The Comeback Gentleman

[DKrol]

The Comeback Gentleman
A DKrol Timeline



The story of how America's most distrusted and disgraced President become the greatest politician of the 20th Century

[DKrol]

Part I - The Rise and Fall of Richard Milhous Nixon

President Nixon leaving the White House on Marine One in 1974

Richard Nixon had always been a shining star within the Republican Party. A successful Senator and a competent Vice President, Nixon's name was on every pundit's lips when they were asked who would be the Republican nominee for every election from 1956 to 1968. After his loss in 1960 to John Kennedy, Nixon returned to California and challenged incumbent Democrat Governor Jerry Brown in 1962. The race drew national media attention and although Nixon lost by 5%, his image as a champion of 1960s conservatism was strengthened. Nixon was a loyal Goldwater campaigner but was not blamed for the disastrous Republican performance in 1964, allowing his political stock to grow even higher. In 1968 there was never any doubt that Nixon would be the Republican nominee and, after the riots at the Democratic Convention and abysmal campaign of Hubert Humphrey, Nixon easily won the presidential election and finally found himself moving into the Oval Office.

Once sworn in, Nixon championed a bold vision of the United States. He made advances with the Soviets and the Chinese and began the process of withdrawing American troops from the conflict in South-East Asia. By the time of the 1970 mid-term elections, Nixon's popularity was in the high 70s and Republicans increased seats in the Senate and House, but fell short in both of claiming a majority. His reelection in 1972 was never in question and he easily limited Senator McGovern to only one state. The capstone of Nixon's term in office was the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, ending the Vietnam War once and for all. His airlift of supplies to beleaguered Israelis during the Yom Kippur War won him respect across the globe, as did his leadership on environmental issues and his continued commitment to racial integration in schools and the Equal Rights Amendment. If it weren't for the 22nd Amendment, many commentators were confident that Nixon would have been able to win a third term in 1976.

Unfortunately for Nixon, the achievements of his term-and-a-half were overshadowed by Watergate. Started by a series of articles in The Washington Post by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, Watergate centered around allegations that Nixon had been engaged in the cover-up of a break-in at the Democratic Headquarters in the 1972 election. Through the years-long investigation, Nixon maintained his innocence but ultimately came up short in the eyes of the public. One poll in July 1974 found that only 25% of Americans believed Nixon should remain in office. Always considering himself a patriot, Nixon did what he felt was right for the nation.

On August 9, 1974, Richard Nixon resigned from the Presidency in favor of his Vice President, Jerry Ford. Although Ford offered to pardon Nixon in September 1974, Nixon denied the request, pledging to fight on in the legal system. Nixon told Ford what he had told the Associated Press in 1973.

"I am not a crook."

[DKrol]

Part II - The Tapes

Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox pursued Richard Nixon like a rabid dog

As a condition of Attorney General Elliot Richardson’s confirmation in Nixon’s second term, Archibald Cox had been appointed as Special Prosecutor to investigate “all matters related to the 1972 election.” Nixon was, in private, furious at Cox’s selection, calling him a “partisan viper” but he applauded Cox’s choice in public, commending his “strong sense of independence and duty.” Democrats initially applauded Cox and cheered at his selection but later grew weary of him when Cox tried to derail the Senate Watergate Committee’s investigation in favor of his own.

One of the earliest objects of Cox’s focus were a series of campaign donations to the Nixon Campaign. These were several hundreds of thousands of dollars donations from American Airlines, Gulf Oil, and Goodyear Tire. Even before leaving office, Nixon acknowledged the donations were improper and pledged to pay a substantial fine.

The crux of Cox’s investigation, of course, was on the Watergate break-in and cover-up. Originally, there was little concrete evidence that Nixon was involved. It wasn’t until White House Counsel John Dean testified to the Senate Watergate Committee that someone implicated Nixon on the record and it wasn’t until Nixon’s former assistant, Alexander Butterfield, testified that there became physical evidence that could answer many questions: the White House tapes. Nixon had had an extensive recording system installed in the White House in 1970, after removing an early system put in place under Lyndon Johnson. Until his death, Nixon argued that the recording system was the only way to ensure an accurate record of conversations and dealings.

The Nixon Tapes became the focus of Cox’s investigation. Through a series of legal battles while Nixon was still in office, Cox won the release of several of the tapes over arguments of Executive Privilege. One tape in particular drew attention: a tape from June 20, 1973 with 18-and-a-half minutes of static silence. Coming in the middle of a conversation between Nixon and H.R. Haldeman, Cox argued, that portion of tape had to have incriminating evidence. But because the tape was blank - seemingly recorded over - no one could be certain. This only led to more questions: since a White House secretary admitted to accidentally erasing the first 4 minutes of the silence, where did the other 12 minutes come from?

White House Secretary Rose Mary Woods shows how she accidentally erased 4 minutes of tape

Nixon himself maintained he had no idea what caused the silence. He had only had the system installed, he argued, he had no understanding of how it operated. He was just a furious with his staff as Cox was when he learned of the 18-and-a-half minute silence; aids could hear him shouting through the closed door. Since the White House could not recover what was on the missing section of tape, it was left to the imagination of Cox - and jurors - what had been erased. It was this mounting pressure from Cox, the public, and the Congress that forced Nixon out of office.

With Nixon out of office, Cox turned up the heat, no longer feeling bound to show any respect to the Office of the President. Cox went to a grand jury on September 1, 1974 and asked them to subpoena all tapes from the White House recording system. Nixon argued that doing so would compromise critical national security interests and put American lives at risk. The grand jury agreed with Cox and ordered the subpoena, but Nixon resisted. When the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Cox, Nixon appealed to the Supreme Court.

In United States v. Nixon, Nixon didn’t claim executive privilege over all the tapes. He only sought to protect those with a “vital national security message” or that “conveyed a deeply personal and private belief.” Cox argued that all conversations were under the purview of his investigation and must be released. Nixon set aside 21 tapes that he felt were too sensitive to release, but consented to the release of the rest. This wasn’t enough for Cox; he wanted them all. Nixon, his personal lawyer Herb Kalmbach, Cox, Cox’s assistant James Vorenberg, and Chief Justice Warren Burger sat in Burger’s chambers over the course of a week in September 1974 and listened to the 21 tapes Nixon had withheld. Burger then relayed the contents of the tapes to the other justices.

When Burger called the Supreme Court into session on the matter of United States v. Nixon, they agreed with Nixon that the matters discussed on the 21 tapes were not relevant to the purview of the investigation or they were either too personal or posed too a serious threat to national security to be released. The Court ruled that the information Cox and Vorenberg heard in Burger’s chambers was inadmissible in court and placed a gag order on the two to ever discuss the contents. Without the tapes, Cox’s case was on shaky ground but that didn’t stop him.

On October 3, 1974, Cox’s grand jury issued three indictments on charges related to conspiracy to commit a crime and obstruction of justice. One for White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman. One for Domestic Affairs Adviser John Ehrlichman.

And one for Richard Milhous Nixon.

[DKrol]

Part III - The Trial of the Century

The U.S. District Court of D.C., where Nixon stood trial in 1975

When the indictment was delivered to Nixon, who had ironically taken up residence at the Watergate Hotel after leaving office, he was oddly pleased. This was the moment he was ready for, the moment he had been planning on since the first news of the Watergate break-in broke. Nixon was confident he would be able to clear his name in the open air of the courtroom.

A trial date was set for March 3. Nixon got to work beefing up his legal team, hiring California star defense attorney Robert Shapiro and former U.S. Solicitor General Robert Bork in the weeks following the indictment. While Bork was originally hesitant, after listening to an extensive selection of the White House tapes and interviewing several White House aids, he become more confident in their chances. Shapiro would do the majority of the arguing in court, being known for his fiery and effective courtroom style, while Bork did most of the legal work behind the scenes, building the facts of the case.

March 3 came up quickly. When Nixon, Shapiro, and Bork arrived at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Nixon had a characteristic smug grin on. While he himself wouldn’t be taking the stand, as part of an agreement to turn over large portions of his personal memos to Cox, he knew he would be exonerated by the trial. Cox’s prosecution went fast and hard, parading a circus of witnesses in front of the jurors in an effort to implicate Nixon in the cover-up of the Watergate break-in. Star prosecution witnesses were John Dean and Alexander Butterfield, who repeated what they had told the Senate Watergate Committee. While nothing new was exposed during the prosecution’s presentation, many observers thought that public opinion would weigh on the jury and send Nixon to prison.

On March 19, the prosecution rested, and the defense started on March 20. Shapiro called three of the Watergate burglars, Virgilio Gonzalez, James McCord, and Frank Sturgis, all of whom said that they’d never received money or directions from Nixon himself, but had interacted with friends of H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman. This wasn’t entirely groundbreaking, but it was the first time Nixon, and his team, openly placed blame on Haldeman and Ehrlichman.

Former First Lady Pat Nixon proved to be a key witness in the 1975 trial

With Nixon himself safe from the stand, the defense turned to the next best thing: Pat Nixon. The former First Lady was asked several times if she ever heard her husband speak about Watergate, the break-in, or a cover-up at any time before the allegations stated. Each time, she firmly denied her husband having any knowledge of, or involvement in, anything related to Watergate. Many said that Nixon’s protection of her husband won over the hearts of jurors; regardless of what people thought of her husband, Americans loved Pat. In his cross-examination, Cox asked her if she could say with confidence that her husband hadn’t used their personal income to write checks as a part of the cover-up. Pat said she couldn’t, only because she didn’t regularly look at their finances but “there was never any dip in my ability to go shopping” so it was unlikely large sums of money were being used. As an icon of post-World War II domesticism, many Americans believed Pat Nixon’s answer.

The trial began to drag on, into the middle of April. On April 9, Shapiro called his final witness: Michael Jones. Jones was a little-known audio engineer at Atlantic Records whom Shapiro presented as an expert witness with regards to the White House tapes. Shapiro had given Jones the original tape from June 20, 1973, with the 18-and-a-half minute missing section, and asked him if he could reconstruct the missing portion, using the latest technology. While Cox had known Jones was being called, he was floored when he discovered why Jones was on the stand, mostly because Cox believed the uncovered mystery section would incriminate Nixon.

Jones hadn’t been able to reconstruct the entire 18-and-a-half minutes of silence but he had been able to rebuild a six minute portion in the middle of the silence. The reconstruction begins with Nixon asking Haldeman about the previous night’s L.A. Dodgers game, which the Dodgers had won, 3-0, over the Atlanta Braves. The conversation then moves to Watergate. Haldeman asks the President if he’s seen the day’s paper, which Nixon says “unfortunately.” Haldeman says that he could “cut some checks, move some things around” before Nixon cuts him off and says “No, no. I won’t have any of that. No.” The tape then crackled out and fell back into silence.

The court room was silent as Nixon leaned back in his chair.

[DKrol]

I'm glad you're enjoying it in an infuriating way!

Any one have any questions or comments? I'll do my best to answer them, but there's going to be a fairly heavy veil of secrecy on this TL.

[DKrol]

Will this TL take place solely in the 1970s? Or will it feature some details of a post-good-Nixon world?

The main storyline will go until the early 1990s when Pat dies (same as OTL). I may do some kind of epilogue then, but no promises.

[DKrol]

Part IV - The Comeback Tour

Richard Nixon walking out of the D.C. District Court

Cox failed to sway the jurors during his cross-examination of Michael Jones. Although Jones did admit he had no idea what was said before or after his reconstructed 6-minute portion, the juror had heard enough to plant seeds of doubt. After a three-day deliberation period, the jury returned a not guilty verdict on the basis that Cox had failed to prove Nixon’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. When the judge read out the jury’s verdict, Pat Nixon collapsed into tears of joy in the arms of her son-in-law, David Eisenhower.

The result sent shockwaves across the country. Many of those who had turned against Nixon during the lead-up to the trial retreated, saying that they had only been looking for evidence rather than casting a sentence. Senate Republicans who had told Nixon to resign or face impeachment quickly tried to move back into Nixon’s good graces, making pilgrimages to his California home and sending letters, telegrams, and fruit baskets to the former President. The Democrat-led Senate Watergate Committee pledged to continue its investigation into Nixon’s activities but, after the verdict, much of the air was let out of their efforts and the Committee was disbanded in the winter of 1976 with little fanfare.

An interview with Richard Nixon became the hot-ticket item for the media during the summer of 1975. Nixon, eager for the positive press attention, appeared on Meet the Press, Face the Nation, Issues and Answers, and a special program with Walter Cronkite for CBS in the two months after his acquittal. It was essentially an “I told you so” tour from Nixon, who repeated his famous “I am not a crook” in each interview. Reporters asked Nixon at every opportunity what his future would hold, with some speculating he would run for President in 1976 or California Governor in 1978. His response was that he would continue what he had always done: “I’m going to serve the American people.”

His first return to service came in November, 1975. Spanish dictator Francisco Franco had died, leading to the restoration of the Spanish monarchy under Juan Carlos I. President Ford saw this as a major opportunity to solidify Western Europe as anti-Soviet. Secretary of State Philip Habib, a diplomatic careerist chosen by Ford to replace Nixon-ally Henry Kissinger during the trial, had just fallen ill and was unable to make the trip to Spain to show America’s support. Without a Vice President, with Nelson Rockefeller's nomination still held up in Congress, Ford turned to a man once considered the premier diplomat in the country: Richard Nixon.

Nixon and Kissinger preparing for Nixon’s trip to Spain

Nixon eagerly took on the task of representing the United States in Spain for Juan Carlos’ coronation. He invited Kissinger to meet with him at La Casa Pacifica and the two went through several hours of detailed briefings on Spanish politics. Ford also sent Assistant Secretary of State of European Affair Arthur Hartman to California to brief Nixon on current U.S. policy. Hartman also had the uncomfortable task of telling a former President that he had very limited authority to negotiate or craft policy on behalf of Ford. Nixon brushed Hartman off and left for Spain, with Pat, David, and Julie.

Global media latched onto the Nixon family’s trip, grabbing every opportunity to capture glamorous shots of the redeemed President and his family. When the Nixons stopped in Washington, D.C. for refueling before heading on to Spain, there were many who clamoured for Nixon to return to the White House and meet Ford there. Instead, Ford met Nixon on the tarmac, they spoke for a few minutes in the backseat of a limousine, and then Nixon got back on the plane. The shot of Ford and Nixon on the tarmac topped every newspaper in the morning, with the New York Times running the headline “NIXON'S BACK.”

Upon Nixon’s arrival in Madrid, he was treated as if he was still in office. Juan Carlos met him and Pat at the airfield and then Nixon and the King inspected Spanish soldiers. After the inspection, the two men retired to Juan Carlos’ chambers at the Royal Palace to talk. Ignoring his orders from Hartman, Nixon pressed the Spanish King on several political issues, including a commitment to anti-Communism, democratic reforms within Spain, and efforts to reunify Spain after the division of Franco. Juan Carlos committed himself to democratic internal reforms, with plans for free elections in 1976 and the groundwork being laid for new, democratic constitution. Historians debate how much influence Nixon had on these decisions, as some suspect that Juan Carlos was preparing those actions anyway. Regardless, Nixon was heralded in American media as crusading for democracy in Spain. Privately, Ford was fuming when he read that Nixon engaged in such talks directly in the face of his directions. Publically, the State Department applauded Juan Carlos for taking steps towards a more free and fair country and thanked Nixon for representing his country.

After the coronation, the Nixons went on a tour of Europe, making stops in Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Rome, and London before returning to America. At each stop along the way, Nixon was greeted by large crowds, fawned over by the media, and received warmly by the local governments. When asked by The Times of London, one Brit described his excitement at seeing Nixon by saying, “He fought the man - and won.”

[DKrol]

I'm glad you guys are enjoying it! It's been really fun to write and I have a definitive end game in mind, so we won't be plagued by me running out of creative juices like we have in the past.

[DKrol]

Part V - The Election of 1976

All eyes turned to the fight between Ronald Reagan and Jerry Ford in 1976

The election of 1976 was going to be the first indicator of Richard Nixon’s ambitions for a comeback. In the days following his acquittal, some speculated that Nixon would be running for his former job in 1976. That conversation quickly faded as legal scholars pointed out that the 22nd Amendment banned anyone from being elected to the Presidency more than twice, which Nixon had been in 1968 and 1972. Attention then turned to what role Nixon would play in the election if he wasn’t a candidate.

President Ford announced he would be running for President in the fall of 1975, pledging to continue the work he’d started since 1974. His main highlights were ending the war in Vietnam, working towards denuclearization with the Soviets, and two sets of tax cuts which created a healthy economy. With the threat from Nixon sedated by the Constitution, the main challenge to Ford came from another Californian: Ronald Reagan.

Reagan was a household name before making his foray into politics in 1966, when he ran for Governor of California, from his decades in Hollywood films and as a spokesman for G.E. With his chiseled good looks and masterful speaking skills, Reagan was an easy candidate for any office. He began making campaign stops in the spring of 1975 and officially launched his campaign for the Presidency in October in New York City. He lambasted President Ford as being too soft on Communism and too unproven as a conservative, attacking him for allowing South Vietnam to fall to the North in April, 1975 and for begining negotiations to turn the Panama Canal over to the Panamanians.

Both candidates immediately turned to Nixon to seek his blessing - and finances. Many key Republican donors were sitting back and waiting for Nixon to make a choice before unleashing their checkbooks. Nixon had a good relationship with both Ford and Reagan. Although Reagan had lead a “Stop Nixon” campaign in 1968, the two united when Reagan stood by Nixon during Watergate. Ford had served as Nixon’s Vice President and had, at least publicly, stood by Nixon during Watergate, as well as gave Nixon the opportunity to tour Europe with a cleared name. Nixon was in a tough spot.

Reagan and Ford each made several pilgrimages to see Nixon during the ‘76 Campaign

In private, Nixon gave his support to both Ford and Reagan, in varying degrees to play the field. He told Reagan at a meeting at La Casa Pacifica in January, 1976 that he strongly supported Reagan’s message and supported “holding Ford’s feet to the fire.” Ford and Nixon met for the first time since the 37th President’s return from Spain in March at Nixon’s Florida home, the Florida White House. Nixon told his successor that the challenge to him was largely unfounded and that there was little that could have been done to protect South Vietnam from falling once Vietnamization ended.

Those who knew Nixon were not surprised by his actions in the 1976 election. He had built his career around hiding his true intentions and feelings and keeping as many avenues open to himself as possible. Neither Ford nor Reagan knew of Nixon’s words to the other but also neither spoke of Nixon’s support in definitive terms, because Nixon strategically refused to cement his support with a public appearance. It was only at the Republican National Convention in Kansas City that Nixon made a full, complete, and public endorsement of a candidate: after Ford had won the nomination on the first ballot. Nixon saw that Reagan still had a future in politics and advised Ford to chose him as his Vice President. After such a divisive primary, however, Reagan balked at the idea when the Ford camp proposed it, leading to Kansas Senator Bob Dole getting the nod.

With the mess of the nomination out of the way, Ford turned his attention to his Democratic opponent, little-known Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter and Minnesota Senator Walter Mondale. Nixon served as an unofficial senior advisor for Ford and an official top surrogate, representing the President across the country while Ford pursued a Rose Garden strategy. Ford made only two formal campaign stops during the 1976 campaign, one in September to Ohio and one, the day before Election Day, to Florida. Instead of campaigning, Ford remained largely in Washington to preside over the Bicentennial and present himself as a busy, capable governing executive.

Carter, early on in the campaign, attempted to make Watergate an issue of the campaign in an effort to disgrace Ford’s star surrogate. The attacks took little hold, however, as voters largely responded with a collective shoulder shrug after the jury’s acquittal. In the middle of October, Carter quickly changed messaging, instead running on a campaign of economic malaise, arguing that the Ford tax cuts were harmful to the economy, long-term, and that manufacturing wasn’t keeping pace with the global market.

Carter’s messaging failed to resonate with voters, who were largely happy with their current situation. Ford, despite the early odds being against him, won a convincing victory in November, 1976, and secured for himself a full term as President.

While Nixon was glad that his ally Ford had won, the 1976 election was more important to him than that. It showed that he could still win over voters.

[DKrol]

Part VI - Back to Work

Ford knew the best way to keep an eye on Nixon was to keep him close

When President Ford was inaugurated for his first full term in office, Richard Nixon was given a seat of honor in the second row behind the podium. It was clear to many that Nixon was going to have an important role in the administration but it was unclear where he would fit. Prospective landing spots including Chief of Staff, Secretary of Defense, or Secretary of State. Nixon himself privately favored the State Department, given his success in dealing with the Soviets and the Chinese, as well as his trip to Spain and tour of Europe. John Sparkman, Democratic Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told Ford that the Committee could not confirm Nixon. Sparkman’s opposition was not based on his foreign policy credentials; it was based on Nixon’s public support for Civil Rights.

Instead, Ford chose Nixon’s UN Ambassador George H.W. Bush for Secretary of State. Nixon was offered Chief of Staff but turned it down, considering it too lowly of a position. Instead, Nixon’s Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Caspar Weinberger, was chosen for Chief of Staff. Ford also brought on a former Nixon staffer, former Chief of Staff Dick Cheney, as Secretary of Defense. Ford was still left with the task of finding a job for Nixon that would stroke his ego but also allow Ford to keep an eye on him.

The answer, once Ford actually asked Nixon what he wanted, was clear. On February 1, 1977, Ford nominated Nixon to become the next American Ambassador to the United Nations, with Secretary of State Bush in attendance. Ford praised Nixon for his decades’ long commitment to American foreign policy and commended him for “chartering a new age” with relations with the Soviet Union and China. The Foreign Relations Committee, confident that Nixon’s voice would be drowned out in the sea of voice at the United Nations, voted narrowly to recommend him for confirmation. The Senate, still Democrat controlled after Ford’s election, also confirmed Nixon by a much closer margin than many previous UN Ambassadors, 68 to 32, with all Republicans, the only Independent, and 29 Democrats voting to confirm.

Nixon’s first test as UN Ambassador came at the end of April, when tensions between Cambodia and Vietnam escalated into the Cambodian-Vietnamese War. Nixon made a passionate plea for action to the Security Council where he, in very couched terms, expressed a “deep regret” for the actions that United States had taken “over the last several years” that led to such a predicament. Nixon argued that the body had to give, in at least moral terms, support to the Cambodians as they fought to protect their national identity from the Communist threat. While the Soviet Union vetoed a motion in the Security Council, Nixon’s rousing speech did bring the Cambodians and the Vietnamese to the table.

The Cambodian attacks in Vietnam were Nixon’s first test as UN Ambassador

High-level talks were held in New York between representatives of Cambodian leader Pol Pot and Vietnamese Premier Pham Van Dong, Chinese Foreign Minister Huang Hua, and Nixon in September, 1977. The talks were generally ineffective, as Vietnam continued to capture swaths of the Cambodian countryside, but they gave Nixon an opportunity to keep his face in the papers. Every few days Nixon would tell reporters that a breakthrough was imminent, and then announce that the breakthrough was that Pol Pot and Pham Van Dong had spoken on the phone for a few minutes. As the talks ended in December, Nixon declared victory despite achieving nothing more than a “firm commitment to dialogue” between the Cambodians and Vietnamese. The media ate it up.

Nixon relished every opportunity to hold official UN functions at La Casa Pacifica, despite it being on the opposite side of the country from the UN Headquarters. Three sessions of the Cambodian-Vietnamese dialogues were held in California, and it was in California where Nixon opened talks over the Ethio-Somali War. Unlike with Vietnam, Nixon’s talks actually did create a meaningful end to the conflict between Ethiopia and Somalia. Somalia recognized the Ethiopian claim to the Ogaden in exchange for Ethiopia exporting grain to the hunger-plagued Somalia. Under Nixon’s guidance, the Ethio-Somali War lasted only four months, from July to November, 1977. Nixon also attempted to aid Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in establishing a lasting Middle Eastern peace plan during talks in New York but the two leaders largely rebuked Nixon, limiting him to a press conference. But Nixon got his picture in the paper.

As 1977 drew to a close and 1978 opened, Nixon was often spending more and more time at La Casa Pacifica, leaving career diplomat Robert Strausz-Hupe to lead the American delegation in New York. Speculation ran rampant that Nixon was planning on leaving the UN in favor of elected office in California. Nixon remained coy with the press but began assembling an informal campaign team in the winter of 1978, led by former RNC Chairwoman Mary Louise Smith. Nixon headlined a fundraiser for the California Republican Party in February, 1978 and made a circuit of speaking tours on college campuses across the Golden State. In March, after Nixon had missed several Security Council votes in order to spend time in California, Ford, privately, demanded Nixon’s resignation. Nixon happily consented and quite as UN Ambassador on March 6, 1978, a little over a year after being confirmed.

Then, on March 7, Richard Nixon held a rally on the campus of UC-Berkeley to announce he would be seeking a return to public office.

((Note: This is the last post until Monday, as I'm going away for the weekend))

[DKrol]

I'm back from my trip. Looking at tomorrow for the next update.

[DKrol]

Part VII - A Second Shot

Nixon’s political future rested on the decision of California voters in 1978

In 1962, Richard Nixon staked his future career on the California Gubernatorial election. He made the same gamble in 1978. In March, he announced he was entering the Republican Primary to face Jerry Brown in November. The only other declared Republican at that point was Attorney General Evelle Younger, and Nixon’s entry kept the primary field limited. Nixon ran his primary campaign as if he were the only candidate, referring to Younger only occasionally on the campaign trail. Instead of fighting Younger, Nixon focused on attacking Brown and his record in California as a “Do-Nothing Governor.” On the June 6 Primary Election, Nixon crushed Younger. Nixon claimed 67% of the vote, compared to 21% for Younger, 6% for State Senator Ken Maddy, and 6% for Mayor Pete Wilson.

Brown, who had largely sat back and waited for Nixon to, he hoped, fall on his own sword and loose the primary, jumped into action. The Brown Campaign attempted to paint Nixon as a candidate of the previous decade, not a man of the future, and questioned his commitment to California, citing his long period of residence in Washington, D.C., New York, and New Jersey. Nixon countered by attacking Brown for opposing the reduction in property taxes of Proposition 13, as well as for his elimination of the depletion allowance. Nixon allies, but never Nixon himself, also charged that Brown was only elected governor because of his father, who had defeated Nixon in 1962.

Brown challenged Nixon to an audacious schedule of 7 debates up and down the state of California. Nixon rejected the idea of 7 and instead proposed a pair of debates, one in Orange County and one in Eureka, to which Brown agreed to. The first debate, held in early September, was only a few miles away from Nixon’s La Casa Pacifica at the San Clemente High School. Nixon took the previous three days off to prepare at his home, while Brown continued an aggressive campaign schedule and made the several hours long journey from Bakersfield before the debate.

It was the complete inverse of the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon debate. Nixon appeared cool and calm and fit the elder statesman profile. Brown, on the other hand, was tired and sweaty. Brown also, it became known afterwards, was experiencing diarrhea after eating a bad fish taco in Bakersfield. In his memoirs, Nixon says that Brown “was crapping his pants during [the debate]...literally.” The content of the debate has largely been lost to the annals of history; the style of the debate is what everyone remembers.

Former Governor Pat Brown, who defeated Nixon in 1962, met with the former President in 1978

The second Nixon-Brown debate ended up not happening. A rain storm caused a mudslide in Santa Barbara the day before the debate and the candidates agreed to cancel the debate. While Brown used the time to meet with emergency responders in Sacramento, Nixon traveled to Santa Barbara and met with people displaced by the mudslide. When Brown saw Nixon, shaking hands and handing out bottles of water, he was furious, attacking Nixon for “taking political advantage of a tragedy.” Regardless, people looked at the footage and saw a warm, caring man, rather than cold and calculating politician people often saw in Nixon.

On November 7, Nixon spent the day traveling around polling places in his native Orange County, while Brown criss-crossed the state, beginning in Eureka and finishing in Oakland. When the votes started coming in, it seemed Brown might have just been able to fend off the former President’s challenge. Large margins in San Francisco, Yolo, and Los Angeles Counties gave the incumbent a strong cushion to start with. By 11:00 PM, however, it became more likely Nixon was going to come out victorious. Nearly 60% of the vote in Orange County, 53% in El Dorado County, and a sizable 44% in Napa County dug into Brown’s cushion. By midnight, Brown was leading by only 45 votes.

It was not until 3:00 AM on Wednesday that news anchors could project the results from California in the midst of a nationwide Democratic wave, a rejection of the Ford presidency. Nationally, Democrats gained a supermajority in the Senate and firm control over the House of Representatives. With a majority of 134 votes, ABC News projected that the 35th Governor of the State of California would be the 37th President of the United States.

Nixon was back in office. And already thinking about the future.

[DKrol]

Awh, Brown. I actually thought Nixon would go for the Senate, since that's an office where he can be more visible nationally.

A valid point, but I went with Governor because it allows him to be in the Executive position and have more authority as a single individual.

[DKrol]

Part VIII - Growing Pains

Richard Nixon’s gubernatorial career got off to a rocky start

When Nixon took office in Sacramento in the first week of January, 1979, he was already looking towards the future. Former Governor Ronald Reagan, Secretary of State George H.W. Bush, and Senator John Danforth - all prospective Republican candidates for 1980 - made journeys to the the Governor’s Mansion in that first month of Nixon’s term. Nixon, seeing the writing on the wall from the Midterms, dissuaded Bush and Danforth from running in 1980, predicting any Republican candidate would lose. Nixon did not give the same advice to Reagan, seeing him as a potential rival as Nixon continued his return to prominence.

Nixon was forced to return his focus to Californian affairs at the end of January. A 16-year-old girl, Brenda Spencer, opened fire on the elementary school across the street from her house, killing two staff members and injuring 9 students. Police surrounded the house within minutes of the shots ringing out, but Spencer turned her fire on the officers and halted them from storming in and arresting her. Nixon sent the National Guard to the San Diego neighborhood and relieved local police of their control over the situation. Under Nixon’s command, the National Guard maintained a perimeter and attempted to negotiate Spencer out of the house. After a 17-hour standoff which ended up killing 1 police officer and 1 National Guardsman in the quiet, residential neighborhood, Nixon gave the commands to storm the house and take the girl into custody.

In the twilight of the early morning, a National Guard tactical team stormed the house, using smoke grenades, tear gas, and axes to force their way into the barricaded house. Spencer had set her rifle on the ground outside the door of the bedroom she cloistered away in. The National Guard team was worried, however, that she had another gun aimed at the door. As soon as they broke down the door, an officer fired six shots at Spencer as she was curled up on the floor, with a notebook and a pen in her hands. As they removed the body from the house, a news helicopter trained its camera onto the lifeless body, and the officer covered in blood. The image led every newscast for a week.

Comparisons were drawn immediately between Spencer’s death and the Kent State Massacre Nixon had presided over as President. Protesters flooded the State Capitol building and newspaper article criticized Nixon for being trigger-happy and “over enthusiastic” in his use of the National Guard “where local police forces would suffice.” A statement from the Governor’s Office emphasised the fact that Spencer had killed 4 people in her rampage and injured 9 school children, giving officers a reason to be on edge, but it did little to alleviate criticism of Nixon. Nixon himself attended the funeral for the slayed police officer and National Guardsman, but neither of the school staff members who were killed, which did not repair his image.

1979 was not Richard Nixon’s year

Just as the fury over the death of Brenda Spencer was fading away, the jury returned their verdict in the case of Dan White, the assassin of Harvey Milk and George Moscone. The San Francisco jury convicted White of voluntary manslaughter, rather than the heavier charge of first-degree murder. This sparked the most violent riots by the American gay community in history. Within hours of the reading of the verdict, hundreds of young gay men and women took to the streets, smashing windows, flipping cars, and setting fire to trash cans.

Learning from the Spencer debacle, Nixon refused to send the National Guard into San Francisco to quell the riots. Unfortunately, leaving the situation to the San Francisco PD was the worse decision in this case. White was a former officer in the SFPD, which intensified the gay rioters’ anger towards the local police. The two forces clashed in violent combat all through the night. As the sun rose of San Francisco Bay, five San Francisco police officers and thirteen gay rioters had been killed, with scores more injured or arrested.

The White Night Riot pushed San Francisco, where gay tensions had been simmering for years, over the edge. Police raided known gay bars and clubs; gay men and women assaulted police officers in the street. When Mayor Dianne Feinstein emerged from City Hall to address the crowd in an effort to quell the tension, she was struck in the face by a rock and rushed back into City Hall, where a police barricade was established. This tension and violence continued in San Francisco for several days while Nixon watched with concern from Sacramento.

As the clashes stretched into the fourth day, Nixon was finally comfortable in sending in the National Guard. Upon the arrival of the heavily armed officers and their military-caliber anti-riot gear, the gay rioters began to disperse. The National Guard never fired a single shot in San Francisco and only accidentally injured a rioter (he twisted his ankle as a Guardsmen was moving him away from the crowd) but Nixon still came under fire for being slow to respond to the crisis. Nixon told an aid, “If I had sent the National Guard in on day one, the queers would have said I was beating them up. So I waited. And then they said I was letting chaos and disorder reign. I couldn’t win.”

Things weren’t looking great for Nixon’s gubernatorial career in 1979, but they were about to get a lot better.

[DKrol]

Part IX - Mr. Ayatollah

The take-over of the American Embassy in Tehran would save the end of the decade for Richard Nixon

On November 4, 1979, more than 300 angry Iranian student protesters stormed the American embassy in Tehran, Iran. While their initial intent was only to symbolically hold the embassy and leave when government forces arrived to restore order, the government forces, instead, gave their support to the take-over, which included holding 52 American diplomats hostage. Ayatollah Khomeini used the take-over to accentuate his anti-Western rhetoric and stabilize his regime.

President Ford, preparing for his reelection campaign, initially underestimated the severity of the take-over. When National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft briefed Ford on the crisis on November 5, Ford showed little interest, thinking that the Iranian government would move to restore order by the end of the day. When they didn’t, Ford was still slow to respond, choosing to speak to the Canadians, Swiss, and British, who had their embassies nearby, rather than calling the Iranians directly. As the news of the take-over spread, the American people were clamoring for military action to save the hostages. Fearing being perceived as reactionary, Ford shut down any talks of a military response.

Nixon watched Ford flounder from California and fumed. Ford had been Nixon’s protege and, Nixon feared, a failure by Ford would reflect as a failure by Nixon. Henry Kissinger made a trip to Sacramento to brief Nixon on the matter on November 5 and Nixon sent a telegram to Ford later that day advising him to “act swiftly to protect American interests.” Ford ignored the telegram and continued with his passive, soft-strength approach. Nixon then attempted to call Ford at the White House and speak to him about the take-over, but he was rebuffed by the switchboard operator. It seemed like, after a rocky year as Governor of the Golden State, Nixon’s access to the White House had been cut off.

As the crisis drew on, Ford was forced to split his focus between Khomeini and Reagan

The crisis continued on into 1980. Ford lost the Iowa Caucus and the New Hampshire Primary, to Ronald Reagan and Howard Baker, respectively, over attacks of a failure of leadership. He went on to withdraw from the primary in the first week of March to “devote the full measure” of his attention “to the continuing problems” in Iran. Nixon threw his support behind Reagan shortly after Ford withdrew; Nixon believed that Reagan would lose the election of 1980 and, therefore, be removed from the national political scene going forward. Nixon also hoped that, with Ford now focused entirely on the hostage crisis, he would be able to work his way back into the national policy stage again.

On the morning of April 12, the world woke up the news that, as dusk was settling in Iran, Ford had given the authorization to begin a military offensive to rescue the hostages. Two American helicopters flew towards the embassy but came under heavy fire from the ground. A shoulder-mounted rocket took out the propeller of one of the helicopters and sent it crashing into the second. All eight Americans involved in the mission perished on the ground outside of Tehran. Immediately, Ford came under heavy fire. Not since the darkest days of Watergate had the American presidency been under such heavy criticism. It became worse when the bodies were not able to be recovered.

Nixon was tired of waiting around for Ford to come crawling to him. Unbeknownst to the President, Nixon took an early-morning flight from California to Washington on April 15 and showed up to the visitors entrance of the White House around noontime demanding to see the President. The security guard didn’t believe it was actually Nixon and was about to call D.C. Police to come arrest the strange, angry man before a news crew spotted the comotion and came running over, asking Nixon if he was in Washington to advise the President on Iran. The embarrassed security guard quickly ushered the former President through the checkpoint and showed him to the Oval Office, where Ford had been rushed from a meeting with Girl Scouts when word of Nixon’s arrival came through.

Nixon admonished Ford for shoving him to the wayside during the crisis, begging him to “take advantage of the collective experiences” of the Presidents Club. Ford, obviously caught off guard, let it slip to Nixon that he was “struggling to keep up with” the crisis and the failure of the military operation had devastated him. Nixon gave Ford a verbal smackdown, using the ambience of the Oval Office to impress upon him the awesome power of the Presidency. At the end of the meeting, Nixon had worked his way behind the Resolute Desk, with Ford laying down on a couch nearby. Nixon picked up the phone and placed a call to the State Department. Two days later, Nixon was on a U.S. Military aircraft to Iraq.

On April 17, Nixon and a small State Department retinue made their way through Baghdad to meet with Saddam Hussein. Nixon secured support from Hussein for the United States in the hostage crisis, a major breakthrough in Iraqi-American relations. After meeting with Hussein, Nixon gave a major speech on behalf of the United States government from Firdos Square demanding the immediate release of the American hostages by the Iranians on the threat of “severe retaliatory efforts on behalf of humanity.” Nixon boldly declared “Mr. Ayatollah, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity and security for the Iranian people, if you seek stability around the Middle East - Mr. Ayatollah, open those gates. Mr. Ayatollah, let the Americans go.”

With the threat of military action, backed up by Iraqi pressures, Iranian national security forces stormed the American embassy on April 24 and removed the student protesters. Three days later, the hostages were put in a car and driven over the border to Iraq, where they were medically evaluated, flown to Belgium, where they received a second medical evaluation, and then on to Washington, D.C.

Richard Nixon was there to greet them at the tarmac.

OOC: Sorry for no update yesterday, but it was Opening Day. Go Sox!

[DKrol]

Wouldn't Ford be constitutionally ineligible to run in 1980 as he served over 2 years of Nixon's second term? Great timeline by the way!

Umm....well, the Constitution doesn't reference running, it only refererences being elected. So Ford could run, he just couldn't win.... (AKA: I didn't realize Ford had more than 2 years of Nixon's term).

[DKrol]

This will be continuing! I went on vacation for a few days, so I haven't been able to post. But it will return soon!

[DKrol]

Part X - The Other Kennedy

Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy emerged as the new face of the Democratic Party

With Ford out of the way, Ronald Reagan easily won the 1980 Republican nomination and everyone, except for Reagan, saw the writing on the wall. As Nixon had predicted in 1978, any Republican would have been a sacrificial lamb going against any Democrat in 1980 after three terms of Republican control in the White House and a series of policy shortfalls by Ford. Jimmy Carter attempted to snag the nomination for a second time but faced stiff opposition from the left-wing of his party, namely Senator Ted Kennedy. Flying high on his family’s name, and money, Kennedy dragged the primary all the way to the convention and led a floor revolt against Carter. With a 2% majority, Kennedy emerged victorious from the New York City-based convention and, with Senator Gary Hart as his running mate, took the battle to the Republican ticket of Ronald Reagan and North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms.

Nixon chose not to campaign for Reagan-Helms, hoping to keep his name clear of the shame of a loss. Instead, Nixon criss-crossed the country on the trail for Senate and Congressional candidates. In his memoirs, Nixon wrote that “For each candidate I campaigned for, I was keeping a list of favors they owed me. A speech here, a fundraiser there. They knew I’d call to collect.” Nixon-supported candidates who found success at the ballot box included Barry Goldwater, Paula Hawkins, and Dan Quayle. Notably, California Senator Alan Cranston was able to fend off a challenge from Republican Paul Gann, who Nixon invested a lot of capital.

Reagan and Helms performed better than anyone expected, largely because Southern voters were uncomfortable voting for the Northern, liberal Kennedy but, at the end of the night, Kennedy was announced as the President-elect thanks to massive support from union workers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. In Congress, Democrats maintained a 53-47 majority in the Senate and, thanks to their massive margins from 1978, a healthy 227-208 majority in the House.

Kennedy/Hart (272) v. Reagan/Helms (266)

With Reagan vanquished after an embarrassing primary loss in 1976 and then a narrow loss in 1980, and many Congressional leaders unpopular, the natural leader of the Republican Party was Richard Nixon. It was widely expected that Nixon would use the national vacancy to serve as a natural counter to President Kennedy and to advance the conservative movement. Nature, however, had other plans. Days after Kennedy’s Inauguration in 1981, Nixon announced that he would not be seeking a second term as Governor of California. In a press conference outside of La Casa Pacifica, Nixon thanked the people of California “for investing in me their greatest confidence and loyalty.” On February 3, a statement from the Governor’s Office announced that Nixon would be stepping aside as Governor “with immediate effect”, making Lieutenant Governor Mike Curb acting governor, citing health troubles.

Four days later it was revealed Nixon was undergoing an intensive treatment for prostate cancer. Richard and Pat moved to a friend’s New York City townhouse while Nixon underwent treatment at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Given Nixon’s age and history of illness, including a bought of phlebitis in 1974, doctors were very concerned when a routine screening found inflammation. Later tests confirmed that Nixon was suffering from prostate cancer with a Gleason Score of 6. After an initial round of radiation treatment, the prognosis became much better. President Kennedy sent a telegram to Nixon, and politicians from former President Ford to Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill made their way to New York to give their best wishes. After a small operation to remove the last infected cells in May, the Nixons returned to California in July.

Their plane was greeted by throngs of well-wishers when they landed at LAX. Richard kept his head down and hat on as he walked, with the aid of a cane and a security agent, from the plane to a waiting car, but Pat made her way over to the barriers, shook a few hands, and took some flowers before getting in the car with her husband. The road into their gated community in San Clemente was also lined with well-wishers. The Nixons kept a low profile through 1981 and into 1982, with Nixon only returning to the Governor’s Office at the end of January 1983, after nearly a year’s absence. Already a lame duck, Nixon only made the trip to Sacramento twice a week. Nixon was notably thinner and his face gaunt after his return.

Many immediately began to question what Nixon would do in his return to retirement. Some believed that his retirement would actually mean retirement for the statesman. Others, those closest to Nixon, knew why he wasn’t taking another term as Governor: he needed the time to rest before his next adventure.

[DKrol]

Part XI - Know the Constitution, Sir

Former Federal Judge Clement Haynsworth found himself at the center of Richard Nixon’s comeback

Richard Nixon received Joe Theismann and the Washington Redskin Super Bowl Championship team at La Casa Pacifica in early February, 1983. That was his only public appearance for several months. But just because he wasn’t in the public eye didn’t mean Nixon wasn’t at work. Rising every morning by 6 AM, the 69-year-old former President spent most the day in his home office. He read three morning papers and had the previous night’s Tonight Show recorded for him to watch in the morning. After a light breakfast of toast and coffee, Nixon would spend a few hours answering correspondences and making calls to friends, family, and allies. He’d usually have a former staffer or current lawmaker as a guest at lunch, where they would discuss the news of the day and Nixon’s opinions on it. Beginning in March of 1983, the evenings were when Nixon began to take the next steps of his comeback.

Each evening, a team of long-time Nixon aids and supporters gathered in what became known as “The Situation Room”, an Eastern extension of La Casa Pacifica that was built while the Nixons were in New York. Chief among them was former Federal Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Clement Haynsworth, whom Nixon attempted to place on the Supreme Court in 1969. After leaving the federal bench in 1980, Haynsworth moved to San Diego and became a constant friend and confident of Nixon, providing legal opinion several times during his governorship. Also included in the A-Team where former White House Counsel Leonard Garment, former Executive Director of the Wallace-LeMay 1968 campaign Tom Turnipseed, and former FCC Chairman Dean Burch. The meetings were listed on Nixon’s schedule as a “Policy Working Group” but, when the guest list was published in a leak to the New York Times in July 1983 many began to speculate that Nixon’s health had recovered enough for a bid for the U.S. Senate in 1986. Nixon had bigger plans in mind.

President Kennedy, although beleaguered by a weakened economy, announced he was running for re-election in September 1983. A week earlier, Texas Senator George H.W. Bush had announced his intention to run for office, and before the end of 1983 the Republican field would be rounded out with Tennessee Senator Howard Baker, Kansas Senator Bob Dole, Missouri Senator John Danforth, and Reverend Jerry Falwell. Kennedy faced a centrist challenge from now-perennial candidate former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter. Kennedy easily dismissed Carter after two blow out victories in Iowa and New Hampshire.

In the Republican primary, the leader fluctuated between Bush, Dole, and Danforth over the early months. Falwell captured the fervor of the religious right that Ronald Reagan had championed over his career and maintained a solid 15%-20% of the primary voters. In Iowa, Dole squeaked out a victory with 27%, compared to Bush’s 25% and Danforth’s 22%. New Hampshire propelled Bush, where he claimed 34% of the vote. Danforth found his first win in Maine, meaning that the first three primaries were won by three different candidates. Some at the RNC Headquarters were worried that a drawn-out primary would harm their odds at beating the seemingly weak Kennedy. Luckily, Richard Nixon had been watching from California.

Support from Richard Nixon buoyed Bob Dole’s campaign

Nixon had long been a friend of Bob Dole after the two met in 1968 while Dole was running for the Senate. Nixon strongly admired Dole’s commitment to public service through his life, especially his double Purple Heart-winning actions in World War II. From early on in the 1984 race, Nixon told friends he prefered Dole. After seeing the tight race develop in the early contests, Nixon decided to enter the fray and make his first public appearance in a year on March 12. At a rally in Miami, Nixon endorsed Dole in front of a ravenous crowd on the eve of the Florida Primary. Nixon painted Dole as the only candidate “with the wealth of experience and service needed to capably serve” as President.

With Nixon’s endorsement, and the ensuing financial support he brought, Dole continued on in the race and was able to fend off challenger after challenger, as each candidate rose up and attempted to be the Anyone But Dole choice. In mid-May, Dole was declared the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party. Talk then turned to his Vice Presidential nominee. Bush and Danforth were the immediately obvious choices and received most of the media coverage. One article in the Washington Post mentioned Nixon’s name being circulated by party insiders but it was lost in a larger media cycle. At the Dallas-based 1984 Convention, Dole proved the Washington Post correct and shocked the world when he submitted the name of the 37th President as his choice for Vice President.

While the Convention delegates strongly supported Nixon’s nomination, Democrats exploded in anger. Many feared the implications of having the popular elder statesman Nixon on the opposing ticket but others challenged the legality of Nixon’s selection. DNC Counsel Hillary Rodham Clinton contested that Nixon, under the 25th Amendment, was ineligible to serve as Vice President, meaning that any electoral votes cast for him would be invalid. Nixon, obviously, was prepared for this challenge. While Haynsworth developed a legal strategy to fight the charge if and when it made it the courts, Dole and Nixon had a political strategy ready. They made an aggressive media push portraying Nixon as a public servant dedicated to helping his country and “answering the call to serve.” Early polls showed around 43% of people supported the choice of Nixon, while 36% opposed it, and 21% were undecided.

The choice of Nixon became the major issue of the 1984 campaign for Democrats. Kennedy and his running mate, Vice President Gary Hart, attacked Dole as a pawn of Nixon and argued that electing Dole would be giving Nixon a third term. Attacks based on Watergate proved ineffective as Nixon had massively rehabbed his public image over the decade since he left office. Dole/Nixon attacked Kennedy as “running on his name, not his record” while also attacking Kennedy as lacking a serious record, alleging that he had done little in his term in office. Fairly, Kennedy had lost battles with a more-conservative-leaning Congress over healthcare and education reform but had passed a progressive tax reform package before the 1982 midterms.

In September, the Kennedy/Hart campaign suffered a major setback: Donna Rice. Rice alleged that she and the Vice President had been engaged in an extramarital affair for several years, including while he was in office as Prime Minister. Republicans attacked Hart as an unsafe choice for Vice President, arguing his loose morals put national security at risk; this was corroborated by Rice when she showed newsmen a private schedule for Kennedy that she said she took from Hart’s desk when he told her they had to end their affair in 1983. Hart tried to deny the charge but was forced off the Democratic ticket on October 2, 1984. Prior to Hart’s departure, the bookies gave the Democrats a 65% chance to win. After, it dropped to 45%.

The Nixon-Stennis Debate was not a repeat of the Kennedy-Nixon debate

Kennedy chose Senate President Pro Tempore John C. Stennis as Hart’s replacement, which drew  much criticism for Stennis’ long history of supporting segregation. The Kennedy/Stennis campaign tried to counter the narrative by pointing out that Stennis voted for the 1982 reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act but the Republicans used it as a main attack point in the final month of the campaign. Nixon and Stennis met for a single debate a week after Stennis was named to the Democratic ticket. Stennis, 83, appeared weak, frail, and tired next to the well rested and energized Nixon. There were no political sparks in the debate, as Nixon and Stennis were long-time personal friends, but the image of the hunched Stennis next to the tanned and dapper Nixon set the tone.

The Kennedy-Dole debates were also uninspiring for many. Kennedy trained his fire on Nixon, while Dole, referring to himself in the third person, lauded his military service and bipartisan success in three Senate terms. Both men looked good and voters saw little difference between them. When Election Day came, everyone was bracing themselves for a close election that went on into the night. Would the Kennedy-weary Southern Democrats vote for Republicans for the first time? Could Nixon bring California into the Republican fold? How would the impending legal challenge to any electoral votes for Nixon play out? Shortly after 1 AM EST, Tom Brokaw and NBC News called the race.

Dole/Nixon (R) - 288 v. Kennedy/Stennis (D) - 250

[DKrol]

I love all of this. The engaging writing, Hart collapsing and taking my least favorite Kennedy brother with him, Nixon using a constitutional loophole to gain the presidency (I assume that's to come), that you made it very clear that Bob Dole referred to Bob Dole in the third person at the debate. I. Love. All. Of. It.

Thank you! I'm very glad you're enjoying it!

[DKrol]

Part XII - HRC v. RMN

DNC Chief Counsel Hillary Rodham Clinton led the charge against Nixon’s bid to become Vice President

The Supreme Court in 1984 had been shaped by 12 years of Republican Presidents, and a further 6 years of a conservative Democrat in the Oval Office. Warren Burger was in his 15th year as Chief Justice. Although appointed by Nixon, senior justice Harry Blackmun had become a reliable liberal Justice, along with Johnson-appointed Justice Thurgood Marshall and Eisenhower-appointed William J. Brennan. Nixon’s other appointees, Lewis Powell and William Rehnquist were committed conservatives, as was Ford’s only Supreme Court nominee, Dallin Oaks. Ted Kennedy only named one justice to the bench, Gilbert S. Merritt, who had quickly distanced himself from the liberal Kennedy and made friends with the Burger-Powell-Rehnquist group. That left John Kennedy-appointed Byron White as the swing vote on the Court. It was these men who would decide the fate of the 1984 election.

On November 7, 1984, the day after Bob Dole and Richard Nixon won the election in what ended up being a Republican wave down the ballot (Republicans won 236 seats in the House and held a 55-45 majority in the Senate), Hillary Rodham Clinton filed suit in the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on behalf of the Democratic National Committee challenging Nixon’s eligibility to receive electoral votes. Her argument was that, since Nixon was ineligible to be elected President under the 22nd Amendment, he was ineligible to serve as Vice President under the 12th Amendment, which says that “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.” Clement Haynsworth, now named Chief Counsel of the Dole-Nixon Transition Project, had prepared a response to this line of attack.

As Haynsworth argued in court, the 22nd Amendment is concerned only with the election of a President, not one’s eligibility to serve as President. This meant that the 22nd Amendment was “inapplicable” in the case in the question. Attention then turned to the 12th Amendment. Haynsworth, a passionate orator, highlight the “constitutionally ineligible to the office of President” line of the amendment. Flipping his pocket Constitution to Article Two, Haynsworth read out Section 1, Clause 5: “No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.” As Haynsworth went on to argue, it was a known fact that Nixon met those requirements since he had already been elected and inaugurated as President twice.

The Court of Appeals sided with Haynsworth and upheld Nixon’s ability to receive electoral votes. Within hours, Rodham Clinton and the DNC had filed an appeal with the Supreme Court. Clinton hoped that the plethora of Nixon-appointed Justices, 4 in total, would recuse themselves. That would leave Marshall, Brennan, Oaks, Merritt, and White as the only Justices to hear the case. Two liberals, two conservatives, and a swing vote. Nixon’s main ally in the Senate, Barry Goldwater, held a secret lunch with Burger, Powell, Rehnquist, and Blackmun to ask them not to recuse themselves for the upcoming case. Goldwater, prompted by Haynsworth, argued that Supreme Court Justices hear cases involving the governments that appointed them all the time and that this was no different. Powell and Rehnquist were open to the idea but pressure from Burger and Blackmun, in the end, led all four to recuse themselves from the case.

78 year-old Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. acted as Chief Justice during the Clinton v. Nixon trial

The five-Justice Supreme Court convened on December 3 to begin hearing oral arguments from Rodham Clinton and Haynsworth. White, known for his intense grilling of attorneys, berated Clinton for nearly an hour over the difference between serving and being elected and asked if Nixon had been elected President in 1984. Justice Oaks moved to dismiss the case after Rodham Clinton’s presentation, arguing that it lacked “the basic legal understanding needed to” appear before the Court. The Justices voted 3-2 to maintain the case. Haynsworth, put off by the recusal of the Nixon-appointed Justices, had a far flatter performance before the Supreme Court than he had before the Appeals Court. Nixon, who sat in the gallery during Haynsworth’s argument, told friends he was not sure how the reduced Court would vote after Justice White gave him a thorough wringing out after Haynsworth misspoke and referenced the 25th Amendment when he meant the 22nd. The Justices withdrew to their chambers on December 11 for deliberations.

On December 17, the Electors met in Washington and cast their votes. Bob Dole received the 288 he won, and Kennedy got his 250. Stennis received 247, with three Northern Democrat electors refusing to vote for the Southern Segregationist Senator. Vice President Gary Hart instead received those Northern votes. Some Republican Electors were uneasy about casting their votes for Nixon with the Supreme Court still arguing the case. After some intense pressuring from Nixon allies, 284 Republican electors cast their ballots for Nixon. The remaining voters scattered their votes among George H.W. Bush, John Danforth, John Stennis, and Bill Brock. Then Nixon just had to wait to hear back from the elusive five Justices to learn if he’d accomplished the impossible and made the greatest comeback in history.

After an extended period of discussion, the Supreme Court reconvened on Wednesday, December 19 to deliver its opinion in Hillary Rodham Clinton et al v. Richard Milhous Nixon. No one was surprised when it was Justice White who began to read the majority opinion; everyone expected him to be the deciding vote and be honored with writing the opinion. In a 3-2 decision, White, Oaks, and Merritt argued that Nixon met the Constitutionally defined requirements to serve as President and his election as Vice President circumvented the effects of the 22nd Amendment. Marshall and Brennan, in the minority, argued that Nixon’s election as Vice President “directly contradicted the intent” of the 22nd Amendment but admitted that it did not violate the text of either the 22nd or the 12th Amendments.

Shortly before Noon on January 20th, 1985, Associate Justice William Rehnquist administered the oath of office to Richard Milhous Nixon. Minutes later, Chief Justice Warren Burger did the same to Robert Joseph Dole, becoming the 40th President of the United States of America. In an inaugural address, delivered the following day inside the Capitol Rotunda due to cold weather, the new President proudly stated “Bob Dole is a champion for the working class man because he knows and believes in the boundless optimism of the American people.” After the address and ceremony, Dole and Nixon attended a luncheon held in their honor by the Congressional Leadership. Halfway through the lunch, Dole leaned over to Nixon and told him “I don’t feel quite right.” Nixon, although concerned, believed it was just stress, anxiety, and excitement and urged Dole to “Have a drink, to settle the nerves.”

Within the hour, the Secret Service had quietly whisked the new President to Walter Reed Army Medical Center after continued complaints of chest pains.

[DKrol]

Part XIII - Mr. Acting President

President Dole’s health became an immediate concern

On January 22, White House Press Secretary Larry Speakes announced that President Dole had suffered a mild heart attack at some point between delivering his inaugural address and attending the Congressional luncheon. White House Doctor T. Burton Smith described the heart attack as “notably mild” and probably caused by complications from a new medication Dole had begun taking due to a recent infection from his war-wounded arm. Dr. Smith predicted that Dole would make a full recovery but would need to spend “three to five weeks” on mandatory bed rest followed by six or seven weeks of non-bedridden rest to avoid any risk of triggering a second, likely more violent, heart attack. Later that day, Vice President Nixon convened the cabinet, largely comprised of bureaucratic career under secretaries at the time, and invoked the 25th Amendment to name Nixon the first Acting President in American history. Speakes released a statement from Dole confirming his support for the decision.

Nixon’s first action as Acting President was to finish the cabinet nomination process. Dole had already named General Alexander Haig as Secretary of Defense. That left a lot of room for Nixon to place his touches on the cabinet: Caspar Weinberger, a former Nixon official, was appointed Treasury Secretary, Ronald Reagan, long-time political ally of Nixon, as Secretary of State, Clement Haynsworth, Nixon’s legal mastermind, as Attorney General, and Frank Carlucci, another former Nixon official, as Secretary of Labor. Many in the press noted the cabinet had a Nixon-heavy skew and that, had Dole been actively involved in the process, it was unlikely the same people would have been chosen. Thanks to the Republicans’ large majorities in both chambers, especially the Senate, none of Nixon’s nominees faced great scrutiny.

Even greater fortune fell into Nixon’s lap on February 12, 1985. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger, whom Nixon had appointed in 1969, announced his intentions to retire at the end of the current term. Jumping at the opportunity, Nixon named Burger’s successor, Associate Justice William Rehnquist, on February 18. To replace Rehnquist, Nixon tapped his long-time ally Robert Bork. Rehnquist’s nomination drew no controversy, he was a widely respected jurist who was confirmed as Chief Justice on an 82-8 vote in the middle of March. It was Bork, however, that drew far more controversy.

The nomination of Robert Bork took up much of Nixon’s time as Acting President

Within hours of Bork’s nomination being announced, pundits and Democrats attacked it as favoritism on the part of Nixon, with a rumor circulating that Nixon had promised Bork a Supreme Court seat in 1973. Nixon denied that charge and maintained that Bork was a brilliant legal mind and a strong defender of the Constitution. Senator Joe Biden, the Ranking Minority Member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, took up the cause of opposing Bork as the hill he was willing to die on. With support from the NAACP, ACLU, and Planned Parenthood, Biden launched a massive anti-Bork media campaign, including a multi-million dollar TV ad blitz narrated by Gregory Peck.

Attorney General Haynsworth and Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker championed the Bork nomination in the Senate. A group of liberal Republicans, led by Robert Stafford of Vermont and John Chafee of Rhode Island, agreed with Biden and expressed their stiff opposition to the nomination. Haynsworth and Baker attempted to strong arm the “radical liberal bastards”, as Nixon called them in his diary, but that only emboldened them. On the eve of the vote of the full Senate, Haynsworth reported to Nixon that he was not sure how the vote would go. In a frustrated fury, Nixon summoned the liberal Republicans to the White House before the vote to work out a deal. Nixon agreed to let three Senators vote against the nomination, enough to make a symbolic statement, he argued, in exchange for the remaining three voting in favor. With the support of Democrat John Stennis, this would be enough to comfortably confirm Bork. Chafee refused to commit to the deal in person, leaving the White House without giving Nixon a firm answer.

The cabinet returned the powers of the Presidency to Bob Dole on April 8. On April 9, the Senate voted 53-47 to confirm Robert Bork to the Supreme Court.

[DKrol]

Part XIV - Troubles Abroad, Troubles at Home

The El Descanso attack forced Dole’s attention abroad

Days after resuming the Presidency, Bob Dole was planning to announce a massive spending package to combat what he termed “a booming drug crisis”. The plan set aside nearly $2 billion to hire new federal agents to combat the sale and use of drugs, as well as imposing stringent penalties for repeated drug users. White House insiders believed that it was largely influenced by Nixon’s career-long “law and order” rhetoric. Unfortunately, the rollout of the “Saving America’s Youth Agenda”, as it was to be called, wasn’t rolled out in 1985. Or 1986.

The morning that Dole was planning on announcing SAYA, he and Nixon were ushered into the Situation Room. Overnight, a series of bombs were detonated at the American Torrejon Air Base in Madrid. The bombs breached the walls of the base, allowing a group of 25 members of the Islamic Jihad Organization to flood into the base and take 45 Americans and 17 Spaniards hostage at gunpoint. Early reports indicated that 14 Americans had been killed in the initial hostage taking and another five had been killed in the hostage-taking process. This was the first national security test for the Dole/Nixon Administration and would set the tone for the rest of their term together.

Nixon immediately proposed calling Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez, French President Francois Mitterrand, and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and relying on a Pan-European task force to negotiate the Americans release. Nixon argued that the effort to place an American team on the ground would be too great and the delay in timing could put the hostages in danger. Speed, Nixon argued, would be the key to success. National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger estimated that the Pan-European team could be assembled and in place in less than two hours, while assembling and locating an American team could take upwards of five.

Dole did not like the idea of sending a group of Europeans to save American lives. Normally a fervent internationalist, Dole was worried about the the image it would send, as he turned to Europeans to save the day in his first international crisis. Supported by Secretary of Defense Al Haig, Dole gave the orders for an American hostage negotiation team to be airlifted from Camp Darby, in Italy, to Madrid. Nixon and Secretary of State Ronald Reagan protested the decision strongly, but Dole held strong. By the time the American team arrived in Spain, the hostage-takers had grown impatient and shot five more Americans. When negotiations began to break down, the hostage-takers killed the first Spaniard. Prime Minister Gonzalez ordered his soldiers, who were on-site but not actively involved, to storm the base and end the crisis as the Americans stood to the side and watched.

President Dole’s annus horribilis continued on the home front

Dole received a tremendous amount of criticism from the press and the public for his choice in the El Descanso attack. In public, Nixon put on a face and toed the White House line but, in private, he slandered Dole and Haig to anyone who would listen. Through backchannels, Nixon leaked to the press the divisions among the cabinet during the El Descanso meeting. After two months, the criticism largely died down, save for the most liberal of news commentators or politicians, but Nixon’s anger still bubbled up.

Eight months after the attack, in December, another crisis emerged for Dole. Civil Rights leader Al Sharpton, hailed by some as the new Martin Luther King, Jr., had announced plans for a nation-wide strike for nursing home workers, after reports of understaffing and overwork became widespread. Dole, who spent several years over decades in nursing homes recovering from surgeries and wounds, extended an offer to meet with Sharpton. Sharpton accepted the offer but deferred on the date until after a planned unity march in Los Angeles on December 6.

That meeting never ended up happening. As Sharpton led about a thousand nursing home workers, mostly African Americans, down Sunset Boulevard, a man rushed from the crowd on the sidewalk. He grabbed Sharpton by the shoulder, turned him around, and fired two shots from a small revolver into his chest at point-blank range. Panic broke out across the crowd as a mob of white nationalists descended on the crowd and started punching and kicking the marchers. David Duke, Grand Wizard of the KKK, put out a statement applauding the attackers “for taking steps to restore the rule of law and order on our streets” and end the march.

Duke, at the time, was running for the State Senate in Louisiana as a Republican. Two days after the attack, Dole was asked at a press conference what his thoughts on Duke running for office were. Dole demurred, saying “It’s not fitting to comment on” it. He was pressed but held firm that he wouldn’t “be commenting on the candidacy of a man in a state senate race in Louisiana.” The nation went up in flames after the press conference. Riots, led by young African American men, broke out in New York, Detroit, Miami, Houston, Los Angeles, and Seattle. Businesses were shuttered, cars were destroyed, and six people, two white, four black, were killed across the nation over a week of riots. The National Guard was ultimately sent in in full riot-control gear to several persistant hotspots, injuring thousands and arresting hundred across the country.

Dole was attacked, first for spurring the riots by not condemning Duke and, second, for authorizing a very strong response to the riots after they started. Dole tried to backstep, saying that he “personally would never support” Duke, but it did little to shut down his critics. He held firm on his decision to send in the National Guard by arguing that “the need for law and order required it.” This only inflamed people more, as Duke had used the phrase law and order in his statement after the attack. Almost every morning in 1985, Nixon woke up, read the papers, and shook his head in disbelief before convening his Crisis Council, a top-level team of spin doctors, media figures, and political operatives, to find a way through the day’s crisis.

[DKrol]

One of, if not the best timeline I've ever read

This TL is making me love Nixon and I'm not sure why

Keep it up!

Thank you! I appreciate the comment very much!

[DKrol]

Part XV - Midterm Reset

1986 did not get off to an immediately better start for the Dole/Nixon Administration

On January 28, 1986, NASA televised the launch of the Space Shuttle Challenger, carrying New Hampshire teacher Christine McAuliffe, who was scheduled to teach a science lesson from outer space. 73 seconds after launch, the shuttle disintegrated in front of a national audience - Vice President Nixon had even traveled to Cape Canaveral to see off the mission. School children across the nation were shocked and horrified as teachers scrambled to shut off the televisions. President Dole delayed his planned State of the Union address by three days out of respect and mourning for the crew and their loved ones.

At the State of the Union, Dole announced the creation of a commission to investigate the disastrous result of the mission, choosing his Vice President to chair the commission. Nixon graciously accepted the duty and received a bipartisan standing ovation from the Joint Session of Congress. Political commentators noted that even considering such a thing even five years earlier would have been unfathomable.

Nixon threw himself at the Challenger Commission, personally meeting with witnesses and collecting testimony through dozens of interviews with engineers and scientists across the nation. While the Commission had 14 other members, mostly specialists from the aerospace and defense industries, Nixon ran the Commission with an iron fist and used his girth as Vice President to steamroll over the experts. After 8 months on the job, the Nixon Commission, as it became known, produced a report in September of 1986 declaring a failure of O-rings in the rocket booster as the cause of the disaster. The report, largely personally written by Nixon, called for the end of the Space Shuttle Program for “an indefinite period” and a “serious change” in the management of NASA. Nixon, in an interview after the report was released, said that he believed NASA’s leadership had “gotten eyes bigger than their abilities” and had “foolishly rushed ahead of the technology and put human lives at risk in the process.” Dole privately chastised Nixon for speaking so freely about “such a sensitive matter” but said nothing publically.

Former President Ted Kennedy was the winner of the 1986 Midterms

With Nixon working furiously for the Nixon Commission, Dole was forced to carry the torch of campaigning for Republican candidates during the midterms. This fed into Democrats’ plans. Attacking Dole as weak and ineffectual, former President Ted Kennedy criss-crossed the nation for Democratic candidates in House and Senate races. Kennedy attacked Dole for his inaction during the El Descanso disaster, his soft stance on Duke, and his brutal use of the National Guard during the race riots. Dole and Republicans tried to counter and argue that Dole was a competent administrator and that, with strong Republican majorities in Congress, major legislation like tax reform and infrastructure plans were coming.

Going into 1986, Republicans held a 54-45 majoriting in the Senate. They lost one seat, in North Carolina, from a special election in March, reducing their margin to 53-47. Republican Senators were unseated in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Dakota, and Maryland and only unseated one Democratic Senator, Thomas Eagleton in Missouri. This left the Senate with a 51-49 Democratic majority. In the House, Republicans held onto their majority by a single seat, 218-217. While not a landslide by any margin, it certainly hurt the White House’s standing in the eyes of the electorate as the Dole/Nixon Reelection Machine was gearing up.