Six Crises

by Richard Nixon

  Khrushchev has challenged us to peaceful competition. We should not only accept his challenge—we should extend the area of competition.

  I have no doubt if the competition were limited merely to military and economic strength that we would win. But we are sure to win only if we play the game our way and not his. The answer to those who believe in an all-powerful government as the primary instrument of progress is not more power in government, but more power and responsibility in individuals. Communism provides an opportunity for maximum creative activity, at best, for thousands in an exclusive elite class. Our advantage is that our system, at its best, provides this opportunity for millions. But the system succeeds or fails to the extent that individuals respond to the challenge and seize the opportunity. Our potentially creative people must not stay on the side lines. They must play their part in the greatest drama of human history—the culmination of man’s fight through the centuries for human dignity and freedom, and against reaction and slavery.

  But even more important, we must not make the mistake of competing with the Communists only on the grounds and in the areas they select. We must extend the competition beyond the race to space, the power of our arms, the productivity of our factories—the areas, in other words of sheer materialism. Our spiritual and moral heritage, our dedication to individual liberties, our belief in the right of all people to choose the kind of economic, social, and political system they want—these are the truly great strengths of free government, and the correspondingly fatal weakness of dictatorial regimes. We must extend the competition—to both sides of the Iron Curtain—and deepen it.

  But our major need is to match and surpass the Communists in still another area. The greatest strength of Communism is not its military power, its exaggerated claims of economic progress, or the appeal of its ideology. It is, rather, its sense of mission, the will to win which its adherents carry into every battle. It is this spirit which can prove decisive in the outcome of any crisis—particularly the type of continuing crisis the Communists have created. They use crisis as a weapon, as a tactic in their all-front, all-out struggle against free peoples. They keep the pot boiling, they shift from burner to burner. They are implacable, relentless, and tireless.

  We must learn to live with this continuing crisis, to keep our guard up constantly, but without stretching our resources to the breaking point at all times, which would in the end destroy us. We must bring to this battle the maturity and serenity which will see us through periods of temporary setbacks. We must have that indispensable ingredient for success in times of crisis: a selfless concentration on the problem which confronts us. We must, as leaders in this struggle, decide what is right. And then we must lead, rather than restrict our action to what the weak and the timid will approve. Because, as in the case of an individual, a nation will be confident, cool, and decisive in battle to the extent its people have decided that its cause is just, that they must fight the battle rather than run away from it, and then make the preparations necessary for victory.

  History tells us we are on the right side. Despite the temporary successes of dictators, it is the ultimate destiny of men to be free. The great Indian statesman-scholar, Rajagopalachari, in 1953 put it this way to me: “Communism is doomed to failure because its principles are contrary to the nature of man.” Man needs God, and Communism is atheistic. Man wants to be free, and Communism enslaves him. Man cherishes his individual dignity, and Communism collectivizes him.

  And if we needed any further proof that freedom rather than Communism will prevail, we could point to what has happened on all the borders between Communism and freedom. In Korea, in China, in Vietnam, in Hungary, and in Germany, millions chose freedom when they had the choice.

  Foster Dulles summed up the case a year before his death when he said: “ . . . The Communist rulers have shown an immense capacity to extend their rule. But nowhere have they developed a capacity to make their rule genuinely and freely acceptable to the ruled.” He spoke, as always, with the voice not of complacency but of abiding faith.

  Nikita Khrushchev brings to the great crisis of this century all the elements necessary for success—except one. He is a man of decision; he is superbly prepared; he fights with coolness, confidence, and courage; he has unlimited stamina. But in the very area where he claims supreme confidence, he has a fatal weakness. Despite all his boasts, it is freedom rather than Communism that is the wave of the future.

  SECTION SIX

  The Campaign of 1960

  The most dangerous period in a crisis is not in the preparation or in the fighting of a battle, but in its aftermath. This is true even when the battle ends in victory. When it ends in defeat, in a contest where an individual has carried on his shoulders the hopes of millions, he then faces his greatest test.

  ON November 9, 1960, I joined a select group of four living Americans—Herbert Hoover, Alfred M. Landon, Thomas E. Dewey, and Adlai E. Stevenson—who have sought the Presidency of the United States, as the nominee of one of the two major parties, and who have lost.

  I will not try here to tell the complete story of the campaign of 1960. This entire book, and even more, would be required to do that. And I would be the first to admit that the candidate himself is least able to treat the subject objectively.

  What were the major decisions that affected the outcome? How and why were these decisions made? What are the reactions of the candidate, his wife, his children, his friends, as they realize that the longest, hardest, most intensive campaign in American history has ended not in victory but in defeat—and by the closest margin in this century?

  Years of effort go into the planning and execution of a presidential campaign. But in the end, only a few hours prove really to have mattered. Millions of words are written and spoken, but only a few phrases—usually unpredictable at the time—affect the result.

  So often is the candidate confronted with crises and decisions that they become almost routine. Preparing a major speech, approving a key platform provision, holding an important press conference, debating with his opponent—any one of these events may prove to be crucial in a close election.

  So I will try here merely to highlight those few hours, words, and decisions that from my vantage point, as the losing candidate for President in 1960, had the greatest effect on the result.

  I admit at the outset to some understandable bias. Some of the flash output that was rushed into print immediately after the campaign made me wonder if the writers were reporting the same campaign I had just lived through. I am also aware that many of my friends and supporters sincerely (and in many cases even angrily) believe that if only I had followed their advice in the campaign, the infinitesimal margin by which Kennedy was declared the winner would have been overcome and I would have been elected.

  Several weeks after the election, Len Hall summed it all up with one of his half-humorous, half-ironic quips. After analyzing the returns state-by-state, he said, “You know, Dick, a switch of only 14,000 votes and we would have been the heroes and they would have been the bums.”

  As I review in retrospect those significant events twelve months later, I am the first to recognize that if the year 1960 could be relived, I would revise some decisions and would do some things I did not do. But as I view this vast mural, with all the big and little factors that supposedly caused voters to cast their ballots one way or another, I must admit that I look back with a certain degree of pride on the campaign my associates and I waged. I have set forth this opinion at the outset only so that those who read these pages will take this factor into account as they try to evaluate for themselves the events I shall describe.

  One other preliminary comment. Anyone who reads this section, looking for others than myself to blame for decisions that may have contributed to defeat, will be disappointed. For those who practice the art of politics, there are two unbreakable rules. In a winning campaign, the candidate (if he wants a future in politics) must not only allow but encourage each one of literal
ly hordes of advisers and associates to take credit for the tactics that led to victory. In a losing campaign, only the candidate is responsible for the tactics that led to defeat.

  When does a presidential campaign really begin?

  I suppose this would make a better story if I could fit the facts of my life into the Great American Legend as to how presidential candidates are born and made.

  The legend goes something like this. A mother takes a child on her knee. She senses by looking into his eyes that there is something truly extraordinary about him. She says to herself and perhaps even to him, “You, son, are going to be President some day.” From that time on, he is tapped for greatness. He talks before he walks. He reads a thousand words a minute. He is bored by school because he is so much smarter than his teachers. He prepares himself for leadership by taking courses in public speaking and political science. He drives ever upward, calculating every step of the way until he reaches his and—less importantly—the nation’s destiny by becoming President of the United States.

  So goes the legend. The truth in my case is not stranger than fiction perhaps—but it may be more believable.

  The last thing my mother, a devout Quaker, wanted me to do was go into the warfare of politics. I recall she once expressed the hope that I might become a missionary to our Quaker mission fields in Central America. But true to her Quaker tradition, she never tried to force me in the direction she herself might have preferred.

  As far as I was concerned, my first ambition as a child was to become a railroad engineer—not because of any interest in engines (I have no mechanical aptitude whatever)—but because I wanted to travel and see the United States and the world. Only one train a day went through the town of Yorba Linda (population then of less than 300) and hearing its whistle as it slowed down at the crossing never failed to start me to daydreaming about the places I would visit when I grew up.

  I won my share of scholarships, and of speaking and debating prizes in school, not because I was smarter but because I worked longer and harder than some of my more gifted colleagues.1

  There were perhaps two major reasons for my competitive drive during these years. One was economic, the other personal.

  From an economic standpoint, I knew that I could not go on to college and to law school unless I was able to earn scholarships. It was as simple as that.

  The personal factor was contributed by my father. Because of illness in his family he had had to leave school after only six years of formal education. Never a day went by when he did not tell me and my four brothers how fortunate we were to be able to go to school. I was determined not to let him down. My biggest thrill in those years was to see the light in his eyes when I brought home a good report card. He loved the excitement and the battles of political life. During the two years he was bedridden before his death (which came just at the start of the 1956 campaign) his one request of me was that I send him the Congressional Record. He used to read it daily, cover-to-cover, something I never had the patience to do. I have often thought that with his fierce competitive drive and his intense interest in political issues, he might have been more successful than I in political life had he had the opportunity to continue his education.

  My college education fits into the traditional pattern of training for prospective presidential candidates no better than my early family background. The small Quaker college I attended—Whittier, in the pioneer Quaker community of that name just east of Los Angeles—did not offer a course in political science in the years I spent there. But looking back, I think the limited quantity of courses offered was offset by the high quality of the group of dedicated teachers under whom it was my privilege to study. History, literature, philosophy, and the classics—taught by inspirational men—is the best foundation for a career in politics. There will be plenty of time later to learn firsthand the intricacies of political strategy and tactics by working in the precincts. There will be too little time later for gaining indispensable knowledge in depth about the nature of man and the institutions he has created—an understanding which, from my experience, can better be acquired from the classics than from the more “practical” courses in politics.

  I hasten to add that this is not a case against courses in political science. After all, had I been exposed to one, I might have won the last election rather than losing it! I only express my opinion that if a choice has to be made, the college years—when the mind is quicker, more receptive, and more retentive than it will ever be again—can best be used to develop the whole man rather than the specialist. I would say that this is important whatever the field an individual may plan to enter. In the field of politics, it is an absolute must. It is not that people do not “grow” after they finish their formal education and enter public life. But the capacity to grow will be determined by the breadth and depth of the intellectual base which is acquired during the college years. If a man comes out of college with only the narrow and thin background of the highly trained political specialist, he may win elections—but he will serve neither his country nor himself as well as he should. He will be a sitting duck for every half-baked idea or time-worn cliché that comes along.

  In one respect, my education does fit the prescribed pattern for those planning to embark on a political career. I studied law, and approximately half of all the members of Congress are lawyers by background. To the extent that the study of law disciplines the mind, it can be most helpful in politics as well as in other fields. But as a lawyer I should add a caveat at this point: lawyers tend to be “nit-pickers.” Too often, when confronted with a problem, they approach it from the standpoint of “how not to do it” rather than “how to do it.” Lawyers in politics need non-lawyers around them to keep them from being too legalistic, too unimaginative. Looking back on my own years in law school (at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina), the most valuable course I had from the standpoint of preparing for political life was one in jurisprudence, the philosophy of law, from Dr. Lon Fuller, now at Harvard and during the ’60 campaign the head of my Scholars’ Committee. It was not a required course for the degree. But it would be, in my opinion, an essential course for any law student who is planning to enter public life. Because the public man must not only know what the law is: he must know how and why it got that way. And again, the time to acquire this background is during the college and university years when a man has the time to indulge in the luxury of reading and thinking. Later on, he may well find himself too busy acting and speaking; and if he does not acquire this perspective and background in his college years he may never acquire it.

  The balance of the period prior to my entrance into the political arena can be quickly covered. I practiced law for five years in my home town of Whittier; then came ten months in Washington, in 1942, writing rationing regulations for the OPA, followed by three-and-a-half years in the Navy during World War II. Nothing occurred in this period to indicate a possible future political career—except that, as President Eisenhower put it, “Like all successful politicians I married above myself.”

  I ran for public office for the first time in 1946. Here again, I did not fit into the pattern usually attributed to successful political practitioners. I have always liked to meet and talk to people, but the back-slapping, baby-kissing, exhibitionist activities expected of the average candidate were missing from this campaign and all the others in which I was to participate. I have always felt that above everything else a man must be himself in a political campaign. He must never try to be or to do something which is not natural for him. Whenever he does, he gets out of character and loses the quality that is essential for political success—sincerity and credibility. My success in the ’46 campaign was probably the result of three factors: intensive campaigning; doing my homework; and participating in debates with my better-known opponent, the veteran incumbent Congressman, Jerry Voorhis.

  When I went to Congress in 1947, a national newspaper syndicate chose me as the subject for a feature piece entitled, “Th
e Greenest Congressman in Washington.” The consequences of my appointment to the Committee on Un-American Activities are recounted in the first section of this book.

  My major committee assignment was Education and Labor and it was here, thirteen years before the election of 1960, that I met for the first time the man who was my opponent in that campaign and is now President of the United States. Jack Kennedy and I shared one distinction on the Education and Labor Committee: we were the low men on the totem pole. I was the most junior member on the Republican side and he on the Democratic side. This was probably a challenge and incentive to both of us. The custom in committee hearings is for the questioning to start with the chairman and then to alternate between Democrats and Republicans until the last man finally has his chance. This meant that before Kennedy or I could ask a question, both the witness and the subject had been pretty well worked over. Each of us had plenty of opportunity to do a lot of thinking as our senior colleagues fired away, and each of us, I believe, usually managed to come up with some pretty good questions at the end of the hearing.

  In fact, it was in our capacity as members of that committee that we had our first “debate.” In the spring of 1947, at the request of Congressman Frank Buchanan, we went to McKeesport, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh, to debate the merits of what was then the “hot” issue under committee consideration, the Taft-Hartley Act. I doubt if either of us, or those who were in the audience of 150 to 200 that night, will recall much of what was said during the course of the evening. I was for the bill. Kennedy was against it. And we both presented our points of view as vigorously as we could. As far as the audience was concerned, I probably had the better of the argument because most of those present, as employers, tended to be on my side in the first place. After the meeting, we rode a sleeper from Pittsburgh back to the capital. I remember that our discussions during the long, rocky ride related primarily to foreign affairs and the handling of the Communist threat at home and abroad, rather than the Taft-Hartley Act. I do not recall the details of our talk but of one thing I am absolutely sure: neither he nor I had even the vaguest notion at that time that either of us would be a candidate for President thirteen years later.