by Jim Newton
Fighting the demands of his schedule and the angry anti-Communism of McCarthy and his admirers, Warren persisted. He spoke on behalf of the United Nations and international cooperation, and he met with crowds in the easy, gentle fashion with which he campaigned in California. Despite a thin organization and limited time, Warren polled more than 260,000 votes on Wisconsin primary day, finishing second to Senator Robert Taft. Warren carried Madison and a few other districts, enough to have delegates from outside his home state.9 He had proven he could get votes outside of California.
His second effort, in Oregon, was less successful. The American Medical Association, still angry about Warren’s health care proposal, opposed him. And though Warren campaigned with vigor, condemning Truman’s seizure of the nation’s steel mills and warning of the administration’s “great complacency,” Eisenhower was gaining strength rapidly by that point in the contest. Ike polled more than 150,000 votes, while Warren, though he finished in second place, finished short of Eisenhower by more than 100,000 votes.10
That left Warren far short of the front-runners but still viable. In the weeks leading up to the convention, most political insiders picked Taft, whose father had been president and who, by 1952, was the unchallenged standard-bearer for the Republicans’ conservative wing. Nicknamed “Mr. Republican,” he was noted for an isolationism so deep-set that he opposed aid to Britain during World War II and the creation of NATO after the war’s conclusion. He deplored the expansion of presidential power under FDR and Truman, and his commitment to personal freedom included opposition to the military draft. Taft commanded the GOP’s political machinery, and his reach in 1952 was at its peak: He controlled the most basic party decisions, down to such a level of detail that even the seating of delegates and their guests in the Chicago hall was cleared by him.11
With the convention approaching, Taft and his allies worked to fasten up votes and give the senator a first-ballot victory. But they confronted a fast-rising force in the Republican Party, one whose late entry into the race was scrambling the conventions of American politics. Dwight Eisenhower was the general who had saved Europe, the man most responsible for D-Day, the liberation of France, and the destruction of Hitler. He was an American hero with an infectious grin, a bounce in his step, and a keen, clever mind. Although a committed Republican, Eisenhower kept his politics so quiet after the war that Truman had personally lobbied him to accept the Democratic nomination and had contrived ways to bring Ike into the administration’s response to the outbreak of the Korean War. For a time, Eisenhower agreed to advise Truman and his generals, but eventually he backed out, preferring to criticize the administration publicly rather than to counsel it privately. 12
As Ike moved about the country in 1950, he did so firmly denying any intent to run for president. Besieged by requests, he demurred, not even conceding to his diary that he would consider such a draft. And yet Eisenhower acted like a candidate. He spoke forcefully about the war and the president. He met political leaders to hear their analysis of the campaign—the campaign he insisted he would not join. He conferred with business and civic leaders. Indeed, the same week that Earl Warren buttonholed Los Angeles Times publisher Norman Chandler in the redwood glens of the Bohemian Grove, Dwight Eisenhower arrived at the Grove as a guest. There, Eisenhower introduced himself to the other members of the Republican leadership and sidled up to a young congressman from Southern California then engaged in a tough campaign for the Senate, Richard Nixon.13 Warren was not terribly impressed, especially when Eisenhower used the occasion to extol loyalty oaths .14
And still, Eisenhower resisted entreaties through all of 1950 and 1951. The general returned to his post in Europe, where he was building NATO. From there, he fumed at Taft’s isolationism and Truman’s stingy defense spending. A choice between those two candidates, Eisenhower ultimately concluded, was so grim that it required him to intervene. His supporters placed his name on the New Hampshire primary ballot in January 1952 (apparently against his wishes). The following month, after viewing a film of an Eisenhower rally in New York, the general was moved to tears by the emotion of the crowd. He agreed to run. 15
Four months later, the Republicans prepared their arrival in Chicago. On the eve of the convention, reporters estimated that Eisenhower could count on 414 delegate votes, and Taft had the support of 516, though Eisenhower was gaining fast and some believed delegates were swinging his way. It was important that both were short of the votes needed to win on the first ballot—leaving a small window of hope for Earl Warren, who arrived with 76 delegates pledged to him.16 Although numerically far behind, Warren was stronger than his delegate count. He, like many Republican observers, believed going into the convention that Taft’s strong hold on the party would deny Eisenhower the delegates needed to win. And since Warren represented the socially moderate, internationalist element of the party—Eisenhower’s wing—the general’s delegates were much more likely to see Warren as acceptable than Taft should their champion fail. What’s more, Harold Stassen of Minnesota commanded a handful of delegates himself, and he too was inclined to favor Warren over Taft, if that’s what it came to.
Said Warren, “Either somebody has a majority of the votes when he goes to Chicago, or he hasn’t. And if he hasn’t, it’s a wide-open convention.”17 With less than a week before the delegate count began, no candidate had a majority. It was, then, at least in Warren’s view, “wide-open.”
The trip through the Rockies took longer than expected. The Warren Special arrived in Denver about two hours late. There it stopped and took on the only delegate who had not left California with the rest of the group. Senator Nixon had been in Chicago, working on platform matters, but flew to Denver to join the delegation for the final leg of its trip. As Nixon boarded the train that night, the mood turned detectably sour. After climbing into the train, Nixon immediately slighted Warren by heading straight for his own car, not bothering to pay the governor the courtesy of greeting him first. That might have offended Warren in any event. Formality was important to the governor. But it was especially vexing in Nixon’s case, as their antagonism toward each other was already a barely concealed fact of California politics, the residue of their strained relations in the 1946 and 1950 campaigns. By 1952, Warren and Nixon had plenty of reason to distrust each other.
And the early months of that year had been trying. Nineteen fifty-two was the time when Warren’s enemies found one another and put aside their many differences to oppose Warren’s presidential bid. From the loyalty oath debate came John Francis Neylan, still mad, now on the attack, charging that Warren’s campaign was egotistic and that his politics were dangerously liberal.18 From the gas tax debate came Bill Keck, still smarting over Warren’s successful push for that tax hike. Loyd Wright, the pompous president of the State Bar Association—a “domineering little Napoleon,” one Warren supporter called him19—felt Warren had betrayed his party and was looking for a candidate who spoke to its traditional conservatism. The American Medical Association, never to forgive Warren’s compulsory health insurance efforts, asked members to give $10 each to the Taft campaign. The Associated Farmers, once so fond of the governor they helped elect, now found themselves increasingly distressed by his unwillingness to defy organized labor. “[Y]ou have abandoned Republicanism,” the farmers concluded .20 In 1952, Keck, Neylan, Wright, and the others gave up on Warren for good and instead sought out Congressman Tom Werdel of Bakersfield, Warren’s hometown, to challenge Warren’s presidential primary candidacy in California.
Although Werdel was hardly Earl Warren, his challenge was distracting, and posed some real threat. Warren was difficult to assail from the right during a general election—Democrats could be counted on to cross over to vote for him, and Republicans could hardly abandon him for an even more liberal opponent—but a Republican primary brought out more conservative voters, those who might be more unhappy with Warren and more willing to consider an alternative. In addition, the Werdel group had money—doct
ors, oilmen, wealthy conservatives—linked by their common exasperation with the governor. Given all that, Warren needed protection from conservative friends. Nixon agreed to help.
On November 8, 1951, Nixon signed—along with Knowland and other leading California Republicans—a public letter asking Warren to seek the nomination. When the Werdel faction emerged to challenge Warren, Nixon stood by the governor, at least publicly, bragging that he did so despite the risk of offending some conservative supporters. “You can rest assured,” one constituent wrote him, that we “will remember when another election comes around.”21 But even as Nixon publicly allied himself with Warren, he played both sides. In order to appease Werdel supporters, Nixon assured them that he eventually would work for Taft at the convention anyway—that he would protect the party’s conservative plank under the cover of the Warren delegation.22 Nixon, in fact, was courting the favor not of Taft but of Eisenhower, but the Werdel supporters did not know that.
Werdel went ahead anyway, and his critique of Warren brimmed with years of repressed anger by California’s conservatives. “His Trumanistic idolatry is well known,” the group’s “Declaration of Policy” proclaimed of Warren. “His record supports the conclusion that he endorses socialistic governmental policies, including limitless taxation and planned inflation; that he is vacillating in his opposition to Communism and government, and that for all these reasons he has forfeited any claim to the voting support of this delegation at the convention.”23 Warren fought back through the spring and summer of 1951. His calmer logic eventually prevailed, and Warren defeated Werdel by a 2-1 margin. The race had been difficult, however—Werdel actually carried Orange County—and served as a reminder that the right wing and Warren had now permanently parted ways. In addition, Warren had cut some deals to protect himself. He agreed, for instance, to allow Nixon to name some of the delegates who would compose the Warren slate at the Republican convention. It was a fateful compromise.
Just a week after the campaign ended but before the convention began, Nixon once again sought to distance himself from Warren’s candidacy despite his public pledge of support. Using the free mailing privileges given to members of Congress for nonpolitical constituent communications, Nixon sent 23,000 cards to California Republicans asking them to name their favorite candidate for president in 1952 in the event that Warren failed to win the nomination.24 Nixon’s poll was accompanied by a misleading letter—“I am writing to a selected group of those who were active in my campaign . . . for the purpose of obtaining their views on this problem”—and the poll made it clear that Nixon was looking for a backup when, not if, Warren fell short.
Nixon demanded secrecy in handling the returns; indeed, he promised confidentiality to those who responded. But he also made sure select politicians and journalists knew the results favored Eisenhower. Nixon, whose support from the Los Angeles Times was a bulwark of his political base, shared the results with Kyle Palmer. Nixon undoubtedly expected a positive response from Palmer, who had championed Nixon at every turn and who occasionally blanched at Warren’s overtures to the left. This time, however, Palmer reacted strongly in the opposite direction. Rather than protect Nixon’s secret, Palmer promptly told Warren, who was understandably angry. “I told Palmer that was not consistent with the oath that all the delegates had taken to support my candidacy,” Warren said.25
What Palmer said in private to Nixon is not known. But there is no secret about how he felt, for on June 20, the Times published Palmer’s regular column and it came as close as the Los Angeles Times would ever come to flaying the senator. Without naming Nixon, Palmer wrote in the Times of Knowland’s honor, noting that Knowland could be counted on to support Warren unless and until Warren freed him to do otherwise. “Why am I so sure?” Palmer asked. “He is an honorable man. He didn’t make any pledge to support Earl Warren for President with any shabby reservations. Honorable men don’t stab their friends—or enemies—in the back!”26
A chastened Nixon pulled back and did not release the poll generally. His backers later would cite that as evidence of his intention not to harm Warren. In fact, however, Nixon already had achieved what he wanted. Publicly, he remained a Warren loyalist. But insiders, those whose attention Nixon sought, now understood that he was not there for the governor. For the stated purpose of helping to form his views on the nomination, the poll had always been a useless exercise; for telegraphing his ambivalence about Warren and his attachment to Eisenhower, it was superbly effective.
Nixon’s efforts were encouraged by his closest friends, who, almost to a person, resented the governor and his politics. Murray Chotiner was still mad that Warren refused to give him and other Republicans special consideration after the 1942 victory, and others picked up their grievances as well. Herman Perry, the man who had launched Nixon into politics and was still a loyal friend, angrily wrote in April to Bernard Brennan, one of relatively few California Republicans allied with both Warren and Nixon, to express his mounting anger toward Warren. Unable to contain his irritation, Perry deprecated Warren as “the great white father,” and demanded that he release the convention delegates to Nixon and Knowland’s leadership.27 Three weeks later, that still had not happened, and Perry wrote again to Brennan, again insisting that Warren withdraw his public insistence that his delegates back him. Perry called that stand “selfish” and “unrealistic” and added, “[W]ith Earl Warren out of the picture, I am further convinced that the candidate for Vice President on the Republican ticket could be Bill Knowland or Richard M. Nixon.”28
In June, a month before the convention and with his poll in the field, Nixon himself wrote to Brennan. Labeling the letter “personal and confidential,” he urged Brennan to confer with him in person before the convention began. Nixon warned that he felt Taft was close to securing the necessary delegates, and he dismissed the prospects for Warren. “I don’t believe that any of us should have any illusions on the possibilities of Warren being selected for the top spot,” Nixon wrote. “As a matter of fact as a result of Knowland winning the primary, he has completely supplanted Warren as the Vice Presidential prospect and several people have been talking about Knowland as the best bet of a dark horse in the event of a deadlock. I am laying these facts right on the line because I do not feel we should go into the Convention without knowing what we are going to be up against .”29
Not only was Nixon convinced Warren was headed to defeat, he also was determined not to be aligned with that defeat, his pledge of support notwithstanding.
Perry urged Nixon not, under any circumstances, to agree to place Warren’s name in nomination for the presidency. “The feeling is that if anyone is to stick his neck out in this instance, it should be Bill Knowland,” Perry wrote, adding, “I believe by proper manipulation you yet can come through the critical period of the Convention without being harmed.”30 Nixon needed no convincing: “I have neither the desire nor the intention of accepting such an assignment.”31
Nixon and his admirers would long deny that Nixon secretly worked through those weeks to deny Warren the nomination. It was Warren, they insisted, whose selfishness threatened the unity of the delegation in the service of his own far-fetched ambition. And they were right insofar as they stressed that Warren’s chances were remote. But at least two aspects of the episode are undeniable. First, despite professing loyalty to Warren, Nixon undermined him at several important moments: He signed on to Warren’s ticket but privately sought to advance another candidate’s prospects; he conducted a poll, illegally using taxpayer money to do it, and saw that results damaging to his own candidate made their way to key decision makers; and he privately pressured Warren through intermediaries to back down. The other clear message from those months of 1952 is that Warren came to see Nixon not just as generally devious—an impression he already had from the campaigns of 1946 and 1950—but now as a personal adversary. And so when Nixon boarded the train in Denver on that summer night in 1952, the seeds of suspicion were well tended.
As the train pulled away in the dark, the engineer pressed it for speed, trying to make up for time lost in the Rockies. As it whisked through the plains east of Denver, Nixon mingled among the delegates; he reported from Chicago on the platform work he had been conducting in recent days, and passed along the latest gossip from the back rooms. Chester Hanson, the Los Angeles Times reporter accompanying the Warren delegation, wrote that Nixon supplied a “shot in the political arm” for the Warren supporters by publicly reporting that a deadlock could still deliver the convention to the California governor. But Hanson also noted that Brennan, then serving as one of Warren’s convention managers, “was like a nervous mother coaching the bride just before the wedding.”32
What Hanson picked up was more than nerves. Brennan knew of the tension between Nixon and Warren and was doing his best to navigate it.33 Nixon moved from car to car that night, conferring mainly with the delegates loyal to him. In each case, his message was substantively the same: Warren was finished, and for the California delegation to be relevant, it needed to swing to Eisenhower. “Nixon felt that, in view of the fact that in his opinion Warren’s chances were not good, that the California delegation could effectively insure Eisenhower’s victory by voting for Eisenhower forthwith,” recalled John Walton Dinkelspiel, one of the California delegates loyal to Nixon aboard the train. As Nixon spoke to one group or another, rumors raced through the cars. “If you’re on the front end of the train you have to run pretty fast before the statement gets to the back end of the train,” Nixon aide Frank Jorgensen remembered of that night.34
