Was Richard Nixon Always Inherently Paranoid?

[Free Bird]

I'd argue no. I think it can be accepted that 60 and 62 did it for him. They were both "supposed" to be his.

[Clark Kent]

What do "Yes" and "No" mean in the poll? It's not a "Yes or No" question if you take the title and poll question as a single one.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

He'd been under the impression that some "other" was out to get him for a while by '62. I'm not a psychoanalyst and I ain't gonna effortpost, but he'd had his run-ins before.

[Mr. Smith]

The pursuit of Algier Hiss, his courtship with Pat Nixon, his smear tactics to even reach the Senate when Douglas was already unpopular, all of it reeks of paranoia.

It is all that paranoia from the outset that makes him so tragic and so compelling to learn about.

[Derpist]

The pursuit of Algier Hiss, his courtship with Pat Nixon, his smear tactics to even reach the Senate when Douglas was already unpopular, all of it reeks of paranoia.

It is all that paranoia from the outset that makes him so tragic and so compelling to learn about.

He was also 100% correct about Algier Hiss, which couldn't have helped his paranoia.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

The pursuit of Algier Hiss, his courtship with Pat Nixon, his smear tactics to even reach the Senate when Douglas was already unpopular, all of it reeks of paranoia.

It is all that paranoia from the outset that makes him so tragic and so compelling to learn about.

He was also 100% correct about Algier Hiss, which couldn't have helped his paranoia.

He's such a lovable character.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

No.  His losses to Kennedy in 1960 and to Pat Brown in 1962 are what made him paranoid.  If you watch his press conference after losing to Brown (which IMO is on of the greatest concession speeches in American history), you could tell he was bitter and blaming the media for his loss.  He claimed that they'd been against him ever since the Alger Hiss case.  I guess you could say his red-baiting of Hiss and Helen Douglas were an early sign of paranoia, but it didn't really kick in until his two campaign losses.

[Free Bird]

What do "Yes" and "No" mean in the poll? It's not a "Yes or No" question if you take the title and poll question as a single one.

Yeah the second I posted this I realized what I did.

TAKE THE YES AND NO AS REFERRING TO THE TITLE NOT THE QUESTION

[beaver2.0]

No.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

He certainly had some predispositions. Paranoia doesn't just appear out of the blue.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

He certainly had some predispositions. Paranoia doesn't just appear out of the blue.
[/quote

His political bloodlust is evident as early as 1946. Later schemes were a combination of this instinct combined with his seething hatred of his enemies, which was likely just reinforced every step of the way from 1946 to 1974. He'd had to battle prissy little liberals in both parties since at least the time Ike tried to boot him in '52; his attempts to appease them, such as in "the Republicans' Munich" in 1960 were ill-fated, 1958 had shown that he could not campaign on principle and win, and so on. That said, '60 and '62 could be attributed to specific, eh, seemingly dirty phenomena, such as Kennedy using his security access against Nixon in one of the debates, and the Cuban Missile Crisis pretty conveniently helping Dems in the 1962 mid-terms.