed many of the details of the story regarding his car, discrediting him in the eyes of many of his supporters in the media. Yet he essentially held his ground, declaring that the charges against him were more than personal and were being used "to discredit recent great achievements of this country in which I was privileged to participate." Asked for his reaction to Hiss' testimony, Chambers stated simply: "Mr. Hiss is lying." Two days later, on Meet the Press, Chambers repeated his charge that Hiss was a Communist. By the end of September, Hiss had filed a $50,000 libel suit. "I do not hate Mr. Hiss. We were close friends, but we are caught in a tragedy of history. Mr. Hiss represents the concealed enemy against which we are all fighting, and I am fighting. I have testified against him with remorse and pity, but in a moment of history in which this nation now stands, so help me god, I could not do otherwise." -- Whittaker Chambers
42. NIXON1_130722_447.JPG: Chambers farm, Maryland, 1948: Arrow points to spot where rolls of microfilm of secret State Department papers were pulled from a hollowed-out pumpkin. Chambers led investigators from the House Un-American Activities Committee to the pumpkin patch, pulled the microfilm from a pumpkin and asked, "Is this what you want?"
43. NIXON1_130722_456.JPG: The Pumpkin Papers The case goes to the courts A "second bombshell" Microfilm in a pumpkin The decision by Alger Hiss to file a libel suit against Whitaker Chambers meant that the case was now in the courts. The House Committee on Un-American Activities turned its attention in other directions, and Richard Nixon prepared to take a long-postponed vacation with his wife, Pat. Chambers had never produced any solid evidence of his charges, and as the inquiry dragged on into November 1948, a rumor circulated that the Truman Justice Department was ready to drop the case. Nixon and HUAC member Stripling paid an urgent visit to Chambers at his Maryland farm, where they were astonished to learn that a month earlier Chambers had turned over to Justice Department officials hand-written notes and sixty-five pages of typed State Department documents that Chambers said he had received from Hiss during the 1930s. What more could Truman's lawyers want? Chambers also claimed to have a "second bombshell," and after Nixon returned to Washington that night he signed a subpoena on Chambers for any and all documents relating to the Committee hearings. No sooner had the Nixons departed for a week's cruise on the Panama than the Congressman received two telegrams regarding the new "bombshell." The subpoena had produced instant results: Chambers had led the Committee investigators to his garden, taken the top off a pumpkin, and produced five rolls of microfilm containing the photographs of secret State Department documents. Representative Nixon returned immediately to Washington. It seemed as though the case had at last been broken -- yet a few surprises remained.
44. NIXON1_130722_460.JPG: Two Trials, One Conviction The hearings resume Perjury on two counts A verdict of guilty With new evidence available, HUAC resumed its hearings and the Justice Department continued the grand jury investigation. The "pumpkin papers" microfilm, corroborated by newly-typed matching documents on Hiss' typewriter, provided evidence that Alger Hiss had been involved in espionage, but the statute of limitations made prosecution for that charge impossible. Accordingly, the grand jury voted to indict Hiss on two counts of perjury: first, for having lied when he testified that he had not taken classified documents from the State Department and given them to Chambers, and second for having lied when he testified that he had not seen Chambers after January 1, 1937. The case came to trial on May 31, 1949, and ended with a hung jury, eight-to-four for conviction. The second trial began late in 1949 and ended on January 21, 1950. The jury found Hiss guilty on both counts, and Judge Henry W. Goddard sentenced Hiss to five years in prison.
45. NIXON1_130722_465.JPG: Representative Richard Nixon and Chief Investigator Robert Stripling examine microfilm evidence in the Hiss inquiry, 1948: Nixon, who hurriedly returned to Washington from Panama, and Stripling, Chief Investigator fo the House Un-American Activities Committee, examine the microfilm of State Department documents found on the Maryland farm of Whittaker Chambers.
46. NIXON1_130722_471.JPG: Epilogue: Alger Hiss and the Verona Project: Alger Hiss appealed his guilty verdict and sentence, but the US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld them, and the Supreme Court refused to review the case. Hiss served 47 months in prisoner before being paroled and returning to private life. Whittaker Chambers retired to his Maryland farm and wrote his autobiography, Witness. He died in 1961. In 1984, President Reagan posthumously awarded him the Congressional Medal of Freedom. Richard Nixon gained substantial political stature from the Hiss case. He also paid a political price. Many applauded him for his role in the case, including General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who praised the young Californian for his diligence and fairness. But others held a grudge against him for what they claimed was a political vendetta, in spite of the evidence against Hiss and his conviction and imprisonment. Some say the US left's pervasive antipathy to Richard Nixon began with the Hiss case. As for Richard Nixon, he summed it up this way: "A guilty man was sent to prison who otherwise would have been condemned as a liar; and the nation acquired a better understanding, vital to its security, of the strategy and tactics of the Communist conspiracy at home and abroad." Nixon's lifelong belief in Hiss's guilt was further vindicated when the US government released information about the Verona Project, a highly classified effort to monitor and de-crypt telegraphic communications between Soviet spies in the US and their superiors in the Soviet Union from 1943 through 1946. The Verona papers identified 349 with connections to the Soviet intelligence bureaucracy. They included Harry White, a powerful official in the Treasury Department; Lauchlin Currie, personal assistant to President Roosevelt; and Theodore Hall, a physicist with the Manhattan Project. One decoded message from March 30, 1945 notes that a State Department official working as a Soviet agent accompanied President Roosevelt to the Yalta Conference and then flew on to Moscow. National Security Agency analysts have concluded that the agent, code-named "Ales," could only have been Alger Hiss. Because of the realities of the Cold War, the US government withheld this information from Richard Nixon, the House Committee on Un-American Activities, and Federal prosecutors. The first Verona transcripts were finally made public in July 1995, three and a half years after the fall of Soviet communism -- and 15 months after RN's death. In the wake of the Verona revelations, almost no one defends Alger Hiss.
47. NIXON1_130722_488.JPG: Helene -- Tell the sisters they must have been praying for me last night. 5 minutes before it started I didn't think I could do it. Then I sat down, put my head in my hands + prayed 'God Thy will be done not mine.' Well, I guess they came through for me. Dick Nixon.
48. NIXON1_130722_493.JPG: "God Thy will be done not mine": During the 1952 campaign, Richard Nixon's friend Jack Drown was serving as a volunteer advance man. Helene Drown, who had been among Pat's best friends since they were teachers together at Whittier High School, often traveled with the Nixons, including during the tense days leading up to the Senator's make-or-break television address on the fund allegations. Mrs. Drown was also a close friend of a Carmelite nun in Long Beach, and during a brief stopover while RN was en route to Los Angeles for the broadcast, she wired her friend and asked her and others in the order to pray for him. Back on the plane, she told him what she had done. The morning after the speech, RN sent Helene a note, written on the back of a sheet from his typed campaign schedule: "Helene -- Tell the sisters they must have been praying for me last night. 5 minutes before it started I didn't think I could do it. Then I sat down, put my head in my hands, and prayed 'God Thy will be done not mine.' Well, I guess they came through for me. Dick Nixon."
49. NIXON1_130722_494.JPG: Ike and Dick, Sure to Click "I don't want a figurehead" On July 1, 1952, Senator Nixon arrived at the Republican National Convention in Chicago. Although there was press speculation that Nixon could be the Vice Presidential candidate to unite the Eisenhower and Taft factions of the Republican Party, the young senator did not expect to receive the nomination. When one Chicago newspaper predicted that Eisenhower and Nixon would be the GOP nominees, Nixon bought half a dozen copies, saying, "That will probably be the last time we'll see that headline, and I want to be able to show it to my grandchildren." The Eisenhower convention team did not find a Nixon nomination such an unlikely prospect. The senator's youth, Western origins and international experience would make him a strong addition to any ticket. Furthermore, Nixon had an excellent record on two of the main GOP campaign issues: the threat of communism at home and abroad and corruption in the federal government. After an all-night discussion with Pat, Nixon decided to accept the invitation to another gruelling [sic] campaign, should it come. Later that day, the call came from the Eisenhower camp. "We picked you," Herb Brownell told Nixon. The Vice Presidential nominee met with Eisenhower, who spoke frankly about the road ahead, saying, "Dick, I don't want a Vice President who will be a figurehead. I want a man who will be a member of the team. And I want him to be able to step into the Presidency smoothly in case anything happens to me."
50. NIXON1_130722_502.JPG: On the Campaign Trail To the hustings The "Nixon Special" Every corner of the country Senator Nixon's "fighting campaign for the election of a fighting candidate" kicked off on September 17, 1952 with the departure of the Nixon Special from Pomona, California, where Nixon had begun his successful campaigns for House and Senate. During this first whistlestop tour, candidate Nixon promised an end to the Truman "mess in Washington" and took the message of Eisenhower's crusade to every corner of the country. "I pledge you this: the campaign General Eisenhower and I will wage between now and November 4 will be the most intensive in the history of American politics, from the standpoint of ground covered and speeches made. Why are we doing this? Because we believe that the issues of this crusade involve the survival of America itself. Ours is a task worthy of a dozen modern Paul Reveres, all equipped with highspeed airplanes and fast trains. We must awaken the country to its grave peril from within and without." -- RN, campaign speech, 1952
51. NIXON1_130722_508.JPG: The Fund Crisis: Rumors and accusations Telltale telecast Reconciliation On September 18, 1952, a headline that nearly cost Richard Nixon his candidacy appeared in the New York Post: "Secret Nixon Fund! Secret Rich Men's Trust Fund Keeps Nixon in Style Far Beyond His Salary." The fund in question was one set up by Nixon's supporters in California to enable to senator to run a "permanent campaign," one that would keep his constituents in touch with him throughout his six years in the Senate. The $16,000 account covered costs such as travel within the state, political mailings and Christmas cards sent to volunteers. Made up solely of small contributions from constituents and local businessmen, the fund was not secret, was not used for personal expenditures and was perfectly proper and legal. Many politicians, including the Democratic Presidential nominee, Adlai Stevenson, had similar political funds of their own. But press charges ignited national furor, and cut off from communication with the Eisenhower team, which was also traveling by train, Nixon realized that even false
52. NIXON1_130722_509.JPG: accusations of corruption might force him off the ticket. He considered resigning, only to be convinced by Pat that Eisenhower would lose the election if his running mater were forced off the ballot. "My fellow Americans, I come before you tonight as a candidate for the Vice Presidency and as a man whose honesty and integrity have been questioned." -- RN On the night of September 23, Nixon took his story to the nation. In a televised broadcast seen by 58 million Americans, the candidate, his wife Pat at his side, revealed to the world his personal finances and the whole story of the so-called secret fund. As the telecast drew to a close, Nixon asked Americans to write the Republican National Committee with their opinions on whether he should remain on the ticket. But the allotted thirty minutes had run out; Nixon was cut off before he could give viewers the address. Crushed, Nixon was convinced that he had failed. He was wrong. Democrats and Republicans alike telephoned, wired and wrote anywhere they could to show their support for the candidate. 300,000 letters and telegrams signed by more than one million people reached the Republican National Committee alone. Thousands more went directly to Eisenhower and Nixon. Eisenhower, whose own telegram to Nixon was lost in the outpouring, requested only that his running mate meet him in Wheeling, West Virginia. With no discussion of the crisis they had both just undergone, General Eisenhower met Nixon at the airport with a warm smile. Ike's greeting said it all: "You're my boy!" The team was back in action again.
53. NIXON1_130722_513.JPG: A Victorious Crusade The Nixons traveled a grueling 46,000 miles during the 1952 campaign. Candidate Nixon worked hard at rousing the Republican Party and endured an endless round of whistle-stops and press conferences. Hard work paid off. On election day the result was an Eisenhower-Nixon landslide, with a victory margin of more than 6.5 million votes. "You Have Gone Far" The day of Richard Nixon's inauguration as Vice President was not without time for personal reflection. On 39, he stood on the brink of some of the greatest challenges and greatest glories of his career. His mother Hannah, helped him remember just how much of a whirlwind the last decade had been. Before one of the inaugural balls, she slipped her son a note. He did not read it until later that night, and carried it with him always afterwards. She wrote: "You have gone far and we are proud of you always. I know that you will keep your relationship with your maker as it should be for after all that, as you must know, is the most important thing in this life."
54. NIXON1_130722_518.JPG: Top hat worn by Richard Nixon during 1953 inaugural
55. NIXON1_130722_520.JPG: Crisis in Caracas: When Vice President and Mrs. Nixon visited South America in 1958, they received enthusiastic welcomes at most of their stops. But diplomacy nearly turned to tragedy when they faced communist-led mobs in Peru and Venezuela. In Lima, against the advice of all his aides, Nixon accepted an invitation to San Marcos University, a hotbed of communist agitation. A mob greeted him by throwing stones. He stood his ground as long as he could. As his car pulled slowly away, Nixon stood up in the backseat and shouted out, "You are cowards, you are afraid of the truth -- you are the worst kind of cowards!" Later, in Caracas, a riot engulfed the Nixon motorcade and the Vice President and Mrs. Nixon barely escaped with their lives. As the mob poured over Nixon's car and threatened to turn it over and set it on fire, a Secret Service agent took out his gun and started to aim out the window. But the vice president again kept his cool. He put his hand on the agent's arm and told him to hold his fire. Then the car began to move again, and the crisis was over. Greeted by thousands upon their return to Washington, the Nixons received more than 25,000 letters, telegrams, and postcards of support for their conduct in Latin America. "You'll never top that trip, Dick. Don't try," wrote J. Edgar Hoover. Wired Nelson Rockefeller: "Your courage and determination have inspired Democratic forces throughout the hemisphere. We all feel a great sense of pride in your action. Congratulations."
56. NIXON1_130722_530.JPG: Vice President Nixon's limousine following the attack in Caracas, 1958
57. NIXON1_130722_533.JPG: The "Kitchen Debate": During the Vice President's trip to [the] Soviet Union, the event that captured the world's attention was the famed "Kitchen Debate" with Soviet Premier Khrushchev, which occurred as the two leaders toured the American pavilion at the Moscow exhibition. Khrushchev, reluctant to believe that modern conveniences were available to all Americans, challenged Nixon before a model American kitchen. The exchange -- a heated, finger-jabbing confrontation in which the two leaders vied to prove their country's superiority in technology and culture -- has been immortalized in the history of Soviet-US relations, and ended with Nixon's emergence as a leader on the world stage.
58. NIXON1_130722_536.JPG: Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev, American Exhibition in Moscow, USSR, 1959
59. NIXON1_130722_540.JPG: Hand-painted photo album from Iran, 1953
60. NIXON1_130722_546.JPG: A Heartbeat Away from the Presidency "The President has had a coronary." Thrust into the limelight A cool head and a steady hand It was late in the afternoon of September 24, 1955, when the White House Press Secretary telephoned Richard Nixon at home. "Dick, this is Jim Hagerty -- the President has had a coronary." Nixon's immediate reaction was one of shock. Dwight D. Eisenhower was the first US President to suffer a heart attack during his term of office, and it was a crisis of unprecedented proportion -- for the country, for the Eisenhower administration, and particularly for the young Vice President who was thrust into the limelight. During the days and weeks that followed, the country followed Nixon's every word, every action. He was expected to be neither too timid nor too brash, to provide leadership but not to assume power. And so the Vice President took a cautious approach -- and gained the praise of many observers.
61. NIXON1_130722_549.JPG: After the attack, one wrote, Nixon was "poised and restrained... a man close to great power not being presumptuously or prematurely assertive. This discreetly empty time was surely his finest official hour." Despite the extraordinary circumstances, much of the job was familiar to Nixon. He worked with other key men in the administration to set general policies and see them carried out. He presided over meetings of the Cabinet and the National Security Council, as he had done previously when the President was out of the country. And he kept a cool head and a steady hand in his meetings with the distinguished men working with him, prompting Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to tell the Vice President, "We are very grateful to you." "I have been asked a number of times the political and other implications of the President's illness. My answer to all of these questions is to express the concern I share with all the American people for the early and complete recovery of the President. Compared with this, all other questions aren't worthy of comment. "In the meantime, the business of government will continue as usual, under an administration which has been organized by the President to operate effectively in his absence. And the people of America, the people of other countries, can be sure that the United States will continue to go forward under the Eisenhower foreign and domestic policies." -- RN, press conference, 1955
62. NIXON1_130722_552.JPG: "You may be President in 24 hours" Another hurdle Speaking for the White House On November 25, 1957, Vice President Nixon received another phone call. It was Sherman Adams and he told Nixon to come to the White House "right away." President Eisenhower had suffered a stroke. "You may be President in 24 hours," Adams told Nixon. Once again, Nixon took the lead in the team effort of governing the nation. The Vice President held a news conference, and the New York Times reported that Nixon "handled a wide range of questions with skill and confidence." The crises forced on the young statesman rewarded him with the respect of the press and the nation. President Eisenhower, however, recuperated quickly and was "champing at the bit" to resume full operations just days after the stroke. "Either I run this dam show, or I'll resign," said Eisenhower on more than one occasion.
63. NIXON1_130722_557.JPG: An Amendment to the Constitution: Eisenhower and his closest advisors, including Nixon, were the first to recognize and act upon a serious gap in the Constitution -- what to do in the case of Presidential incapacity. Who was to decide whether or not the President was well enough to remain in office? This was an issue not made clear by Article II, Section I, Clause 5 of the Constitution, which deals with succession. Documents drafted in secret by Nixon and Eisenhower hammered out the ideas that were eventually incorporated into the 25th Amendment and added to the Constitution in 1967.
64. NIXON1_130722_560.JPG: A Member of the Team The busiest Vice President ever "Ambassador, elucidator and troubleshooter" After only a few months in office, Richard Nixon had gained a reputation as the busiest Vice President ever. As Time magazine reported, "In Washington and elsewhere, Nixon has worked constantly as the President's ambassador, elucidator and troubleshooter. As a key liaison man between Capitol Hill and the White House, he has been highly effective in advancing the Administration's position on big issues..." Vice President Nixon made speeches for the President, presided at meetings in his absence, did major liaison work with Congress and helped to shape Republican policy. With his keen desire to understand how things work and not "get into the rut of talking to the same people," Nixon fast became one of the best-informed men in the government. And President Eisenhower, too, insisted that his Vice President not be a figurehead, simply "pounding the gavel in the Senate." It was vital, said Eisenhower, that his second in command be completely informed on existing policies.
65. NIXON1_130722_564.JPG: Back on the trail again In 1956, many Americans waited to see whether or not President Eisenhower would seek re-election. Although he was at the height of his popularity, his health was uncertain, and many urged him to retire from the stress and strain of public office. When Eisenhower gave his go for a second term, there was some debate within the Republican Party as to who his running mate should be. Very few Vice Presidents had become President in the past, and there were those who thought Richard Nixon would be better off in a Cabinet post. Others simply wanted Nixon out of office. Harold Stassen led an anti-Nixon faction that urged Christian Herter on President Eisenhower as a running mate with Stassen himself waiting in the wings if Herter did not catch on, and a short-lived "dump Nixon" campaign was born. President Eisenhower responded to the "dump Nixon" campaign in a press conference, saying "I have not presumed to tell the Vice President what he should do with his own future... The only thing I have asked him to do is to chart out his own course, and tell me what he would like to do." Although the Stassen faction persisted in its desire to move Richard Nixon off the Republican ticket, the matter was settled months before the convention by the President and Vice President. Soon the old team was back in force, and once again "Ike and Dick" took to the streets, rails and tarmacs of America in search of votes. Working hard to win re-election, Richard Nixon embarked on a 14,150-mile campaign trip that hit 32 states. The Republican team won by one of the landslides in history. It was Nixon and Eisenhower with 35 million to 25 million over Stevenson and Kefauver.
66. NIXON1_130722_566.JPG: A meeting in the White House Vice President Nixon met in the White House with a broad spectrum of leaders, both international and domestic. One of these leaders was the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., a civil rights activist rising to national prominence. Nixon first met Martin Luther King Jr. in Ghana in 1957. King, who made no secret of his opposition to some of the administration's policies, came away impressed with the Vice President, whom he called "a superb diplomat." The two agreed to reconvene for a meeting in the Vice President's office on Capitol Hill, and later in the year they met again to discuss the struggle for racial equality in America and the upcoming civil rights bill. Nixon had won the respect of King, and other leaders earlier in the year, when he stood up to pro-segregation southern Democrats and even some leading Republicans in support of the civil rights bill. After their meeting, Dr. King wrote, "Let me say how deeply grateful we are to you for your assiduous labor and dauntless courage in seeking to make the Civil Rights Bill a reality. This has impressed people all across the country, both negro and white. This is certainly an expression of your devotion to the highest mandates of the moral law..."
67. NIXON1_130722_570.JPG: Fun and Games: "Perhaps the best description I can give of Dwight Eisenhower is that he had a warm smile and icy blue eyes. It was a case of being outwardly warm and inwardly cold. Rather, beneath his captivating personal appearance was a lot of finely tempered hard steel. He had exceptional warmth; but there was always a reserve, even an aloofness, that balanced it. Masses of people all over the world thought they knew him, but the people closest to him, his friends and colleagues who loved or admired him, understood that even they did not really know him well." -- RN
68. NIXON1_130722_573.JPG: Golf with the President
69. NIXON1_130722_576.JPG: Behind-the-scenes mission: "He [Dick] can sometimes take positions which are more political than it would be expected that I take. The difficulty with the McCarthy problem is that anybody who takes it on runs the risk of being called a pink. Dick has had experience in the communist field, and therefore he would not be subject to criticism." -- President Eisenhower As Richard Nixon saw it, one of the most serious problems that the Eisenhower administration inherited from President Truman was Senator Joe McCarthy. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy launched broad, unsubstantiated attacks on Communist infiltrators in all walks of American life, including the federal government. President Eisenhower questioned McCarthy's tactics, and soon after the election of 1952 Richard Nixon moved in to try to broker the growing feud between the Senator and Eisenhower. By 1953, McCarthy turned to an investigation of the Army, and the Army-McCarthy hearings led to McCarthy's condemnation before the Senate in 1954. It was Nixon was attempted to work out a compromise between the determined senator and the angry president, and it was Nixon who found that "the go-between is seldom popular with either side."
70. NIXON1_130722_587.JPG: Nixon's campaign theme song from the 1960 presidential campaign. JFK used "High Hopes" from Frank Sinatra. Nixon used "N*I*X*O*N: The Man for Us" by Inez Wilson Clark
71. NIXON1_130722_606.JPG: 1960 Campaign: Richard Nixon visited all fifty states in the Presidential race of 1960, and at each stop along the way momentos to the campaign were in evidence -- buttons, banners, pins and even parasols. From the ticker-tape canyons of Wall Steet to the intimate whistlestops of small towns, Americans turned out in force to meet their two young candidates for the Presidency. The result was one of the most energetic campaigns in Presidential history, a close race between two men who captured the imagination of the nation.
72. NIXON1_130722_611.JPG: 1960 "Jack Kennedy and I were both in the peak years of our political energy, and we were contesting great issues in a watershed period of American life and history." -- RN In the summer of 1960, two young men became the final candidates for President of the United States. The Republicans nominated Vice President Richard Nixon, the frontrunner and acknowledged leader of the party. The Democrats threw their support to Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts, who would have to overcome both his inexperience in the international arena and the widespread perception that a Catholic could never win a presidential election. The Nixon-Kennedy race for the White House not only changed the style and substance of American politics but also began to shape a new era and a new definition of national purpose. For Nixon, it was a fight to the finish; even hours after the polls had closed on Election Day, the race was too close to call. At the end of the campaign that included the first televised presidential debates, a fifty-state campaign, serious injury and the possibility of a contested election, Richard Nixon was defeated by one of the closest margins in presidential history.
73. NIXON1_130722_616.JPG: The Race Begins The Democrats: Three Democrats were the major contenders in the 1960 race for President. Senator John Kennedy of Massachusetts and Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota were the early front-runners, battling it out in the primaries. Meanwhile, Senator Lyndon Johnson of Texas was also a serious presidential hopeful. By the end of April, Kennedy had defeated Humphrey in both Wisconsin and West Virginia, a state that was overwhelmingly Protestant and should have been a Humphrey stronghold. Humphrey never forgave Bobby Kennedy for last minute dirty tricks in the Wisconsin primary, which were designed to make Humphrey appear to be anti-Catholic. The Massachusetts Senator's nomination seemed to be inevitable -- except for the uncertainty concerning Adlai Stevenson. Stevenson, the former Governor of Illinois and the Democratic candidate in both 1952 and 1956, had declined to enter the 1960 race. But speculation was that while Stevenson didn't want to go [to] the Convention, he was all too willing for the Convention to come to him. The Republicans: Although New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller made no bones about the fact that he wanted the nomination, he declined to take the risk of challenging the Vice President in the primaries. Richard Nixon, for the most part, ran alone in the pre-convention campaign. His real test, he knew, would come not from within his own party but from the Democratic nominee. Nixon began to think seriously about running for President as far back as 1958, after the Republican Party had been severely weakened by huge losses in the off-year election. Close friends and advisors approached Nixon with the prospect of running for President in 1960, perhaps knowing that Nixon would run far ahead of the Republican Party in the polls. Nixon knew the race for the Presidency would be an uphill battle, even though the fourteen years he had spent in public office, especially his eight years as Vice President, had given him unparalleled experience in government, both at home and abroad, and most Republicans viewed him as the obvious choice for the Presidency. By early in the election year of 1960, the Vice President was running a dead heat in public opinion polls against the man he was sure would be the Democratic contender, John Kennedy.
74. NIXON1_130722_617.JPG: Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts
75. NIXON1_130722_620.JPG: The Conventions: The Democrats: At the Democratic National Convention all eyes turned to Senator John Kennedy, who had eliminated Hubert Humphrey in crucial primaries. Kennedy won the nomination but not before a spirited call from the floor for a draft of Adlai Stevenson of Illinois. Lyndon Johnson, the Democratic leader of the Senate and runner-up in the race for the Presidential nomination, accepted the Vice Presidential slot on the Kennedy ticket. The Republicans: Time to Speak Up For America: In July 1960, Richard Nixon became the first Vice President in the history of the modern two-party system to win a presidential nomination. Nixon chose Henry Cabot Lodge, US Ambassador to the United Nations, as his running mate and won the Republican nomination on the first ballot. The balloting ended in an overwhelming demonstration of support for Nixon: 1,321 votes on the polling of state delegations. In his acceptance speech, Nixon urged Americans to recognize what was right about America and to speak up for it. There were eight standing ovations during the speech and a boisterous demonstration at the end. "There have been other great acceptance speeches," wrote the editor of the Christian Science Monitor. "But I cannot recall one that contained so many great phrases, standing for so many great ideas, as that delivered from notes by [the] Vice President.... [He] took the Republican Party... far deeper into global idealism and vision than ever before." "The only answer to a strategy of victory for the communist world is a strategy of victory for the free world. When Mr. Khrushchev says that our children will live under communism, let us say that his children will live in freedom." -- RN, acceptance speech, Republican National Convention, 1960
76. NIXON1_130722_627.JPG: John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, Democratic National Convention, Los Angeles, 1960
77. NIXON1_130722_630.JPG: The Nation and the World, 1960: "Foreign affairs takes an easy 2-to-1 lead over domestic affairs as the most important issue facing the country today, and the reason advanced by more people who intend to vote for Nixon than any other reason was that he had more experience than Kennedy, particularly in foreign affairs." -- Elmo Roper, public opinion analyst for CBS Kennedy charged that recessions during the 1950's had pushed the American growth rate behind those of Europe and the Soviet Union, and foreign policy and the economy became key issues in the campaign of 1960. Although the United States had a huge advantage over the Soviet Union in nuclear weapons, the Democrats falsely claimed the US was falling behind the Soviets in missiles and other areas. The Eisenhower administration was forced to contend with crisis on both foreign and domestic fronts. The U-2 incident, Khrushchev's blustering, the Democrat's non-existent "missile-gap" and worldwide unrest captured the headlines. In the presidential campaign, Senator Kennedy picked up on the U-2 incident, insisted that President Eisenhower should apologize to Khrushchev. Vice President Nixon responded by saying that the President of the United States should never apologize for taking action necessary to protect the security of the American people. U-2 became an issue in the campaign and televised debates to follow. "What we must do is wage the battles for peace and freedom with the same... dedication with which we wage battles in a war... The only answer to a strategy of victory for the Communist world is a strategy of victory for the free world. Let the victory we seek... be the victory of freedom over tyranny, of plenty over hunger, of health over disease, in every country of the world." -- RN
78. NIXON1_130722_633.JPG: "Peace and Prosperity" At the Chicago convention, Richard Nixon announced an ambitious plan to take his campaign into every one of the fifty states. The Republican candidate's plan came in response to a poll following the Democratic National Convention that showed Kennedy and Johnson leading a Nixon and Lodge duo by 55 to 45 percent. Later polls would show that Nixon was boosted by his eloquent acceptance speech, as Gallup results indicated Nixon-Lodge leading Kennedy-Johnson 53 to 47 percent. Within a few weeks, the pollsters marked the teams in a dead heat that would last throughout the campaign. Nixon began his fifty-state marathon with early August appearances in Nevada, California, Hawaii, and Washington; by the time the month was out, he had also criss-crossed North Carolina, Alabama, and Georgia. Nixon's campaign was cut short, however, by a knee injury that kept him hospitalized throughout the early weeks of September and cost him valuable campaign tmie and energy. The campaign was a strenuous one for both candidates. Keeping his promise to campaign in all fifty states, Richard Nixon travelled more than 65,000 miles. Theodore White wrote that the campaign between Nixon and Kennedy "flung them, by senseless ritual and tradition, into such physical exertion day after day, night after night as would sap the energies of a trained athlete."
79. NIXON1_130722_636.JPG: Campaign Issues: The year 1960 marked a time of change in [sic] at home as well as abroad, and new social and political issues rose to the forefront of the campaign. Questions about the path America would take on the issues of civil rights and religious freedom became major campaign topics. Civil Rights: The first year of the new decade witnessed the dawning of a new racial and moral consciousness in America. The resulting conflict increasingly captured national attention. Civil rights leader Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested during an Atlanta desegregation demonstration. King was subsequently released after Robert Kennedy, brother of candidate John Kennedy, made a phone call to the judge involved in the Georgia arrest. Richard Nixon felt that such action was inappropriate and unethical for a lawyer in the younger Kennedy's position but believed that Kennedy's move cost Nixon many votes in the black community. Vice President Nixon was a leading supporter of civil rights in the Eisenhower administration. He had met with Martin Luther King, Jr. and had also gained the support of Jackie Robinson, to whom he explained, "I have consistently taken a strong position on civil rights, not only for the clear-cut moral considerations involved, but for the other reasons which reach beyond our nation's borders." Nixon maintained his firm stance throughout the Presidential campaign, stating: "It is the responsibility of every American to do everything that he can to make this country a proud example of freedom and the recognition of human dignity in the world." Religion: "The worst thing that I can think can happen in this campaign would be for it to be decided on relgious [sic] issues." -- RN The issue of religion surfaced in the campaign of 1960 when John Kennedy, a Catholic, won the Democratic nomination. The United States had never elected a Catholic President, and many predicted that Kennedy's religion would prevent him from attaining the nation's highest office. Both Kennedy and Nixon attempted to diffuse the issue by refusing to discuss religion as a campaign issue. In fact, however, the candidates had little control over voters' attitudes and speculations. At a grassroots level, the religious issue was very real, and many falsely charged that it was Nixon campaigners who insisted on drawing attention to Kennedy's Catholicism. Nixon, who had always gained the support of Catholic voters in the past due to his anti-communist credentials, received only 22 percent of the Catholic vote in 1960 -- the smallest percentage of any candidate in history. Steering clear of the issue of anti-Catholic sentiment for months, Senator Kennedy finally accepted an invitation from the Greater Houston Ministerial Association to discuss his religion. His speech gave a substantial boost to the Kennedy candidacy.
80. NIXON1_130722_643.JPG: The question is, not whether Senator Kennedy or I believe that religion is an issue -- we don't believe it is -- not whether we believe it should be an issue -- both of us believe it should not be an issue -- the question is, how do you keep it out of a campaign? ... As far as I am concerned, I have issued orders to all of the people in my campaign not to discuss religion, not to raise it, not to allow anybody to participate in the campaign who does so on that ground, and as far as I am concerned, I will decline to discuss religion and will discuss other issues in order to keep the minds of the people on the issues that should decide this election and to keep them off of an issue that should not enter into it. -- Richard Nixon, "Meet the Press," September 1960
81. NIXON1_130722_647.JPG: The Final Stretch: "The campaign had an intensity of spirit that was at once exhausting and uplifting." -- RN As the candidates entered the final stretch of the campaign, Kennedy continued to promise to "get the country moving again," and warning that Americans were in danger of becoming "second-raters." Nixon fought back, defending the Eisenhower administration on the issues of peace and prosperity and arguing that America's prestige abroad was as great as ever. For the most part, President Eisenhower was not out on the campaign trail. The ailing President wanted desperately to turn out in support of Nixon, but was dissuaded by Nixon himself, who had been told by Mrs. Eisenhower and the President's doctor, General Snyder, that Eisenhower's health would be jeopardized if he undertook too heavy a schedule. Perhaps most frustrating of all for both Eisenhower and Nixon was the fact that the President could not get out and campaign, support Nixon or challenge Kennedy's repeated charges that the United States was second rate, that American defenses were inadequate, and that there was a missile gap. "This is my reply: I say that when the Communists are running us down abroad, it is time to speak up for America at home. Let us recognize that America has its weaknesses, and that constructive criticism of those weaknesses is essential -- essential so that we can correct those weaknesses in the best traditions of our democratic process. But let us also recognize this: while it is dangerous to see nothing wrong in America, it is just as wrong to refuse to recognize what is right about America. "No criticism should be allowed to obscure the truth either at home or abroad that today America is the strongest nation militarily, economically, ideologically, in the world; and we have the will and the stamina and the resources to maintain that strength in the years ahead." -- RN
82. NIXON1_130722_651.JPG: The Great Debates: "Well, Jack and I have in previous campaigns participated in some debates... I can say when you ask: 'Do you look forward to it?' I can say that it's a very rugged experience. It will be for Senator Kennedy; it will be for me." -- RN The 1960 campaign was marked by an innovation in American politics: televised presidential debates. For the first time, millions of Americans could see and hear the candidates in face-to-face discussions, sometimes heated, of their views. The series of four debates gave Senator Kennedy an opportunity to demonstrate his knowledge and self-assurance to the nation, countering the Republican argument that he was too young and inexperienced for the Presidency. Nixon entered the first debate overtired, underweight, and not fully recovered from a recent injury that had landed him in the hospital for two weeks. A leading Democratic editor, Ralph McGill, heard the debate on radio and thought that Nixon was the clear winner, but polls showed Kennedy was the winner on television. Although he made a strong showing in the three subsequent debates, Nixon learned -- the hard way -- that when the cameras roll, appearance counts, sometimes even more than substance. Surprisingly, the 1960 debates do not appear to have had a substantial impact on voters. Gallup polls reveal that before the first debate Nixon led by one percent. Gallup's last poll before the election showed Kennedy ahead by one percent. On election day, it was a dead heat, with Kennedy winning by one-tenth of one percent. The undeniable effect of the debates was to usher in a new style of political campaigning, one in which television is key. Candidates ever since have had to confront television as a campaign necessity and have wrestled with the unique opportunities and problems it presents.
83. NIXON1_130722_653.JPG: Senator John Kennedy and Vice President Richard Nixon relax moments after the conclusion of their first televised debate, Chicago
84. NIXON1_130722_659.JPG: Election Results: The popular vote in the election of 1960 was the closest since that of 1888. The final tally indicated that 49.7 percent of the popular vote had gone to Kennedy, 49.6 percent to Nixon. A change of a total of 11,085 votes in four states -- Illinois, Missouri, Delaware, and Hawaii -- out of 69 million cast nationwide would have changed the outcome. Candidate Nixon held out all night before conceding, later emphasizing the closeness of the tabulation -- a losing difference of just two votes per precinct. Reports of massive vote fraud in Illinois and Texas persisted, raising the issue of a possible recount. "Mr. President," Mayor Daley of Chicago reportedly told Kennedy, "with a little bit of luck and the help of a few close friends, you're going to carry Illinois." Wrenching as it was, the nature of the final vote helped to convince Richard Nixon that his political career was not over. He did not demand a recount, as many urged; President Eisenhower even offered to help to finance it. Nixon declared that the "country couldn't afford the agony of a Constitutional crisis -- and I damn well will not be a party to one just to become President or anything else." "Nobody knows to this day, or ever will, whom the American people really elected President in 1960. Under the prevailing system, John F. Kennedy was inaugurated, but it is not all clear that this was really the will of the people or, if so, by what means and margin that will was expressed." -- RN
85. NIXON1_130722_664.JPG: Richard and Pat Nixon, Los Angeles, November 7, 1960. At 12:15am, the Nixons went downstairs to the ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel. While Mrs. Nixon fought to contain her tears, the candidate guardedly conceded the election, admitting that "if the present trend continues, Senator Kennedy will be the next President of the United States."
86. NIXON2_130722_004.JPG: Return to California: Family, law and Los Angeles: Early in 1961, the Nixons left Washington for Los Angeles. Once again, they enjoyed the pleasures of life in Southern California. Already writing a regular newspaper column, Richard Nixon began work with the law firm of Adams, Duque and Hazeltine; Pat helped to create a new home for the family high in the hills above the city. Julie and Tricia enjoyed a life out of the limelight for the first time in their home state, settling happily into school and sun.
87. NIXON2_130722_007.JPG: Six Crises: The Hiss Case The Fund Crisis of 1952 President Eisenhower's Heart Attack The Attack in Caracas The Kitchen Debate with Khrushchev The Campaign of 1960 At a White House dinner shortly after the election of 1960, Richard Nixon and Mamie Eisenhower discussed the books that could be written about the Eisenhower administration. The Vice President told Mrs. Eisenhower that he had decided against writing a book -- The only story to tell, Nixon believed, was that to be told by the President. Mrs. Eisenhower argued that the Vice Presidency was a story worth telling, and was among many who convinced Richard Nixon to present his own account of eight years as second-in-command. The task proved a difficult one. Writing Six Crises, Nixon later joked, turned out to be the seventh major crisis of his life. "Among the yucca trees and chapparal of the high desert country in Southern California, Richard Nixon went into seclusion for eight days. In a small house on the grounds of the Apple Valley Inn, he barricaded himself with groceries, long yellow legal pads, a tape recorder and reels of tape. ".... He rose at seven each morning. For breakfast, he had a glass of canned orange juice and a bowl of Grape Nut flakes with milk. Then he began jotting notes and dictating. At noon each day, he stopped to fix a ham-and-cheese sandwich. The only visitor he allowed himself during those days came each night about six from the George Air Force Base in nearby Victorville: Major Don Hughes, who had served Nixon as aide during his years as Vice President. Not even Hughes broke Nixon's concentration long; Nixon ate alone; a frozen TV dinner, usually tacos and enchiladas with Mexican beans. "On the eighth day, Nixon dictated four forty-five minute tapes, completing the rough draft of a book to be published this spring." -- Esquire, February 1962
88. NIXON2_130722_011.JPG: Richard Nixon, Los Angeles, 1961. In the peace and isolation of his Los Angeles study, Richard Nixon reflects on the crises that forged his career.
89. NIXON2_130722_018.JPG: Insights and Wisdom "Many had a 'wilderness' period. The insights and wisdom they gained during that period, and the strength they developed in fighting back from it, were key elements in the greatness they demonstrated later." -- RN Many other leaders who went on to become heads of state spent years out of office. Winston Churchill, Charles DeGaulle and Konrad Adenauer all used years in private life to write, reflect and hone their political thinking. Rebounding from illness and several lost elections, Winston Churchill fought bravely to regain public office and wrote prodigiously during his time out of office. An unfortunate appointment to the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1929 gained him the blame for Britain's financial woes during the Great Depression, beginning a second wilderness period for the British statesman. But before rising to the post of Prime Minister in 1940, Churchill was able to create several masterpieces of modern British history -- Marlborough and Great Contemporaries. Konrad Adenauer, first Chancellor of West Germany, spent a solitary idyll in a Benedictine Abbey near the Rhine, forced out of sight by Hitler's rise to power. Adenauer used this time to hone his practical political instincts. French President Charles DeGaulle left office in 1945, and for the next twelve years kept a low profile. He likened his wilderness years to those of his American colleague Richard Nixon, pointed out, "Mr. Nixon, like me, will have been an exile in his own country." Writing Memoires de Guerre enhanced DeGaulle's skills as apolitical tactician, and in 1958 he made a comeback, meeting the challenge of the Presidency with a new and direct leadership style.
90. NIXON2_130722_021.JPG: The Wilderness Years 1961-1967: "I will not retire from public life." -- RN For the first time in nearly fifteen years, Richard Nixon was out of office. The former Vice President took stock of the situation and decided not to turn his back on public life. Still a prominent figure on the national and international scenes -- even after his unsuccessful 1962 bid for governor of California -- Nixon spent these "wilderness" years, as he called them, close to his wife and daughters, writing and practicing law, and taking stock of his future.
91. NIXON2_130722_024.JPG: A Tough Decision The duty to run Serious misgivings "The wrong race at the wrong time" As soon as Richard Nixon returned to California, there was speculation that he would be a candidate in the 1962 gubernatorial race. The former Vice President was not eager to take on another campaign; he later acknowledged that, in fact, the real problem was that he had no great desire to be governor of California. Yet it was hard to ignore the advice of the many Republicans who urged him to run. Close advisors argued that the governorship was a logical stepping-stone to the Presidency and predicted that turning down this opportunity would mean Nixon was finished in national politics. Others such as Dwight Eisenhower insisted that it was the former Vice President's duty, as a responsible and popular Republican, to beat the Democratic incumbent Edmund "Pat" Brown. At a press conference on September 27, 1961, Nixon made two announcements that he would not be a candidate for President in 1964, and that he would run for governor in 1962. Privately, he and his family had serious misgivings. Pat Nixon later deemed the 1962 campaign "the wrong race for the wrong man at the wrong time." In 1961, Richard Nixon sought the advice of his family, above all others, regarding the California gubernatorial race. He later recalled the decisive conversation he had in his study with his wife, Pat: "She sat down on the sofa, outside the pool of light cast by my desk lamp. Her face was in the shadows, but I could tell from her voice that she was fighting not to show her tremendous disappointment. 'I've thought about it some more,' she said, 'and I am more convinced than ever that if you run it will be a terrible mistake. But if you weigh everybody and still decide to run, I will support your decision. I'll be there campaigning with you just as I always have.' 'I'm making notes to announce that I won't be running,' I said, pointing to the yellow pad before me on the desk. 'No, she said firmly, 'you must do whatever you think is right. If you think this is right for you, then you must do it.' We sat for some time in silence. Then she came over to me, put her hand on my shoulder, kissed me, and left the room. After she had gone, I tore off the top sheet of paper and threw it into the wastebasket. On a fresh page I began making notes for an announcement that I had decided to run." -- RN
92. NIXON2_130722_027.JPG: California Campaign: Attack and counterattack Three questions Another tough defeat "in the campaign just a year ago we heard about the new frontiers for America. California is the frontier and I want the first state of this nation to be a proud example for all the people of America. It is in that spirit I announce tonight my intention to seek the Governorship of the State of California." -- RN, opening the campaign for Governor, September 1962 Having made the difficult decision to run, Richard Nixon looked forward to another campaign. But the campaign for governor of California in 1962 was characterized by charge and countercharge, attack and counterattack -- all in all, not a pleasant experience for either candidate. For candidate Nixon, press conferences inevitably centered on three questions: a loan that his brother had secured without Nixon's knowledge from the Hughes Tool Company; an endorsement, which Nixon repeatedly repudiated, from the John Birch Society; and the charge he would use governorship of California as a stepping-stone to the Presidency. Nixon felt that his proposals for California -- boosts to education, freeway construction, water projects and tougher police forces -- were largely ignored by the media and consequently by voters. In the end, Richard Nixon lost to Pat Brown by 297,000 votes out of 6,000,000 cast -- another close race, another tough defeat.
93. NIXON2_130722_030.JPG: Richard and Pat Nixon, San Francisco, 1962
94. NIXON2_130722_034.JPG: "You Won't Have Nixon to Kick Around Anymore" The morning after his defeat, a tired, discouraged Richard Nixon declined to face the waiting press, instead dispatching his press secretary to deliver his concession statement. But at the last moment, the candidate changed his mind -- and, in what he himself dubbed as his "last press conference," he faced the press alone. "The anger and frustration, the disappointment and fatigue struggling inside me burst out," Nixon later recalled. Opening his remarks by observing, "now that all the members of the press are so delighted that I lost," he made no secret of his anger at the way the media had covered the campaign. With a wry smile, he concluded: "I leave you gentlemen now and you will now write it. You will interpret it. That's your right. But as I leave you I want you to know -- just think 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, and it will be one in which I have welcomed the opportunity to test wits with you. I have sometimes disagreed with you... "I believe in reading what my opponents say, and I hope what I have said today will at least make television, radio, and the press first recognize the great responsibility they have to report all the news and, second, recognize that they have a right and a responsibility, if they're against a candidate, to give him the shaft, put one lonely reporter on the campaign who will report what the candidate says now and then. "Thank you, gentlemen, and good day."
95. NIXON2_130722_044.JPG: "The Political Obituary of Richard Nixon" In the eyes of many observers of the political scene, Richard Nixon was finished. The most emphatic pronouncement came less than a week after the election, when Howard K. Smith hosted "The Political Obituary of Richard Nixon," a half-hour special on ABC television. Guests on the show included both those who supported and those who opposed Richard Nixon. Congressman Jerry Ford expressed his regret over his fellow Republican's apparent retirement from politics. Former opponent Jerry Voorhis complained about the 1946 campaign. But the greatest uproar was caused by the appearance of the show's most controversial guest, Alger Hiss. Thousands of critical letters and telegrams poured in, condemning ABC's decision to allow Hiss, a convicted perjurer, to comment on Nixon's career. The letters let Nixon know that many Americans were still behind him. Ironically, his "political obituary" reassured him that his political life was not necessarily over.
96. NIXON2_130722_048.JPG: Going East: Private Citizen At home and abroad Politics In 1963 the Nixons decided to move to New York, making a temporary break with both politics and California. An apartment on Fifth Avenue became home, and he became senior partner in the Wall Street law firm of Nixon, Mudge, Rose, Guthrie and Alexander. These years in New York hardly marked a retirement from public life, as Nixon continued to travel, speak, and remain in the public eye. He journeyed to nearly forty countries in Asia and Europe during the years 1961-68, including three round-the-world trips and visits to Moscow in 1964 and 1967. Continuing to play a role in party politics, Nixon campaigned in 1964 for Senator Barry Goldwater, his party's nominee for President, and for numerous Republican candidates in the 1966 Congressional elections. "From the first day at my new job I was sure that I had made the right decision in moving to New York... One night less than two weeks after we had moved into our new apartment, Pat looked across the dinner table and said to me, "I hope we never move again." " -- RN
97. NIXON2_130722_052.JPG: Defending the Right to Privacy: In 1966, attorney Richard Nixon got his chance to argue a case before the Supreme Court. The case centered on an issue he had strong feelings about -- press abuse of privacy. The James Hill family had been held prisoners in their home by escape convicts in 1952. A play based on the incident, "The Desperate Hours," was publicized in LIFE magazine by a series of photographs of the play's cast in the very house where the incident occurred. The Hill family felt that the article invaded their privacy, and when LIFE appealed a New York court's ruling and took the case to the Supreme Court, Nixon agreed to argue the Hill side. Nixon argued that the article was fiction, not journalism, and that the pain of the Hill family was being exploited for profit. Justice Abe Fortas called Nixon's argument one fo the best he had heard since joining the Court. In a private session, the Court voted 6-3 in favor of the Hills. But the case set off a major clash between Justice Hugo Black, who believed in absolute press freedom, and Fortas, who believed in balancing the First Amendment against people's right to privacy. Nixon flew to Washington for a reargument -- and a dramatic confrontation with Justice Black. "The heart of this case," Nixon told Black, "is that the violent episodes pictured.... in LIFE magazine were not experienced by the Hills, and LIFE magazine stated, by pictures and by words, that they did." When the Court went behind closed doors again, Black won. In 1967, the Supreme Court decided against the beleaguered family. Even if the press reported something it knew was false, Black argued in a concurring opinion, its erroneous and damaging statements deserved to be protected by the First Amendment.
98. NIXON2_130722_059.JPG: 1968 Campaign: This year of political upheaval produced more than its share of memorable slogans -- "Nixon's the one!" for example, or the more dramatic, "This year, vote like your whole world depended on it." Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey were energetic campaigners, and Americans, often bearing colorful banners and sporting buttons on lapels and hats, turned out in droves to see them on the stump debating the great issues of the day. Here is a small sampling from a big, brawling political year.
99. NIXON2_130722_070.JPG: Coming Back: The years ahead Republican gains Back on the road January 9, 1965 was Richard Nixon's fifty-second birthday. As was his custom, he sat down and considered what he wanted to accomplish in the year ahead. This marked the first time he started to think about making the race for the White House. Preparing for 1968 involved more than establishing an organization and raising funds. Nixon's active work toward reinvigorating the GOP had to be coupled with an intense period of study, preparation, and reflection. The demands on Nixon's time and energy would be almost contradictory -- the rigors of campaigning do not allow much time for quiet thought and reflection. In 1966 the entire House of Representatives would be up for election, as would one-third of the Senate. These off-year elections presented Richard Nixon both with opportunity and with risk. If he could lead the Party to victory by taking the major role in campaigning for candidates across the nation, Nixon would be in a strong position for 1968. However, should the Republicans fare poorly in 1966, Nixon would have to shoulder the blame for dragging the party down to defeat. Nixon decided to take the risk. He campaigned hard for Republican candidates across the length and breadth of America. Nixon was so effective, the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee asked him to reply to President Johnson in a pre-election TV broadcast. Later, observers admitted that this speech probably made the difference in a few close House races. On Election Day the Republicans enjoyed a tremendous victory -- they picked up 47 seats in the House of Representatives, three in the Senate, eight governorships, and 540 seats in state legislatures. Because of his hard work out on the stump, and because he predicted almost exactly the gains the Republicans would make, Richard Nixon was closely identified with his party's triumph. As 1966 came to a close, virtually every political observer expected to find Nixon back on the road early in 1967, working towards the 1968 Presidential nomination.
100. NIXON2_130722_074.JPG: Out of the Spotlight: A six-month moratorium The hopes of the world Peace and freedom Nixon surprised the pundits. To the consternation of his supporters and the delight of his detractors, Nixon removed himself from the political scene for the first six months of 1967. During this period, a small group of Nixon's longtime supporters were putting together an organization that would be ready to swing into action at the proper time. But the potential candidate remained above the fray. Nixon used this time out of the spotlight to plan for the race and hone his views about the changing world scene. In 1967 Nixon visited the four major continents outside of North America: Asia, Europe (including the Soviet Union), Africa, and Latin America. He used these trips as a way to renew his many contacts abroad and refine his thinking on the foreign issues confronting the United States. In July 1967, Richard Nixon laid out his vision for America for the balance of the twentieth century in a speech at the prestigious Bohemian Grove in California. "As we enter this last third of the twentieth century the hopes of the world rest with America. Whether peace and freedom survive in the world depends on American leadership. "Never has a nation had more advantages to lead. Our economic superiority is enormous; our military superiority can be whatever we choose to make it. Most important, it happens that we are on the right side -- the side of freedom and peace and progress against the forces of totalitarianism, reaction, and war. "There is only one area where there is any question -- that is whether American has the national character and moral stamina to see us through this long and difficult struggle."
101. NIXON2_130722_077.JPG: 1968: "If there is one man the Democrats want the GOP to nominate it is the sinkable Richard Nixon." -- The New Republic, June 3, 1967 After his defeats in the 1960 Presidential election and in the 1962 California Gubernatorial election, most political pundits proclaimed Richard Nixon's sixteen-year political career finished. ABC News even featured Alger Hiss in a half-hour program called "The Political Obituary of Richard Nixon." Nixon left California for New York City and a Wall Street law firm. Though out of public office, he was not out of public life. He continued to travel and speak, campaigning vigorously for Republican candidates in 1964 and 1966. By 1968, Nixon was again positioned to run for the Presidency. Overcoming the claims of those who said, "Nixon can't win," he rolled up victory after victory in the primaries and was nominated on the first ballot as the Republican candidate for President of the United States. Following the convention, Nixon went to the nation with his hopes and goals for a sharply divided and troubled America. On November 5, 1968, the American people elected Richard Nixon the thirty-seventh President of the United States, capping the most extraordinary political comeback of modern times.
102. NIXON2_130722_084.JPG: The Democratic Primaries: The President bows out Anti-war candidates Before the March 12 New Hampshire primary, most political observers expected President Johnson to receive the Democrats' nod for the Presidency. But Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy changed that. A fierce opponent of Johnson's policy in Vietnam, McCarthy came so close to beating Johnson in the New Hampshire primary that most commentators painted the results as an outright defeat for the President. With Johnson weakened, anti-war New York Senator Robert E. Kennedy entered the race. Liberal columnist Murray Kempton charged that Kennedy had merely waited until Johnson was "bloodied in New Hampshire" and that Kennedy was a coward for coming "down the hills to shoot the wounded." On March 31, President Johnson withdrew as a candidate. Soon Johnson's Vice President, Hubert Humphrey, would join McCarthy and Kennedy in the race. The primary season ended in California on June 4. While the momentum had shifted among the three candidates throughout May, Kennedy's victory in California was a big step toward the nomination. Tragically, Senator Kennedy was killed by an assassin's bullet as he was leaving his victory celebration at Los Angeles' Ambassador Hotel. That left Hubert Humphrey as Nixon's likely opponent in November.
103. NIXON2_130722_087.JPG: The Republican National Convention: Odds-on favorite First ballot victory With the primary season over, attention turned to the nominating convention to be held in Miami Beach from August 5-8. Nixon's unbroken string of primary victories made him the odds-on favorite, but the nomination was not yet locked up. Rockefeller and Reagan hoped that they could secure enough support to deny Nixon a first ballot victory, which could throw the convention wide open. With the convention still several weeks away, former President Eisenhower showed his confidence that his former Vice President could win in November by endorsing him for the nomination. This was especially meaningful because Eisenhower had been expected to wait until after the convention to give his endorsement. Eisenhower sent Nixon a copy of the endorsement with a note written across the top: "Dear Dick -- This was something I truly enjoyed doing -- DE." Reagan's efforts to garner the support of Southern conservatives and Rockefeller's efforts to convince the delegates that only he could win in November were fruitless. On August 7, 1968 the Republican Party nominated Richard Nixon to be the thirty-seventh President of the United States. In his tremendously effective acceptance speech, Richard Nixon spelled out the themes which would define his candidacy. As he had done during the primaries, the new nominee directed his appeal to all Americans, not just Republicans. "The choice we make in 1968 will determine not only the future of America but the future of peace and freedom in the world for the last third of the twentieth century. And the question we ask tonight: Can American meet this great challenge? "With God's help and your help, we shall surely succeed."
104. NIXON2_130722_091.JPG: Pat, Julie and Tricia Nixon, joined by David Eisenhower at the Republican National Convention, Miami, 1968
105. NIXON2_130722_100.JPG: 1968 Campaign: This year of political upheaval produced more than its share of memorable slogans -- "Nixon's the one!" for example, or the more dramatic "This time, vote like your whole world depended on it." Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey were energetic campaigners, and Americans, often bearing colorful banners and sporting buttons on lapels and hats, turned out in droves to see them on the stump debating the great issues of the day. Here is a small sampling from the big, brawling political year.
106. NIXON2_130722_104.JPG: The Democratic National Convention: An unruly scene Platform battles The Democrats held their convention late in August in Chicago. The events surrounding their gathering made it one of the most tumultuous, and ultimately most self-destructive, national political conventions ever held. Scenes of violent clashes between police and protestors right outside the convention hall were carried by television into homes across America. Inside the convention hall, party discipline unravelled as bitter battles took place over the antiwar plank of the platform and other issues. The value of the nominations for President and Vice President won by Hubert Humphrey and Maine Senator Edmund Muskie was seriously undermined by the events surrounding the convention. Witnessing this unruly scene caused many Americans to question whether the Democrats were capable of running the country if they couldn't even run their own convention.
107. NIXON2_130722_109.JPG: The Issues: Richard Nixon waged the campaign of 1968 on the great issues confronting the United States, including the war in Vietnam, rising crime, growing disenchantment with the Great Society, and the challenge to extend equal opportunity to all Americans. Between Labor Day and Election Day, Nixon gave scores of speeches in person, on radio, and on television. The campaign issued a 194-page collection of positions taken by the candidate on 227 specific issues. The candidate gave a series of addresses talking in detail about such diverse issues as "The Nature of the Presidency," "A Better Day for the American Indian," "Modern American Agriculture," "The Crusade Against Crime," "Today's Youth: The Great Generation," "Problems of the Cities," and "America's Natural Resources." Nixon's position on Vietnam is a good illustration of how he approached a great issue. Some candidates exploited the division in the country over the war, offering simplistic slogans instead of carefully reasoned proposals. Nixon rejected that approach. As early as March 14 he said there was "no magic formula, no gimmick. If I had a gimmick, I would tell Lyndon Johnson." That didn't keep his critics from charging that Nixon had claimed to have a "secret plan" to end the war. He never made such a claim. His thoughtful treatment of the issues frustrated his critics, who were more comfortable with quick-fix solutions than they were with well-thought-out proposals. Some have called his 1968 campaign the first modern media-managed campaign. But this assertion does not hold up under scrutiny. Nixon engaged the voters in an active dialogue about all of the important issues confronting the nation. He was not afraid to take courageous and principled stands. By the time Election Day arrived, the electorate knew exactly where Nixon stood on the great issues of the day; he stood with them, and they stood with him.
108. NIXON2_130722_116.JPG: The Campaign: Key states Holding the lead A vision for America The campaign of 1968 took place in one of the most difficult political years in American history. The tragic assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy, the unprecedented violence at the Democrat's convention in Chicago, the often violent and obscene heckling of candidates by demonstrators, all combined to make the 1968 campaign a trial such as few other American political candidates have ever had to endure. The first Gallup Poll following the Democratic convention showed the Republicans with a commanding lead: Nixon, 41 percent; Humphrey, 31 percent; Alabama Governor and American Independent Party candidate George C. Wallace, 19 percent; with 7 percent undecided. Nixon concentrated his major effort in seven key states: New York, California, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Michigan. Carrying four of these states, in combinations with the states he expected to win in the Midwest, the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, and the Far West, and victories in the Southern border states would give Nixon the electoral votes needed to win. Nixon campaigned long and hard through September into October. Being the frontrunner made him the target for those who were trailing. But his lead continued to hold, in spite of Humphrey's best efforts to erode it. Nixon also had to hold down the Wallace vote, because polls showed that Wallace voters favored Nixon over Humphrey by a two-to-one margin. As the campaign entered its final weeks, Nixon was campaigning eighteen to twenty hours a day. He continued to hit on the differences between his vision for America and Humphrey's record as the number two man in the Johnson Administration.
109. NIXON2_130722_122.JPG: The Wallace Factor: Nixon's position, while strong, was obviously undermined by the third-party candidacy of Alabama Governor George Wallace. Wallace was attracting the votes of both conservative Democrats and of Southern Democrats who would otherwise be voting for Nixon. The Deep South, which had gone for Goldwater in 1964, was solid for Wallace in 1968. But the states on the rim of the Deep South showed Wallace voters choosing Nixon as their second choice by more than two to one. The Nixon campaign's message to voters in those states was, "Don't waste your vote by voting for Wallace." Nixon's strategy succeeded. Wallace's forty-five electoral votes came only from the Deep South, while Nixon carried most of the states on the rim of the South, including Virginia, the Carolinas, and Florida.
110. NIXON2_130722_124.JPG: The Humphrey Response: Humphrey was faced with the challenge of bringing back the traditional Democratic constituencies that had deserted him over the war. To woo them back, Humphrey began to move himself away from the Johnson administration's position on Vietnam. In a September 30 speech in Salt Lake City, Humphrey finally appeared to break with Johnson. This gave Humphrey the spark he needed to reclaim the support of liberal Democrats who had been sitting on the sidelines. However, while his campaign picked up steam, his support among the electorate did not. Humphrey continued to trail in the polls.
111. NIXON2_130722_127.JPG: The Bombing Halt: A boost for Humphrey The chance to have peace After holding onto a strong lead through most of the campaign, Nixon's lead started to shrink as Election Day approached and disaffected Democrats began to return to the fold. On October 31, President Johnson made an announcement which nearly gave Humphrey the push he needed to win on November 5. In a nationwide television address, President Johnson announced a halt to the bombing of North Vietnam, maintaining that progress in the negotiations had made such a step possible. This had an electric effect on the Humphrey campaign, while putting Nixon in a difficult position. Nixon responded to Johnson's announcement in the only responsible way, "I will say that as a Presidential candidate, and my Vice Presidential candidate joins me in this, that neither he nor I will say anything that might destroy the chance to have peace." There is little doubt that Johnson's announcement was designed to give Humphrey a last-minute boost. Nixon, however, refused to play politics with the issue, even though it seemed apparent that politics helped motivate the timing of the bombing halt.
112. NIXON2_130722_130.JPG: The Home Stretch Still fighting Last-minute telethon Going down to the wire, Nixon continued to run hard. Against the advice of most of his advisors, he scheduled a telethon the day before the election. For four hours, Nixons fielded questions phoned in from voters from around the country. Without this last-minute effort to reach out directly to the people, Humphrey might well have won a narrow margin on Election Day.
113. NIXON2_130722_133.JPG: The Nixon Family on the Campaign Trail: Running for President was a Nixon family affair in 1968, with Mrs. Nixon and the Nixon girls, Tricia and Julie, very active on the campaign trail. Mrs. Nixon accompanied her husband on his travels around the nation, as she had done in so many previous campaigns. People responded to her as the warm, sensitive, caring woman her family and friends knew her to be. She was tireless in her efforts on behalf of her husband. The Nixons' daughters had grown up around politics and were adept campaigners. Both in their early twenties, Tricia and Julie were unstinting on behalf of their family's candidacy. Their enthusiasm, energy and conviction won the hearts, and votes, of people around the nation.
114. NIXON2_130722_137.JPG: Victory An incredible comeback "Bring Us Together" November 5, 1968 capped one of the most incredible comebacks in American political history when Richard Nixon was elected the 37th President of the United States. After a long night of agonizing waiting which saw the lead switch between the two major candidates several times, Humphrey conceded defeat, and Nixon could claim victory. There is no doubt that the Wallace candidacy hurt Nixon. Polls taken after the election showed that Nixon could have received the same mandate Eisenhower had won in 1952 if Wallace had not been in the race. Nixon was also working against very unfavorable press coverage. Edith Efron's book "The News Twisters" documented the words spoken "for" and "against" Nixon by reporters for the three networks. Her careful analysis demonstrated that the television news gave Nixon overwhelmingly negative coverage while giving Humphrey highly favorable coverage. On the morning of November 6, the President-elect addressed his supporters in New York and around the nation and recalled something he had seen on the campaign trail. "I saw many signs in this campaign. Some of them were not friendly and some were very friendly. But the one that touched me the most was the one I saw in Deschler, Ohio, at the end of a long day of whistle stopping. A little town, I suppose five times the population was there in the dusk, almost impossible to see -- but a teenager held up a sign, 'Bring Us Together.' And that will be the great objective of this administration at the outset, to bring the American people together."
115. NIXON2_130722_155.JPG: Chou En-Lai and Mao
116. NIXON2_130722_160.JPG: Yoshida Shigeru (prime minister of Japan)
117. NIXON2_130722_164.JPG: Churchill, deGaulle, and Adenauer
118. NIXON2_130722_169.JPG: Sadat and Golda Meir
119. NIXON2_130722_172.JPG: Brezhnev and Khrushchev
120. NIXON2_130722_197.JPG: Why are these leaders here? When the private Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace constructed this gallery nearly twenty years ago, President Nixon asked that it include statues of the major world figures he had dealt with throughout his career. His book Leaders includes vignettes about many of the people represented in this room. The presence of the statues in this gallery does not imply that the United States government, which has operated this museum since July 2007, takes a position on their legacies.
121. NIXON2_130722_210.JPG: Panda Crate: Crate used to transport one of the Giant Pandas. The panda Hsing Hsing and Ling Ling were a gift from the People's Republic of China to the United States, April, 1972. On loan courtesy of the Smithsonian National Zoological Park.
122. NIXON2_130722_280.JPG: Tricia Nixon Cox Tricia Nixon first met Edward Cox at a high school dance in 1963. The next year, when Tricia was a freshman at Finch College and Ed a freshman at Princeton, he escorted her to the International Debutante Ball in New York. By November 1970 they were engaged, and planning a wedding in the White House. Tricia's wedding was the sixteenth to be celebrated in the White House. Mrs. Nixon suggested a ceremony in the Rose Garden, and the detailed planning began. The morning of June 12, 1971, was cloudy. With constant threat of rain, Tricia decided to go forward with the outdoor ceremony as scheduled, at 4:30. Julie Nixon Eisenhower later described the ceremony: "... to the sound of Bach's 'Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring,' my father escorted his firstborn from the Blue Room of the White House down the wisteria-twined stairs of the South Portico and along the path that led to the Rose Garden. There was a slight breeze and Tricia's many-tiered veil, held in place by a pearl-encrusted lace Juliet cap, fluttered gently. Not until Ed had softly kissed his bride on the cheek did the raindrops begin to fall again."
123. NIXON2_130722_305.JPG: The Presidential Limousine: White House Lincoln Continental Limousine used by President Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter. This limousine was delivered to President Johnson in October of 1968. President-elect Nixon had his first ride a month later when Johnson sent the car to the Washington airport to take his successor to Walter Reed Hospital for a post-election call on former President Eisenhower. Besides the Presidents and their families, it was used by numerous heads of states, consular members and other dignitaries. It was retired from White House service on April 11, 1978 and returned to the Ford Motor Company.
124. NIXON2_130722_313.JPG: Presidential Limousine. White House Lincoln Continental Limousine Used by President Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter: This Lincoln Continental is a 1967 model featuring Ford's regular production 462-inch, 340 hp V-8 engine. Though the vehicle generally has the outward appearance of a luxury automobile, a close examination reveals multiple unique construction details. The automobile's windows and transparent bubble top are bullet proof and thicker than the glass and plastic used in fighter planes. They are capable of stopping a .30-caliber rifle bullet. The rear bumper folds down to provide a platform for Secret Service agents. The vehicle turns on four heavy duty truck tires. Inside each tire is an inner steel disc with a hard rubber thread allowing the limousine to be driven up to 50 miles at top speeds with all four tires flat. Ford Motor Company retained the services of Lehmann Peterson to customize a regular production Lincoln into this White House Continental. To build the car, they took a regular Continental, cut it in half, and inserted a center section. About two tons of armor plating was added bringing the car's total weight to over 11,000 pounds. The 1977 Guinness Book of World Records states that this is "the most expensive car ever built... cost for research, development and manufacturing was estimated at $500,000."
125. NIXON2_130722_337.JPG: Plastic Ballpoint Pen 1972 Republican National Convention
126. NIXON2_130722_358.JPG: Medal and Chain: Gift to President Nixon from Sammy Davis Jr. The medal is engraved "Peace and Love Sammy."
127. NIXON2_130722_363.JPG: World War II commemorative Colt .45 semi-automatic pistol that Presley gave to the President during their meeting.
128. NIXON2_130722_369.JPG: When the President Met the King: In December 1970, during a visit to Washington, Elvis Presley requested a meeting with President Nixon to express his concern about drugs, communism, and their impact on America's young people. He told the President that he wanted to do everything he could to help restore respect for the flag. The President replied that Presley's credibility with young people was a precious thing and that the singer should carefully protect it. At the end of the meeting, Presley gave the President a World War II commemorative Colt .45 semi-automatic pistol and an autographed photo of his family, both of which are exhibited here. The photograph of the two men together, taken at the beginning of the meeting by a White House photographer, is the most requested photo in the history of the National Archives.
129. NIXON2_130722_376.JPG: Rock in the Shape of the President: Nixon's Profile: from Barry Goldwater
130. NIXON2_130722_381.JPG: 1972: In January 1972, President Nixon declared his candidacy for re-election. Since his last campaign, the mood of the country had changed dramatically. No longer was the nation sharply divided, floundering in the political chaos which had been the hallmark of 1968. By 1972, President Nixon had united the American people behind his policies at home and abroad. His historic landslide victory in November confirmed the success of his first term. For President Nixon, 1972 was a year of triumph. In the international arena, the year began with his historic trip to China in February. This was followed by the first state visit ever by an American President to the Soviet Union, and the signing in Moscow of the first nuclear arms control agreement in history. The war in Vietnam was coming to an [sic] close. Before election day, more than 90 percent of the American troops had returned home. At home, the economy was robust. The brakes had been put on inflation as a result of the President's wage and price control efforts and the growth rate of the economy had nearly doubled since 1969. Much to their frustration, this deprived the Democrats of one of their favorite campaign issues, the economy. In 1972, the Presidential campaign presented a clear choice about the kind of leadership America wanted. The voters made known their choice loud and clear -- they wanted "Four More Years."
131. NIXON2_130722_384.JPG: I loved the "Pretty Girls for NIXON" button. President Nixon ahora mas que nunca [now more than ever]
132. NIXON2_130722_387.JPG: The Republicans: On January 5, 1972, President Nixon authorized his supporters in New Hampshire to place his name on the primary ballot in this, the first primary state of the 1972 campaign. The contrast between 1972 and 1968 was extraordinary. In 1968, the sitting President saw his bid for another term melt away with the snows of New Hampshire. Just four years later, another President would launch his bid for a second term with a blizzard state. There was only token opposition to Nixon's renomination. Long before the campaign had begun, President Nixon had the Republican nomination locked up. Unlike in campaigns past, Richard Nixon would not be able to take an active role in the running of the campaign. The demands of Vietnam would not allow him to manage the campaign on a day-to-day basis. Nixon was able to rely on many of his long-time friends and associates to run the campaign while he ran the nation. Attorney General John Mitchell and Commerce Secretary Maurice Stans both resigned from the Cabinet to become Chairman and Finance Chairman of the Committee to Re-elect the President. Treasury Secretary John Connally, a Democrat who had served in the Kennedy Administration and had been three-times elected Governor of Texas, left the Cabinet to form "Democrats for Nixon," a highly effective effort to appeal to Democrats who were unable to support the radical, left-wing direction their party had taken. The campaign to re-elect the President was in high gear long before the Republican convention opened in Miami Beach in August. Before election day would dawn, the Committee would run one of the most creative, dynamic, and effective Presidential campaigns in American history.
133. NIXON2_130722_390.JPG: The Democrats: Early in 1972, Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine was the front-runner for the Democratic nomination. Having gained national exposure as Hubert Humphrey's running mate in 1968, Muskie was expected to do very well in the campaign's first contest in his neighboring state, New Hampshire. Muskie won in New Hampshire, but his victory was not as decisive as most had expected. The runner-up, Senator George McGovern of South Dakota, an ultra-liberal critic of President Nixon's policy for ending the war in Vietnam, left New Hampshire with new momentum simply because he did better than expected. Alabama Governor George Wallace, who was again seeking the Presidency, had to leave the race after a tragic assassination attempt left him paralyzed from the waist down. With Wallace out of the race, conservative Democrats had no place left for them in their own party. The Democratic race was fought all the way through to the last primary in California, which McGovern captured from Hubert Humphrey.
134. NIXON2_130722_393.JPG: The Democratic National Convention: "The 1972 Democratic convention in Miami was a political shambles." -- RN The 1972 Democratic National Convention in Miami Beach was unlike any which had preceded it. Changes in the delegate selection process following 1968 resulted in a convention in which traditional Democratic constituencies were under-represented as compared to the radical "New Left" elements of the Party. McGovern had overseen the rules changes and became their beneficiary. He was able to capture the nomination, even though his positions on major issues alienated millions of traditional mainstream Democrats. Chaos and a lack of discipline greeted McGovern's nomination. The party was in such disarray that McGovern was kept from making his acceptance speech, televised on nationwide television, until after 2:30 in the morning, long after the nation had gone to sleep. McGovern's Vice Presidential choice of Missouri Senator Thomas Eagleton also ran into trouble early. When it was revealed that Eagleton had received electroshock therapy years earlier, pressure mounted for him to leave the ticket. In his first test of leadership, McGovern faltered. After declaring he was "one thousand percent" behind his running mate, McGovern soon asked for and received Eagleton's withdrawal from the ticket. After a difficult search, former Peace Corps director Sargent Shriver agreed to join the beleaguered McGovern as his running mate.
135. NIXON2_130722_397.JPG: The Republican National Convention: "I ask you to join us as members of a new American majority bound together by our common ideals." -- RN The GOP also met in Miami Beach in 1972, just six weeks after the Democrats left. The only thing the two conventions had in common was their location. The Republicans were as united as the Democrats were divided, as capable in running their convention as the Democrats had been incapable. The strength of the Republican commitment to President Nixon's re-election was apparent in the wide array of speakers who addressed the convention calling for victory in November. New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, who tried to deny Nixon the nomination in 1968, placed Nixon's name in nomination in 1972. California Governor Ronald Reagan, also a Nixon opponent in 1968, served as the temporary chairman of the Convention. In the President's acceptance speech, he called on Americans to "Join our new majority -- not on the basis of the party label you wear in your lapel, but on the basis of what you believe in your hearts. I do not ask you to join our new majority because of what we have done in the past. I ask your support of the principles I believe should determine America's future." The electorate was ready to respond to the President's call. Polls taken following the convention showed that Nixon was on the verge of an historic landslide. A Gallup poll found that Nixon had better than a two-to-one lead among all voters, and that one of every three Democrats intended to vote for him as well.
136. NIXON2_130722_401.JPG: Polish for President Nixon Get to know as Nixonaire
137. NIXON2_130722_404.JPG: The Campaign: Despite President Nixon's huge lead, he was determined to wage a vigorous, all-out campaign. Since the duties of the Presidency did not permit him to spend as much time no the campaign trail as he did normally, others took on the job of bringing the message and the story of the record of the first term to the American people. Kansas Senator Bob Dole, chairman of the Republican National Committee, worked tirelessly in mobilizing the party in every state, bringing the battle to McGovern in his trademark articulate, incisive fashion. Secretary of State Bill Rogers energized the Cabinet to defend the Administration's foreign policy record in non-political speeches against the attacks of McGovern and Shriver. Democrats for Nixon, under John Connally's dynamic leadership, were extremely effective in mobilizing Democrats who believed their party had abandoned them and their long-held beliefs. Once again, the Nixon family took to the campaign trail. Mrs. Nixon, Julie and Tricia undertook back-breaking schedules to represent the President in every corner of the nation. While Julie's husband, David, was unable to participate in the campaign because he was on active duty with the Navy, the newest member of the Nixon family, Tricia's husband, Ed Cox, made scores of highly effective speeches at college and universities around the country. In the closing weeks of the campaign, the President took to the stump himself. He received enormously enthusiastic welcomes wherever he went, with crowds chanting "Four More Years" while holding aloft the four fingers of their right hand. At a campaign appearance in Atlanta, more than a half a million people turned out to greet the President and Mrs. Nixon. Attempts by left-wing hecklers to drown him out did nothing to dampen the enthusiasm of those who came to hear the President speak.
138. NIXON2_130722_408.JPG: While the Committee to Re-elect the President was waging its highly successful campaign, the Democrats were waging what Pat Buchanan later called in a column in the New York Times, "Just about the dirtiest, meanest Presidential campaign in this nation's history." As the polls continued to indicate the making of a Nixon landslide, McGovern and Shriver became increasingly desperate in their attacks on President Nixon and the accomplishments of his first four years. On at least three occasions, McGovern compared Nixon and his Administration to Hitler and Germany's Third Reich. McGovern said that any working man supporting Nixon "should have his head examined," while Shriver maintained that Nixon was himself a "psychiatric case." Although the President was on the verge of ending America's longest war, McGovern accused him of "descend(ing) to a new level of barbarism" in Vietnam. The Democrats' campaign tactics were not limited to overheated rhetoric. Some state McGovern campaign officials actively recruited people to disrupt appearances by the President, Vicce President Agnew, and members of the Nixon family. Nixon campaign offices in Phoenix and Austin were gutted by arsonists. Headquarters in Dayton, Ohio and in Minnesota were broken into, with records, equipment, and campaign material destroyed. One office in Alameda County, California, suffered heavy damage after being bombed. Even President Nixon's doctor's office was the victim of a break-in. While no money or drugs were taken, the President's medical files were removed from a locked closet and left strewn about the floor of the office. But these efforts to disrupt the President's re-election campaign proved futile. As election day approached, polls continued to show that Nixon was poised to roll-up a victory of historic proportions.
139. NIXON2_130722_412.JPG: Hungarians for President
140. NIXON2_130722_416.JPG: Four More Years "I've never known a national election where I could go to bed earlier." -- RN The wait for the results on election night was brief. As the polls closed, state by state, around the nation, the results were the same -- voters wanted President Nixon for Four More Years. Nixon carried every state in the union but one, Massachusetts. No Republican had ever before won as many electoral votes, 521, or carried a greater percentage of the popular vote, 60.7 percent. No Presidential candidate had ever before carried as many states. Nixon's victory was broad and deep. The Silent Majority had spoken. On Election night, the President spoke for all Americans: "Now that the election is over, it is time to get on with the great tasks that lie before us. I very firmly believe that what units America today is infinitely more important than those things which divide us. I would only hope that in these next four years we can so conduct ourselves in this country, and so meet our responsibilities in the world in building peace in the world, that years from now people will look back at the generation of the 1970's, at how we have conducted ourselves, and they will say, 'God bless America.'"
141. NIXON2_130722_420.JPG: The Second Term: President Nixon's handwritten note on his goals for the second term, January 1973.
142. NIXON2_130722_449.JPG: The Pat Nixon Amphitheater A Gift of Bob and Dolores Hope
143. NIXON2_130722_457.JPG: The President's VH-3A "Sea King" Helicopter -- Sky Witness to History: Nearly 50 years ago, Dwight D. Eisenhower became the first President to fly by helicopter, journeying between the White House and Camp David aboard a Bell UH-13-J. [It happened on July 12, 1957, just over 53 years before this photo was taken. The sign, specifying "nearly 50 years," is a little out of date.] In 1958, the Executive Flight Detachment was created as part of the US Army and given the responsibility of using helos to airlift the President and top officials to safety in the event of an attack or other emergency. A few months later, the Executive Marine Helicopter Squadron was formed to support Presidential transportation. As a result, White House helos have had a two-service personality over the years, known sometimes as Army One and sometimes as Marine One when the President was aboard. In 1976, the Marines took over exclusive operation of the President's fleet. Soon after creation of the Army and Marine units, the Bell aircraft were replaced by helos manufactured by Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation of Bridgeport, Connecticut. The helo on display at the Nixon Library, a VH-3A "Sea King," tail number 150617, was in the Presidential fleet from 1961-1976, transporting Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford and many foreign heads of state and government. It was flown by military transport plane to Egypt for President Nixon's historic 1974 visit, during which the President presented Anwar Sadat with an identical aircraft. This "Oval Office in the Sky" seats up to 16. While cruising, it is as quiet as a Boeing 727. During your visit, you will see the same carpet, upholstery, and other appointments President Nixon and his family and staff experienced during more than 180 missions, including his and Mrs. Nixon's final flight from the White House to Andrews Air Force Base on August 9, 1974. The President's chair, in the front of the cabin on the left facing front, is exactly as he left it. The Nixon Library extends its appreciation to the National Museum of the Marine Corps, the personnel of the US Navy Inventory Control Point, Sikorsky Aircraft, and the staff and volunteers of the March Air Reserve Base and March Field Art Museum in Riverside. We extend special thanks to our curator, Olivia Anastasiadis, and to Chief Pilot Lt. Col. Gene Boyer (US Army ret.) who flew 750 hours in the Sea King over 11 years, for his vision and inexhaustible energy in making this display possible.
144. NIXON2_130722_460.JPG: The President's VH-3A "Sea King" Helicopter -- Sky Witness to History: Nearly 50 years ago, Dwight D. Eisenhower became the first President to fly by helicopter, journeying between the White House and Camp David aboard a Bell UH-13-J. [It happened on July 12, 1957, just over 53 years before this photo was taken. The sign, specifying "nearly 50 years," is a little out of date.] In 1958, the Executive Flight Detachment was created as part of the US Army and given the responsibility of using helos to airlift the President and top officials to safety in the event of an attack or other emergency. A few months later, the Executive Marine Helicopter Squadron was formed to support Presidential transportation. As a result, White House helos have had a two-service personality over the years, known sometimes as Army One and sometimes as Marine One when the President was aboard. In 1976, the Marines took over exclusive operation of the President's fleet. Soon after creation of the Army and Marine units, the Bell aircraft were replaced by helos manufactured by Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation of Bridgeport, Connecticut. The helo on display at the Nixon Library, a VH-3A "Sea King," tail number 150617, was in the Presidential fleet from 1961-1976, transporting Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford and many foreign heads of state and government. It was flown by military transport plane to Egypt for President Nixon's historic 1974 visit, during which the President presented Anwar Sadat with an identical aircraft. This "Oval Office in the Sky" seats up to 16. While cruising, it is as quiet as a Boeing 727. During your visit, you will see the same carpet, upholstery, and other appointments President Nixon and his family and staff experienced during more than 180 missions, including his and Mrs. Nixon's final flight from the White House to Andrews Air Force Base on August 9, 1974. The President's chair, in the front of the cabin on the left facing front, is exactly as he left it. The Nixon Library extends its appreciation to the National Museum of the Marine Corps, the personnel of the US Navy Inventory Control Point, Sikorsky Aircraft, and the staff and volunteers of the March Air Reserve Base and March Field Art Museum in Riverside. We extend special thanks to our curator, Olivia Anastasiadis, and to Chief Pilot Lt. Col. Gene Boyer (US Army ret.) who flew 750 hours in the Sea King over 11 years, for his vision and inexhaustible energy in making this display possible.
145. NIXON2_130722_477.JPG: Richard Nixon 1913-1994 The greatest honor history can bestow is the title of peacemaker
146. NIXON2_130722_480.JPG: Patricia Ryan Nixon 1912-1993 Even when people can't speak your language, they can tell if you have love in your heart
147. NIXON2_130722_550.JPG: On June 12, 1971, Tricia Nixon and Edward Finch Cox were married in the White House Rose Garden. This gazebo, made especially for the ceremony, is on loan from the White House.
148. NIXON2_130722_557.JPG: This block of Aquia Creek Sandstone, quarried on Government Island, Stafford County, Virginia, was removed from the United States Capitol. The White House was also built with Aquia Sandstone.
149. NIXON2_130722_662.JPG: A Trip Back in TIME with RN Richard Nixon appeared on the cover of TIME 54 times -- more than anyone else in history. His first cover was in 1952, when he was nominated for Vice President. TIME's last RN cover was published the week of his death in April 1994. This survey of an extraordinary era of American history, and of the extraordinary career of one of its most influential statesmen, was made possible by a gift of original covers by TIME Inc.
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Wikipedia Description: Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum is the presidential library and final resting place of Richard Milhous Nixon, the 37th President of the United States. Located in Yorba Linda, California, the library is one of twelve administered by the National Archives and Records Administration. From its original dedication in 1990 until becoming a federal facility on July 11, 2007, the library and museum was operated by a private foundation and was known as the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace. The nine acre (36,000 m�) campus is located at 18001 Yorba Linda Boulevard in Yorba Linda, California and incorporates the National Historic Landmarked Richard Nixon Birthplace where Nixon was born in 1913 and spent his childhood. The facility is now jointly operated between NARA and the Richard Nixon Foundation.

Background prior to dedication:

Traditionally, materials and records of a U.S. president were considered to be his personal property upon leaving office. The Watergate scandal and Richard Nixon's subsequent resignation from office complicated the issue, however.

In September 1974, Richard Nixon made an agreement with the head of the General Services Administration, Arthur F. Sampson, to turn over most materials from his presidency, including tape recordings of conversations he had made in the White House; however, the recordings were to be destroyed after September 1, 1979 if directed by Nixon or by September 1, 1984 or his death otherwise. Alarmed that Nixon's tapes may be lost, Congress abrogated the Nixon-Sampson Agreement by passing S.4016, signed into law by President Gerald Ford on in December 1974 as the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act. It applied specifically to materials from the Nixon presidency, directing NARA to take ownership of the materials and process them as quickly as possible. Private materials were to be returned to Nixon.

As a result of the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act, President Nixon's White House papers and tapes were held by the National Archives, thus they could not be transferred to a facility in Yorba Linda. Funding to build the Nixon Library came from private sources. The estimated cost to build the institution was $25 million. Ground was broken by Julie Nixon Eisenhower, daughter of President and Mrs. Nixon, in December 1988.

Dedication:

The original Library & Birthplace was officially dedicated on July 19, 1990. Former President Nixon and First Lady Pat Nixon were present, as were President George H. W. Bush, then the President of the United States, former President Gerald Ford, former President Ronald Reagan, and first ladies Barbara Bush, Betty Ford, and Nancy Reagan. A crowd of 50,000 gathered for the ceremony. At the dedication, Nixon said, "Nothing we have ever seen matches this moment - to be welcomed home again."

Facilities:

The museum, housed in a 52,000-square-foot (4,800 m2) building, offers a narrative of Nixon's life and career. Behind the museum is the birthplace, which was constructed by Nixon's father using a homebuilding kit, and restored to appear as it was in 1910. President and Mrs. Nixon are buried on the grounds, just a few feet from the birthplace. Since California prohibits burial of remains on private property, the intended burial plot at the Library had to be deeded to a local church who classified the plot as a cemetery.

The Nixon Library compound also contains the Loker Center and Annenberg Court, a 38,000-square-foot (3,500 m2) wing with a Special Exhibit room and an exact replica of the East Room of the White House that is used as an event space; the East Room can be rented for events such as weddings and business meetings. This wing is under the control of the Nixon Foundation.

Permanent museum collection:

There is an extensive collection of memorabilia, formal clothing, and photographs of Nixon, his wife Pat, and their children. This collection includes an assortment of bronze figures of world leaders who had important relations with Nixon as President or as Vice President under President Eisenhower (1953-1961). The leaders' bodies have been accurately recreated in lightweight bronze over a papier-m�ch� frame, and they are dressed in their actual clothing. The U.S. government limousine used by President Nixon throughout his presidency, a customized 1969 Lincoln Continental, is on display in the Domestic affairs gallery.

Lieutenant Colonel Gene Boyer, President Nixon's Chief Helicopter Pilot, secured the President's VH-3A "Sea King" helicopter, tail number 150617, to be on permanent display on the library grounds. The helicopter was in the presidential fleet from 1961 to 1976, transporting Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford, and many foreign heads of state and government. Boyer flew President Nixon on his final flight from the White House to Andrews Air Force Base on August 9, 1974 in this aircraft.

Transition to National Archives:

In January 2004, the United States Congress passed legislation that provided for the establishment of a federally operated Nixon Presidential Library. Specifically, the legislation amended the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act of 1974, which mandated that Nixon's Presidential Materials were to remain in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. Under this new legislation, the materials are being moved from NARA's Archives II facility in College Park, Maryland to the federally operated facility in Yorba Linda.

In March 2005, then-the Archivist of the United States, Allen Weinstein, and the Reverend John H. Taylor, then-Executive Director of the privately run Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace Foundation (now Richard Nixon Foundation), exchanged letters on the requirements that allowed the Nixon Library & Birthplace to become the twelfth federally funded presidential library, operated and staffed by NARA in conjunction with the Nixon Foundation. In April, 2006, Weinstein appointed Timothy Naftali director of the Library. On July 11, 2007 the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum was officially welcomed into the federal presidential library system.

In the winter of 2006, NARA began transferring 30,000 presidential gifts from the Nixon Presidential Materials Staff in College Park, Maryland to Yorba Linda. Later that year, the institution began the transition from a private library to a federal presidential library, which including adding retrofits to the facility to house Nixon's presidential and pre-presidential materials according to NARA standards. NARA assisted the Library & Birthplace staff and the Nixon Foundation in planning for appropriate space to house these materials.

Library collections:

The Archives, which opened in March 1994, house approximately 6.2 million pages of records as well as extensive photographs, film reels, and recordings. Approximately 46 million pages of official White House records from the Nixon Administration are stored at NARA's Archives II facility in College Park, Maryland in accordance with the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act of 1974, and will be transferred to the newly-federal Yorba Linda facility from 2007-2009. The Nixon Presidential Materials Staff (nicknamed the "Nixon Project") had no previous affiliation with the Nixon Library, but lent materials to the Library & Birthplace in the past. Upon completion of the transfer of Nixon papers, gifts of state and memorabilia, the Nixon Materials Project will be discontinued. Once the transfer from the Nixon Presidential Materials project is complete, it will hold all of Nixon's presidential as well as his pre- and post-presidential papers.
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