September 23, 2006
Feeling Nixon’s Pain Posted by Joshua Zeitz at 02:30 PM EST Fifty-four years ago today, Richard Nixon, then a U.S. Senator from California, delivered his famous “Checkers speech,” in which he delineated his family’s modest financial holdings before a national television audience and vigorously denied any impropriety in having drawn thousands of dollars from a secret slush fund set up by wealthy political supporters. The speech represented a last-ditch effort to salvage his vice-presidential nomination, which was in severe jeopardy following the New York Post’s revelations of his secret finances. Luckily for Nixon, the speech worked. Toward the conclusion of his remarks, Nixon made history by telling viewers: “One other thing I probably should tell you, because if I don’t they’ll probably be saying this about me, too. We did get something, a gift, after the election. A man down in Texas heard Pat on the radio mention the fact that our two youngsters would like to have a dog. And believe it or not, the day before we left on this campaign trip we got a message from Union Station in Baltimore, saying they had a package for us. We went down to get it. You know what it was? It was a little cocker spaniel dog in a crate that he’d sent all the way from Texas, black and white, spotted. And our little girl Tricia, the six year old, named it ‘Checkers.’ And you know, the kids, like all kids, love the dog, and I just want to say this, right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we’re gonna keep it.” At the time, many political insiders viewed Nixon’s performance as maudlin. Dwight Eisenhower, who tacitly agreed to let Nixon deliver the speech, kept a conspicuous distance from his running-mate for several days, preferring to hold off any photo ops until he could take the public’s temperature. Pat Nixon, the future first lady, was livid that her family’s modest means had been exposed for the whole nation to see and hear. But the country seemed to like what it heard. In the immediate aftermath of the Checkers speech, the National Republican Committee received only 21 negative telegrams out of a total of 4,000. Time magazine said that Nixon had “established himself as a man of integrity and courage,” while the Washington Post felt he had responded “eloquently and movingly” to the charges against him. Finally convinced that Nixon had carried the day, Ike invited his running mate to join him for a strategy session in Wheeling, West Virginia. The former general met Nixon at the airport and proclaimed, effusively, “You’re my boy!” Thus was born a great American political tradition: the confessional. It was a short road from Richard Nixon to Bill Clinton. It may be undignified to bare one’s soul in public. But the electorate can’t get enough of it.
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