NIXON THEN!

By Edwin Cooney

Throughout the 1968 campaign, many Republicans wore a button which asserted "Nixon now!”

Since his resignation, the phrases “Tricky Dick” or “Dickey,” red baiter, "Curley" (suggested by Adlai Stevenson), or even “rigid Ricky” suggested by a professor I once knew have been permanently etched into his post Watergate reputation.

No presidential candidate, with the possible exception of New York Governor Samuel J. Tilden in 1876, suffered a more painful and dramatic defeat than Richard Nixon in 1960. 

In the electoral college, Kennedy got 303 votes to Dick Nixon's 219. However, the popular vote which dictates the ultimate electoral college vote was 34,227,096 for Kennedy and 34,108,546 for Nixon. The difference was 118,550. "A proper shift of just 14,000 votes nationwide  would have made you the winner and those other fellows the bumps," asserted GOP National Chairman Len Hall to Nixon. 

Voting irregularities in both Illinois and Texas were documentable. Senator Everett Dirksen had urged the stationing of marshals in Cook County, Illinois just before the voting, a suggestion Nixon didn't endorse.

Election Day in 1960 was Tuesday, November 8th. The following Sunday, November 13th, while at dinner in a Key Biscayne restaurant, Nixon got a phone call from former President Herbert Hoover asserting that Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy wondered if the Vice President would be open to a personal visit by President-elect Kennedy. Nixon then called President Eisenhower to inquire as to his advice. Ike told Nixon that if he didn't agree to such a meeting, he would look like a sorehead. Immediately after his talk with Ike, Nixon got a call from JFK offering to pay a visit to Nixon in Key Biscayne. Nixon offered to visit JFK, but Kennedy said that since he had a helicopter, he could easily save the Vice President an inconvenient trip to Palm Beach. So, the meeting took place on Monday the 14th, just six days after the election.

The meeting was very cordial. Over soft drinks, they discussed the campaign, exchanging what surprised them about the campaign's outcome. Kennedy said he was surprised that he lost Ohio and Nixon told Kennedy he had expected to win in Texas. Kennedy said his hardest policy task during the campaign was fashioning a good farm policy that was economically and politically sound. They both agreed that Red China, due to its continuous hostility to the west, shouldn't have a prominent place in the United Nations. Finally, they agreed that Kennedy should avoid appointing Republican leaders to his cabinet although he eventually appointed Douglas Dillon to the treasury and Henry Cabot Lodge (Nixon's running mate whom JFK had defeated for re-election to the Senate in 1952) to be ambassador to South Vietnam.

After much painful reconsideration of the campaign, Nixon concluded that since the outcome was so close, no one could say exactly what issue or strategy made the difference. Perhaps he shouldn't have debated Senator Kennedy. Perhaps he should have picked a Catholic running mate such as Secretary of Labor under Ike, James Mitchell. Perhaps his fifty state visitation pledge was a mistake. What irritated Nixon the most were the suggestions from the far right wing of the GOP that he hadn't attacked Kennedy enough.

The ultimate post election issue was whether or not to contest the election outcome.

Once he got back to Washington, Nixon spent time looking at the results in Texas and Illinois where charges of fraud were most apparent. "But, substance or not, when I looked into the legal aspects of the situation, I found that it would take a year and a half to get a recount in Cook County and that there was no procedure whatever to get a recount in Texas....

"Many of my close friends and associates nevertheless insisted that I demand a recount. If I were to demand a recount, the organization of the new administration and the orderly transfer of responsibility from the old to the new administration might be delayed for months."

Nixon goes on to acknowledge to his friends and associates that as a  party leader, it might improve GOP victories in 1962 and 1964 to his political credit, however!

If Nixon were to insist on a recount, the bitterness it would engender might well inhibit the advance of democracy at a time in the world when communism was on the march. It was already hard enough to convince potential political losers to participate in democracy.

Hence, in January of 1961, as President of the Senate, Richard Nixon certified the election of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson over himself and Henry Cabot Lodge. Vice President Nixon was the second Vice President to certify a presidential election where he himself had just been defeated for that office. John C. Breckinridge was the presidential nominee of the Southern Democratic party in 1861. Hence, 41-year-old John C. Breckinridge certified the election of Abraham Lincoln.

Sitting next to Nixon was House Speaker Sam Rayburn, no political or personal friend. However, when the counting was official, Nixon addressed Speaker Rayburn and the assembled Congress:

"Mr. Speaker, since this is an unprecedented situation I would like to ask permission to impose upon the time of the members of this Congress to make a statement, which in itself is unprecedented. I promise to be brief. I shall be guided by the one minute time limit rule of the House rather than the unlimited rule that prevails in the Senate. This is the first time in 100 years in which a candidate for the presidency announced the result of an election in which he was defeated and announced the victory of his opponent. I do not think we could have a more striking and eloquent example of the stability of our constitutional system and of the proud tradition of the American people in developing, respecting, and honoring institutions of self government. In our campaigns, no matter how hard fought they may be or how close the election may turn out to be, those who lose accept the verdict and support those who win. And I would like to add that having served now in government for 14 years, as I complete that period, it is indeed a great honor to me to extend to my colleagues in both the House and the Senate on both sides of the aisle who have been elected, to extend to John F. Kennedy and to Lyndon Johnson who have been elected President and Vice President of the United States, my heartfelt best wishes as all of you work in a cause that's bigger than any man's ambition, greater than any party. It is the cause of freedom, justice, and peace for all mankind. It is in that spirit that I now declare that John F. Kennedy has been elected President of the United States and Lyndon B. Johnson Vice President of the United States."

Nixon continued:

"The effect was electrifying and to me unexpected. The ovations from both Democrats and Republicans lasted so long that I had to stand and acknowledge it again. Sam Rayburn at whose side I'd often sat as he presided over joint sessions of the Congress during the last eight years broke personal precedent by joining in the applause himself. He grasped my hand warmly as I left the podium  and said, "That was a fine speech, Dick. I'll miss you here. Good luck!" We'd been political opponents for years, but he was one who'd always had respect for the practitioners of the art of politics even when they were in the other party. Neither one of us knew it, but these were to be our last personal words together.”

Like the rest of us, Richard Nixon was a flawed human being. However he was far from flawed before the Congress and the American people that day.

History is loaded with significant ironies. That day that displayed Richard Nixon's greatest glory was January 6th, 1961!

Any questions?

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

FROM OLD TO NEW BEGINNINGS

By Edwin Cooney

From Tuesday, March 5th, 1793, the beginning of President Washington's second term, through Sunday, March 5th, 1933, FDR's first term, March 5th was the first day of presidential terms of office. Today, March 5th marks the first day of an intense presidential contest practically everyone fears, but everyone realizes is inevitable.

President Biden brings a record of achievement into the campaign that most Democrats could run on, but he brings his age into the contest that too many would rather run from.

Donald Trump enters the contest running on his name which may well be tarnished by legal felony convictions before America votes in November.

In the meantime, former South Carolina Governor and American Ambassador to the United Nations (the latter courtesy of former President Trump), Nikki Haley appears on the verge of being politically swamped in GOP primaries by her former boss.

However, New York Times commentator Bret Stephens, a disaffected anti-Trumpian Republican, asserts that, so far, Ms. Haley is representing Ronald Reagan conservatism by maintaining her candidacy for the GOP nomination. Should she lose the nomination but support the ticket, she would avoid the tragedy of Liz Cheney who was recently run out of the party, and she would still be a viable presidential candidate in 2028. Situationally, I agree with Mr. Stephens political assessment. 

The puzzle for me in Mr. Stephen's logic is that so long as Ms. Haley supports President's Trump's candidacy as a Reagan devotee, she's a solid viable Republican. On the other hand, at least by implication, if she withholds her support on personal or moral grounds, she's through supposedly forever and ever.

Almost since the first day I became interested in politics back in the late 1950s or early 1960s, most people I knew insisted that they cared little about Republicans or Democrats but rather voted for "the best man" for president.

Therein lies the significance of "Trumpism." All a president has to represent is himself free of political or, especially, social dogma. As long as he matters to himself, average Americans will undoubtedly matter most to him, goes the reasoning.

Ah! But there's a catch according to Bret Stephens. According to exit polls during last week's South Carolina GOP primary, fully a third of voters said that should Mr. Trump be convicted of a felony, they wouldn't vote for him. Stephens asserts that the percentage not willing to vote for a convicted felon is even greater in the five or six big key states.

Stephens also asserts that Trump is aware of this and also realizes that he'll have to employ people and effective mechanisms to lead the party should he ultimately be re-elected.

Hence the question: isn't every beginning new? That's the very definition of beginning, is it not? I believe that both party existence and doctrine matter as a social and political mindset. Since events and circumstances affect every situation or condition, it's often necessary to vote despite one's favored political doctrine.

Ah, beginnings! Old or new, they're all up to me and you!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

COMPARING AND CONTRASTING PRESIDENCIES — BOTH ACADEMIC AND GOSSIPY

By Edwin Cooney  

I’ve survived fourteen presidencies from Harry Truman (that feisty little haberdasher) through old man Joe Biden. It's been quite a journey, but it's possible that the next presidency might get a little dangerous!

Since 1962 when presidential ratings were first published, the top ten rated presidencies have been those of Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt and George Washington. Harry Truman who led us through the 1948 Berlin blockade and the Korean War, and on into the atomic age since the 1970s, has been rated fourth. Occasionally, James Knox Polk, because he kept absolutely all of his 1844 campaign promises, has often been rated the fifth greatest president. (Yes, indeed, he kept all of his promises, but the Civil War was brought about due to some of those promises. They included the settlement of the Mexican border, the acquisition of new territory, and the slavery issue that was exacerbated by the gains of the Mexican war.

As for the current presidential ratings, Lincoln, FDR and Washington. are followed by Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt. Feisty Harry has slipped to sixth. He is just ahead of Barack Obama who advanced nine places in just about eight years! The top ten are rounded out by Ike, LBJ and JFK. However, next comes the shocker!

President Joseph Robinette Biden is rated the 14th greatest president and his 2024 opponent, Donald John Trump, is rated number 46 of 46. Ah! But who listens to those "candy assed academicians” who have never held a real man's job — such as steel worker, farmer, cab driver, or plumber. (Remember “Joe the Plumber” turned out to be Samuel Wurzelbacher who apparently turned in his plumber’s tools to become a right wing political commentator!)

  

I'm pleased that Jimmy Carter is rated #22, up four places from the 2018 rating. Another shocker for me is that Nixon has dropped to 35th. About a decade ago, I rated him 16th.

I've always rated presidents as a success or a failure according to their reputations in foreign and domestic policies. As I saw it, Richard Nixon’s breakthroughs in Moscow and Beijing along with the significance of his efforts in the environment and healthcare gave him and his administration substantial credit. His failures were personally disappointing to me, but as his assistant John Ehrlichman pointed out, he was a good administrator. As for President Reagan, it has been said that he mastered the art of the presidency as "the great communicator."

The fate of Woodrow Wilson is similar to that of Ulysses S. Grant. At the close of the 19th Century, Grant was considered a great citizen, soldier and  president. Then along came the Progressive Era. As an economic and international affairs reformer, Thomas Woodrow Wilson came to be considered by many as the greatest example of human morality since Christ and St. Paul. His fall from fourth and sixth in the top ten presidents is due to his racism which limited the rights of Blacks both in and out of the federal government. Today, Wilson is rated 15th of all the presidents.

As I understand it, in this latest survey, presidential scores rather than labels evaluate the presidents. Zeros represent failures while fifties represent average ratings. Each president was rated according to a percentage of accomplishments from zero to one hundred percent. Hence, not even President Trump was a failure. However, his rating of 10.91 was vastly lower than Joe Biden's rating of 62.56.

Oh yah! President Ulysses S. Grant's latest 17th highest rating of 60.93 made my friend “Portola Valley Steve” rub his hands together and grin like the proverbial Cheshire Cat! No longer are presidents rated great, near great, average, below average and failures. Recently I read that President Kennedy once asserted that no one who'd never served as president had any business rating presidents.

Personally, I have no credentials as either a historian or an academician, but it's fun to play the rating game. Some of the most interesting and appealing presidents are Jimmy Carter for his post presidential activities, Cal Coolidge as a “character,” William McKinley for his likability, Millard Fillmore due to Queen Victoria's claim that he was the “handsomest man” she ever saw, James Polk for his hard work and dedicated sense of duty, and Chester A. Arthur for his eloquent style and personal 

respectability which was largely gained while in office.

I’m told that there's information available showing how conservative vs. liberal academicians rated different presidents, but this information is not currently available to me. 

It's unlikely that the above six presidents, with the possible exception of Mr. Polk, will ever again be numbered among the top ten chief executives, but it's always fun for this political and historic dabbler to indulge in such ratings!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

FIRST THERE WAS WASHINGTON'S WORLD!

By Edwin Cooney

The approximately 67 plus years that existed between 1732 and late in the year of 1799 that constituted the life of George Washington was a largely agrarian world. Men and women made their living from the soil. Very few were or even thought of being educated. The country was both conceived and established by the most able people of its time. These people came from the countryside and were born the sons and daughters of largely aristocratic English families.    

George's father Augustine (Gus to his friends) was both a planter and a businessman, the grandson of mid-level English aristocrats. He ran an iron foundry and spent much time away doing business in England. George knew little of his father who died in 1743 when George was 11 years old.

Physically, George Washington stood 6 feet 2 and was muscular from his shoulders through his ankles. He had blue-gray eyes, high cheekbones, heavy eyebrows and a determined chin.  He was dark-haired which he powdered and tied into a ponytail on formal occasions.

Personally, he was very serious. Life to Washington was about business. He had quiet strength. He spoke softly. He preferred to express himself in writing although he could be eloquent. He was a good listener. Washington had a high capacity to evaluate and utilize the talents of others.

Militarily, he knew when to challenge and when to retreat. General Washington forced the British army to chase his armies all over the North American continent taking advantage of Britain’s limited capacity once lured away from the coast. Once Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson maneuvered France into the war providing essential sea cover, the war was won as Lord Cornwallis was trapped at Yorktown on Friday, October 19th, 1781.

George Washington's skill riding a horse had a profound effect on men and women whose daily existence depended on their horsemanship.

Above all else, it was Washington’s character and the dependence of others on that character that made Washington "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen" as expressed by Richard Henry Lee at Washington's passing on Saturday, December 14th 1799.

There's an irony here. Throughout the revolution, a number of people  suggested that after the war Washington might become our first king. However, he made it clear in several letters that he would return home once the war was done. He did exactly that until called upon to chair the 1787 Constitutional Convention as a delegate whereupon the delegates unanimously asked Washington to serve as their chairman with full powers to set the rules of conduct.

George Washington would twice receive unanimous support in the electoral college. In 1792, he wanted to return to Mount Vernon but decided there was too much to accomplish economically, militarily and strategically. He simply couldn't leave things as they were.

As for Washington, the slave holder? It can't be denied as a sin of the times. However, it deserves some perspective. Neither you nor I choose the time in which we're born into. Our vices and our virtues encompass and rule us throughout our lives. If we're to grasp and thus understand our history (and not everyone chooses to do so), the first reality we must come to grips with is the realization that each generation lives in its own world. We're the victims of our contemporaries until such time as we try to master them and that can be dangerous! 

    

In closing, I invite you to participate in a minor mind game. Before you read the last part of what's here, ask yourself what was unique about General George Washington's leadership? What did General Washington insist upon that no other war-winning general ever did?

My friend whom I'll call “Portola Valley, California Steve” notes that George Washington who both won a war and helped establish a government was very reluctant to serve as head of that government. George Washington would not be King George. All George Washington wanted to do after the war was to return to Mount Vernon! (Ah! here’s still another irony: George Washington, through a paternal grandmother, Mildred Warner Washington, was a descendant of  King Edward III 1329-1377, one of England’s finest medieval kings.).  

Ultimately, he could not. Men who helped form this country, who also were men of ambition, named Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock, John Adams, Henry Knox, Patrick Henry, Robert Morris, Gouverneur Morris, Robert Livingston, and — I dare say — even Aaron Burr insisted on George Washington's service!

That service in Washington's world made our world possible!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

FEBRUARY: SHORT BUT MIGHTY

By Edwin Cooney

While every month can be decorated for its politically, socially, and historic progeny, February appears especially significant considering it never has 30 days within its domain.

First there's Punxsutawney Phil, everyone's favorite and only known groundhog or woodchuck. Then there's the birth of Henry Aaron which took place on February 5th, 1934 and Babe Ruth who was born on February 6th, 1895. Four presidents were born in February: Ronald Reagan on February 6th, 1911, William Henry Harrison on February 9th, 1773, Abraham Lincoln on February 12th, 1809, and, of course, George Washington on February 11th or 22nd, 1732 — take your pick.(George Washington was deprived of his 19th birthday, because by the time he reached his 19th birthday, February 1731 had become February 1732, moving from the last month of the Julian calendar to the second month of the new Gregorian calendar.)

All four February presidents left a significant mark on American history. Harrison did so by becoming the first president to die in office thereby allowing Vice President John Tyler to successfully declare himself president. President Washington, in addition to being our first president, personally established the Executive department of the new Federal Government with little or no direction from the Constitution.

President Lincoln saved the Union by never recognizing the legitimacy of the Confederacy, thereby making the Civil War a mere civil rebellion rather than a declared war.

President Reagan is regarded by many (although not by this author) to have won the Cold War by refusing to back down on Premier Gorbachev's insistence that the National Space Defense program, otherwise known as "Star Wars,” be rejected. Realizing they couldn't match American defense expenditures, the Russian government under Mikhail Gorbachev signed the INF Treaty in Washington, D.C. in December of 1987.

Three presidential elections were decided in February. George Washington was elected as our first president on February 4, 1789. Thomas Jefferson was elected president in the House of Representatives on Tuesday, February 17th, 1801. John Quincy Adams was elected president on Monday, February 9th, 1825.

February 3rd, 1870 marks the ratification of the 15th Amendment asserting that all citizens have the right to vote. That amendment was ignored by the Jim Crow South until passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. However, it is ironic that February 3rd 1913's ratification of the 16th Amendment empowering the Congress to "lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived” remains on the books when it is as unpopular as it surely is!

Thursday, February 14, 1929 saw the St. Valentine’s Day gang massacre in Chicago. On Wednesday, February 15th, 1933, a large Miami crowd witnessed  the near assassination of President Elect Franklin D. Roosevelt by Giuseppe Zangara. The shooting  resulted in the death of Mayor Anton Cermak of Chicago on Monday, March 6th, two weeks and six painful days later. Zangara was executed for the shooting on March 20th, 1933.

Other February events include the February 22nd, 1932 birth of Edward M. Kennedy, the release by the Soviets of U-2 spy pilot Francis Gary Powers on February 10th, 1962 and, most dramatically, the launching of John Glenn into orbit on Tuesday, February 20th, 1962. Also notable is the February 9th, 1964 appearance by the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show. 

During the month of February, however, good things do come to an end as occurred on February 26th, 1935 when the New York Yankees traded Babe Ruth to the Boston Braves following 14 years of baseball glory. (Note: Babe Ruth would retire on June 2nd 1935 and his great Yankee teammate, Lou Gehrig, would die on June 2nd, 1941.)  

Following Mighty February, of course there comes Miraculous March! Perhaps I'll tell you about that sometime sooner or later!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY