Nixon

When I ordered the Richard Nixon and found out it was 866 pages, I said to myself, what have I gotten myself into. I know how this story ends. Watergate, "I'm not a crook" and walking onto the helicopter waving the victory sign as his Presidency ended. Two years ago I had read All the President's Men and learned Nixon was a very paranoid individual. Before starting the book, I decided to have an open mind about Richard Nixon.

The Barnes and Noble list recommends Richard Milhous Nixon.... The rise on an American Politician. My main goal in reading this book was trying to understand who Nixon was as a person.

The first thing I learned is that his middle name does not have an e. I knew his middle name was Milhous but I thought it was spelled Milhouse. Continuing the trend of Presidents FDR & JFK, the middle name Milhous is his mother Hannah's maiden name.

The Milhous and Nixon families settled in Southern California with Richard being born in 1913. he was born in Yorba Linda (site of his Presidential library) and grew up in Whittier. He attended regular Quaker services. California over one hundred years ago is not the California we know today.

The Nixon family owned a gas station in Whittier  and eventually added a grocery store. Richard would often rise around 4:00 am to buy produce for his family to sell. He did this while in high school and college. There was hardship for the family as Richard's brother died of tuberculosis
Richard graduated from Whittier College and Duke law school. He served a few years as a lawyer in Whittier and worked in Washington D.C. in the Office of Price Administration in the federal government.

Navy

When I started this journey on reading on book on all 44 Presidents, I wanted to learn if there are common traits among all of the men. One of those traits is military service. We know of Washington, Grant, Kennedy (Famous PT 109 story), Bush 41 and Carter having served in the military. Seven months after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Nixon joined the US Navy. I did not realize Nixon was in the Navy in World War II. This may be misleading as he was a lawyer and did not see active combat duty. Nonetheless, Nixon would state in future campaign ads he was a World War II vet.

1946 election for US rep
After returning from World War II, Nixon decided to run for the 12th Congressional seat in California. This was the beginning of a group of wealthy business and media members who would finance and advise Nixon the rest of his life. Nixon would defeat Democratic incumbent Jerry Voorhis and in the 80th US Congress join future Presidents JFK and LBJ in the House of Representatives.

Won reelection in 1948 
Nixon won reelection in 1948. With LBJ moving to the Senate and Gerald Ford winning election in the House. JFK also won reelection. That is four future US Presidents serving in the 81st Congress.  We have had it all. Former Generals (Washington, Grant and Eisenhower), Senators (Nixon, Kennedy & Obama) , Governors (Clinton, Bush 43 and Reagan) and reality TV stars (Trump). I find this very interesting that four future Presidents were serving in the same Congress. I may find later, this is not the most ever. I have decided to start working on a timeline for all 44 Presidents looking at where they were in various stages of their lives. More to come in the future.

Communism, HUAC & Alger Hiss
HUAC stands House Un-American Activities committee. Nixon was appointed to this committee as a freshmen rep in 1947. I knew about the McCarthy hearings in the 1950s and the term "McCarthyism". I did not know that prior to these hearings, Richard Nixon as a member of the HUAC committee took an active role in investigating communist activity in the United States. What I learned in the Nixon book, this Nixon was responsible for the investigation into Hiss. It's a very complicated story of  Whitaker Chambers, former State Department employee who served as witness, Father Cronin, a Catholic priest who was in conversations with the FBI and number of leaks from the FBI to Nixon and his committee. The story intertwines religion being involved in politics and the FBI led by J. Edgar Hoover. I first learned about Alger Hiss when I read the book on Truman. Hiss was a high ranking State Department official in the 1940s. He led the conference in 1949 which formed the United Nations. Hiss was convicted and sentenced to jail for being a Russian spy. This was a stain on the Truman Presidency.

1950 Senate election
After serving in two sessions of Congress at the age of 37, Nixon decided he wanted bigger and better things and decided to run for Senate. The democratic incumbent Sheridan Downey decided not to run for reelection. Helen Gahagan Douglas, a former actress, who had served three terms in the House representing California's 14th district secured the Democratic nomination. During the campaign, Douglas gave him the nickname "Tricky Dick".

I am losing count on the number of things I have learned reading the Presidential books. One of the many items in this book, John F. Kennedy on behalf of his father Joe, contributed to the Nixon campaign. Joe, who was a movie producer, did not want Douglas to win as she had some positions against the film industry. The contribution was made in private as the Kennedys did not want it known that they were openly endorsing a Republican.

Ronald Reagan, who at the time was an actor, formally endorsed Douglas. Reagan, at the time was a secret FBI informant into communist activity in Hollywood, would attend a Nixon rally with his future wife Nancy Davis. Attending this rally, converted Reagan to a Nixon supporter.

It was a very nasty campaign with Nixon continuing his anti-communist position and attempting to link Douglas to the communists. This link was not true but was effective as Nixon won the election with close to 60% of the vote.

1952 Presidential election
The Republican primary/convention for the Presidential nomination was a battle between Ohio senator Robert Taft (son for the 27th US President William Howard Taft), Dwight Eisenhower and California Governor Earl Warren (Future Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court). Eisenhower had no prior political experience and was even courted by the Democratic party. Nixon, with the help of his political machine, double crossed Warren and secured the VP spot on the ticket with Eisenhower.

After securing the nomination, the press reported of a Nixon secret fund. It was a fund that wealthy business owners in California contributed to in exchange for political favors from Nixon. He would publicly deny this was the intent of the fund. During a two week span Eisenhower did not communicate with Nixon as some for calling for Nixon to resign from the ticket. Nixon even drafted a resignation letter that he was going to send to Eisenhower. Nixon's campaign manager tore up the letter. After a national TV and radio address, Eisenhower decided to keep Nixon and win the Presidency. This period would have a lasting impact on the Eisenhower/Nixon relationship.

As I moved along in reading the book, I realized the book was not going to cover Nixon's entire life. The book ends with Eisenhower/Nixon ticket winning the 1952 Presidential election. While the book does not cover his time as Vice President and Presidency, the author does a tremendous job of going inside the political machine that elevated Nixon from a small time lawyer in Whittier, California to becoming the 37th President of the United States.

A quote on page 480 of the book there is a quote from Nixon that would come back to haunt him, "not even the immense power of a President (Truman) who has just won reelection could stop the march of truth." 

13 Books down, 7,791 pages complete. 31 to go.

Up next, Gerald Ford.