Before Nixon’s landslide victory in ’68, he laid out what made him tick in a 1952 speech to save his VP campaign. Photo: Ollie Atkins, White House Photographer.
John A Farrell’s Richard Nixon: The Life is a story of relentless campaigning, intra-party battles and congressional, senatorial and presidential races that end in stunning victories or awful defeats, with an embattled Nixon showing off his redeeming traits and his fatal flaws.
Presidents are frequently remembered for singular episodes in their careers. In Nixon’s case, it’s obviously Watergate. But as with every person, the story is a bit more complex than that, and to truly understand Nixon, it might be better to go further back in his career, to 1952.
Though the man, the president and the politician are too complicated to cover in one review, there is one element in Nixon that speaks to who the man was and perhaps even what Nixon means. His very real talent for manoeuvring and cutting through the political fog to appeal directly to the people, rather than to Washington Kingmakers or through the media.
This was central to Nixon’s appeal.
Much like Menzies’ Forgotten People or Howard’s Battlers, Nixon appealed to the Silent Majority, the middle American, with children, a mortgage and not much money to throw around. He knew that his power rested with them.
Lieutenant Commander Richard Nixon, served in the Pacific in WWII. Photo: National Archives and Records Administration, U.S Government.
Eisenhower and Nixon campaigning for the White House. Photo: Abbie Rowe – U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, U.S Government.
Nixon taking the ultimate prize in American politics. Photo: Ollie Atkins, White House Photographer.
Nixon meeting with his Soviet counterpart, Leonid Brezhnev. Photo: Robert LeRoy Knudsen.
Before the famous “V” photo, the Fords guide the Nixons to Marine One. Photo: Ollie Atkins, White House Photographer.
John Farrell’s biography is an entertaining insight into one of the 21st century’s most complicated figures. Photo: John Murtagh.
Before TikTok and Instagram, Nixon recognised the value of the new medium of television.
In 1952, as the running mate of General Dwight D Eisenhower, Nixon was caught in an expenses scandal. He looked ready to cave before the campaign even began, potentially taking the former Supreme Allied Commander with him.
Questions arose about some relatively minor irregularities in how money donated to Nixon’s campaign was spent. For what it’s worth, regulations and laws were fairly loose back then and Nixon used the funds for such quaint expenses as mailing letters to voters in California and maintaining a staff.
Eisenhower prevaricated as advisors and confidantes told him to ditch the former Navy man from California, but the General waited to see what Dick Nixon would do. Nixon came up with a novel solution – explain his position.
Rather than dodge or obfuscate, he went on TV, speaking directly to the people, bypassing the opinion-makers in the media.
By going on TV, laying out his finances for all to examine, including his mortgage, life insurance, his car and his wife’s lack of a mink coat, Nixon showed the public he had nothing to hide.
What made the speech so compelling was that Nixon didn’t have to pretend to be a poor everyman. He was a poor everyman. He presented himself as the antithesis of the coastal elites, the Ivy League-educated political editors and ultimately, the Democratic candidate for President, Adlai Stevenson.
In the speech, Nixon explained that for all the accusations against him, he sure didn’t have much to show for it.
The political masterstroke was in mentioning one gift he did receive, a Cocker Spaniel named Checkers, shipped all the way from Texas, which, he said, he would keep, for the sake of his daughters.
He showed himself to be a man with a heart, laying out his credentials as a pull-yourself-up-from-your-bootstraps man, who had clawed his way into public office through grit and determination.
But it wasn’t enough to explain to the public; he needed them to support him, loudly and passionately. He asked the public to write or wire the RNC with their opinion on the stature of Mr Nixon.
Nine million television sets were tuned in to hear Nixon speak (the largest TV audience ever at the time), and hundreds of thousands were convinced enough to send their approval of the man from Yorba Linda, California, to the RNC. Nixon would stay on as VP.
Watching the speech in Cleveland, Eisenhower said, “That boy’s got a lot of courage.”
What became known as the Checkers Speech embodies much of what Nixon was: an everyman’s politician, an at-times brilliant campaigner, a family man and a wily operator with a developed sense of sentimentality.
Nixon is far too complex to sum up in fewer than 1000 words, and he is greater than the Watergate scandal. For anyone fascinated by the drudgery of campaigning, the roiling world of the 60s, Cold War intrigue, or the personalities of the powerful, this is a must-read – and it contains more than a few lessons for our leaders in 2026.
John A. Farrell’s Richard Nixon: The Life was first published by Scribe in 2017, with a second edition published in 2018 by Doubleday. It is available for $45.75 on Booktopia.
