The Kennedy Half-Century (61 page)

History played out precisely that way. Nixon became the GOP’s workhorse in 1966, as he campaigned for 105 candidates in thirty-five states and picked up invaluable chits everywhere.
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The strong Republican showing in 1966—the GOP won an additional forty-seven U.S. House seats as voters expressed disaffection with LBJ’s war policy—gave Nixon a real boost. By 1967 he was the Republican presidential frontrunner, and despite challenges from three governors—New York’s Nelson Rockefeller, California’s Ronald Reagan, and Michigan’s George Romney—Nixon won his second White House nomination on the first ballot in August 1968.
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Despite all of Nixon’s advantages, not least the deep unpopularity of Johnson and his Vietnam policy, the general election turned out to be exceptionally close. The Republican had held a sizable edge in the Gallup poll in early September over Vice President Hubert Humphrey, but the anti-Democratic vote was split because of former Alabama governor George Wallace, who ran a racist, populist campaign that took 13.5 percent of the vote and 46 electoral votes.
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Nixon would have won a solid majority except for Wallace; instead, he squeaked to victory over Humphrey by a margin of 43.4 to 42.7 percent.
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Almost 57 percent of Americans had voted for someone other than Nixon, making his task ahead much more difficult.

The America Richard Nixon inherited from Lyndon Johnson—deeply divided over Vietnam and polarized about race—was a far cry from the generally tranquil one John Kennedy received from Dwight Eisenhower. Nixon had little margin for error and less of a honeymoon than any modern president. The conditions were ripe for a contentious administration, not least because Democrats retained large majorities of both houses of Congress and some of Nixon’s most fervent detractors, such as Senator Edward Kennedy, resided there.

Nixon had long nursed grievances, many of them justified, about his treatment by the news media and Democratic elites in 1960 and 1962. JFK had been a press favorite throughout his presidential campaign and White House years, and it was an article of faith for Nixon that he had not gotten a fair break in 1960 from many, maybe most, reporters. This carried over to Nixon’s presidency. References abound in Nixon’s notes and his staff’s memos to JFK’s media coverage and public relations successes. Just weeks into his presidency, Nixon prodded his chief domestic adviser John Ehrlichman to set up a Kennedy-like network as pushback on press coverage of his actions:

I still have not had any progress report on what procedure has been set up to continue … the letters to the editor project and the calls to TV stations. Two primary purposes would be served by establishing such a procedure. First, it gives a lot of people who were very active in the campaign a continuing responsibility which they would enjoy having. Second, it gives us what Kennedy had in abundance—a constant representation in letters to the editor columns and a very proper influence on the television commentators … I do not want a blunderbuss memorandum to go out to hundreds of people on this project, but a discrete and nevertheless effective Nixon Network set up. Give me a report.
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Displeased by a mild joke on the television comedy show
The Smothers Brothers
, Nixon again urged Ehrlichman, “I think it is not too late … to have a few letters go to the producers of the program objecting to this kind of comment particularly in view of the great public approval of RN’s handling of foreign policy, etc. etc. As I have pointed out ad infinitum this was [the] automatic reaction on the part of the Kennedy adherents and it should be an automatic
reaction wherever we are concerned, both when we find something we want to approve and when we find something we want to disapprove.”
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President Nixon also repeatedly stressed to his chief of staff, H. R. “Bob” Haldeman, that he should brief the press about Nixon’s extemporaneous responses at press conferences. “I never memorize an answer,” wrote Nixon, also noting that his press confabs had “no planted questions.” “This was the Kennedy way. It is not our way.”
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When Democratic National Committee chairman Lawrence O’Brien, a Kennedy man, accused Nixon of generating “the worst recession since the 1950s,” Nixon wrote that Senator Bob Dole, the Republican National Committee chairman, should “hit fast that Kennedy had high unemployment for [19]61-62-63 …”
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An editorial in the
Richmond News Leader
as Nixon’s first year as president came to a close, entitled “Nixon v. JFK,” delighted Nixon. It read in part, “Mr. Kennedy comes off as the acolyte, Mr. Nixon as the more effective minister … Mr. Kennedy had solid Democratic majorities in Congress … Yet in his first year as President, Mr. Kennedy was rebuffed by Congress on practically all his major programs … In the Republican Nixon’s first year, he wrenched far more out of a Democratic Congress …” Nixon wrote to Haldeman, “I hope you are following through with unprecedented letters to columnists and commentators …”
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Similarly, Nixon ordered aide Charles Colson to “circulate broadly” a third-year retrospective on Nixon’s presidency by liberal pundit Mike Royko that was even tougher in its assessment of JFK and more generous in its evaluation of Nixon.
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Royko’s no-holds-barred opinion piece blasted Kennedy as a “lazy, girl-watching senator” who “used his old man’s dough to blitz one state primary after another.” In contrast, he portrayed Nixon as a skilled statesman who knew what was best for the country.
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When the liberal reporter Mary McGrory praised Kennedy to Nixon’s detriment, Nixon told Haldeman, “Here is where our people should be talking about our bold foreign policy initiatives
never
undertaken by JFK et al.”
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When a newspaper reporter wrote of a Gallup poll that showed Kennedy leading Nixon in all categories of leadership except for foreign affairs, Nixon fumed. The president wrote to Haldeman, “This shows the effectiveness of the J.F.K. P.R.”
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When Nixon saw a quotation from a young business executive that Nixon had “provided courage and leadership—not Kennedy-style brinksmanship,” the president brought it to the attention of his team, calling it “an excellent line for our speakers to quote.”
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The competition even extended to First Ladies. Aide Harry Dent made sure President Nixon saw a Gallup poll that showed the public approved of Pat Nixon’s job as First Lady by a 9-to-1 margin. The ratio for Jackie Kennedy, noted Dent, was only 6 to 1. Nixon forwarded this
information to Haldeman and Ehrlichman with an unusual notation about his own wife: “An asset we should use more.”
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Any fair analysis of the substantive accomplishments of the two White House administrations would give Nixon bragging rights over Kennedy in several key areas, including international affairs. But Nixon and his aides understood that in the public’s affections, Nixon could not compete. Speech-writer Patrick J. Buchanan told Nixon bluntly, “I have never been convinced that Richard Nixon, Good Guy, is our long suit; to me we are simply not going to charm the American people; we are not going to win it on ‘style’ and we ought to forget playing ball in the Kennedys’ Court.”
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A campaign strategy memo from Colson to Haldeman claimed JFK’s appeal was pure “charisma”:

Despite a mediocre Administration, an undistinguished record in foreign affairs and a poor legislative tally, [Kennedy] might well have been reelected in 1964; if so it would probably have been largely due to the successful mystique he created (with the help of a friendly press). The fact that he was able to maintain a substantial base of political support a year before the election would suggest that even a relatively ineffectual President can support himself on personality alone.
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The observations about Nixon in this strategy memo were telling. “It would be foolish … to try to build a Kennedy-type mystique—there isn’t time [and] the press would never let us get away with it …” The remarkable conclusion, perhaps borne out in the results of Nixon’s landslide 1972 reelection, read, “A President doesn’t have to be likeable, have a sense of humor, or even love children …”
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While there are many JFK references in the documents comprising the Nixon administration, to suggest that John Kennedy was an obsession would be misleading. The late president was no longer a threat. But another Kennedy was. Almost from the first, President Nixon and his circle viewed JFK’s brother Ted as their foremost adversary and obstacle to reelection. They plotted and planned about how to deter him, and kept close watch on the heir to Camelot. John Ehrlichman told Nixon that he was “covering” Kennedy “personally,” getting reports about what the senator did each night during a 1971 trip to Hawaii, for instance. Perhaps surprisingly, given Kennedy’s womanizing proclivities, he was well behaved on this tropical vacation, prompting Nixon to comment, “He’s being careful now … The thing to do is, just watch
him, because what happens to fellows like that, who have that kind of problem, is that they go quite a while, and then …” But Nixon wondered if they would find anything since Ted might be restrained while “trying for the big thing [the presidency] … although [JFK] was damn careless.”
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For a while after the Chappaquiddick Island incident on July 19, 1969, the White House breathed easier about Ted Kennedy, wondering how he could survive the enormous scandal following the drowning death of the young campaign worker Mary Jo Kopechne.
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Kennedy had been the driver of the car when it careened off a bridge late at night. Despite knowing that his passenger had not escaped and was certainly injured, drowning, or dead, Kennedy did not even report the accident to police for ten hours, appearing far more concerned about contacting family friends and protecting his political career than assessing Kopechne’s fate.
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Many had assumed that the 1972 election would feature the next Kennedy versus Nixon in the presidential matchup. Seeing a golden opportunity, and fearing that the Kennedy family would cover up the scandal, the president ordered Ehrlichman to do what he could to keep the Chappaquiddick tragedy a high-profile subject of discussion. Ehrlichman hired Jack Caulfield, a former New York detective, to follow up. “For two weeks, [Caulfield] dug through the available evidence, asked damaging questions at press conferences, anything to keep the dirt flying,” noted Chris Matthews.
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Nixon operatives also placed a wiretap in the Georgetown house where Mary Jo Kopechne had lived with several other women.

Nixon had many sources about Chappaquiddick and was interested in the gossip. Just a couple of weeks after the accident, he sent a memo to Ehrlichman: “I would like for you to talk to Kissinger on a very confidential basis with regard to a talk he had with Galbraith as to what really happened in the Kennedy matter. It is a fascinating story. I’m sure Kissinger will tell you the story and then you of course will know how to check it out and get it properly exploited.”
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Nixon also watched as Kennedy went through the court proceedings—the senator was given a very lenient two-month suspended jail sentence—and then began to rehabilitate his image.
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When Kennedy’s friend Senator Birch Bayh noted that he had “a tremendous hold on young people—it amounts almost to worship—and young people are prone to forgive and forget,” Nixon underlined Bayh’s remarks and wrote in the margins to Ehrlichman, “The fix must be in.”
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Kennedy’s first post-Chappaquiddick trip out of Massachusetts and Washington was to a Democratic Party fund-raiser in Miami in February 1970. A White House observer
sent to the event reported to Ehrlichman that Kennedy “did pretty well.”
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At the same time, Nixon saw that some in the press were beginning to push Kennedy forward again, and he brought it to the attention of Haldeman and others: “The wish is probably father to the thought. But a major rebuilding job is going on—our people should do what they can to blunt it.”
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When a British newspaper reported in November 1970 that Kennedy “danced until dawn with an Italian divorcee in a Paris night club the day of the funeral of [President Charles] deGaulle” and declared that “the French consider that he insulted the memory of deGaulle,” Nixon wanted to know if the photo of Kennedy and the woman that accompanied the U.K. article was going to be published in the United States. White House counsel John W. Dean wrote in reply, “[Chuck] Colson has discussed with H[aldeman] and is following through.”
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The Nixon White House had every reason to keep close tabs on Edward Kennedy. By mid-1971, in spite of Chappaquiddick, Kennedy led Nixon in Gallup’s presidential trial heats by as much as ten percentage points.
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Until Nixon’s brilliant opening to China and détente with the Soviet Union in the first half of 1972, the president appeared vulnerable in his reelection bid. Assuming that Kennedy would not launch a campaign due to Chappaquiddick, senior Democrats hoped that Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine, who had polled strongly since his bid as the Democratic nominee for vice president in 1968, would be the party’s nominee against Nixon. But Muskie’s campaign flopped badly, and the strongly antiwar senator George McGovern gained traction over Muskie and former vice president Hubert Humphrey, who had rejoined the Senate from Minnesota in 1971. McGovern was a deeply flawed, left-wing candidate, and the Nixon guard could not help but think the Democrats would toss McGovern aside and draft Ted Kennedy for a presidential rescue mission late in the process.