Newt's WorldEpisode 643: Richard Nixon – California’s Native Son
Richard Nixon was the only U.S. president born and raised in California. He had a remarkable romance with his wife Pat, and followed a unique path into politics that lead him to Washington, D.C. and the nation’s highest office. In his new book, Richard Nixon: California’s Native Son, author Paul Carter describes Nixon’s deep, defining roots in California and challenges common misconceptions about our thirty-seventh president. Carter spent over a decade reviewing archival material about Nixon’s life – some of which has never been written about before. Newt’s guest is Paul Carter. He is an attorney with more than twenty years of experience in investigation and trial work.
On this episode of Newsworld. More biographies have been written about Richard Nixon than any other contemporary US president or politician. Yet many modern biographies of Nixon have been consumed with Watergate. All have arguably missed the most important perspective on Nixon. Nixon was the only US president born and raised in California. He had a remarkable romance with his wife Pat and followed a unique path into politics that led him to Washington, d C. In the nation's highest office. After Watergate, he returned to his roots in southern California and eventually returned to the world stage. In his new book, Richard Nixon, California's Native Son, author Paul Carter describes Nixon's deep, defining roots in California and challenges common misperceptions about our thirty seventh president. Carter spent over a decade reviewing archival material about Nixon's life, some of which has never been written about before. I'm really pleased to welcome my guest, Paul Carter. He is an attorney with more than twenty years of experience in investigation and trial work. He is the author of the biographical map Native Son Richard Nixon, Southern California. Paul, welcome and thank you for joining me on News World.
Well, thank you very much, speaker of Gingrich for having me here. It's a pleasure to be with you. Sir.
Let me start with why did you decide to do a biography of Nixon.
I'm a product at public school, and I don't have a dog in this fight over Richard Nixon. I wasn't old enough to have any formative opinions about as presidency. I was born in nineteen sixty five, and everything I heard about him was basically unfavorable from public schools. And I served in the Navy under the command of Rodney Allen Knutson, who was one of the longest held and most extensively tortured POWs in the mid nineteen eighties, and Nixon had him released when he negotiated the release of the POW's at the end of Vietnam. And Captain Knutson inspired me to go to college, and so while I was at cal State Fullerden, I volunteered as a docent at the Nixon Library. And when I met Richard Nixon back in nineteen ninety one, it really made all of my preconceived notions about him evaporate, and I then went on about my life, finished college, went to law school, and ultimately I decided to make a map of Richard nixon Southern California life because he's the only Southern Californian to become President of the United States. And in researching that, I wanted to know what did the kids do when he was a kid? And I started reviewing oral histories of Richard Nixon, and in doing that, this story was screaming to be told about how all of his friends and colleagues and associates discussed what his life was like back in those days, and it was the complete opposite of what most authors have described as his youth growing up. He wasn't paranoid or an outsider or unpopular, He didn't have a chip on his shoulder. Everyone described this amazing all American young man that grew up. And so it was really a book that was screaming to be told that I was drawn into because he was the Southern California President.
So when you talk about making him out, what do you mean, literally, what were you doing?
I mentioned that I was in the Navy with Captain running On Knutson, and there was a guy on our ship that I ended up reconnecting with him in two thousand and nine, and everyone had talked about how he was going to become an admiral, and he did not become an admiral, but his brother did. And they arranged for me in two thousand and nine to go out to the USS Princeton and I happened to be with the mayor of Woodier. I off handedly asked him, do you have all of the places where Nixon lived when he was growing up designated? And he told me, well, you know, we basically lost track of all that. And so I thought to myself, I'm going to make a map, kind of like the Hollywood map of the Star's homes where it's kind of cartoonish, and just show everyone where Nixon lived and worked and had his life in southern California. And that's what I mean by a map. It was literally a map. And I'm not a cartographer. I'm a real estate attorney, and so I had to hire a map designer and do the research. And that map was actually sold at the Nixon Library.
That's wild you got drawn into this and I was just looking at the research you did. Can you just describe it. Frankly, it's about as comprehensive as any research I've ever seen.
What was fascinating was I started with two hundred oral histories from cal State Fullerdan of Nixon intimates, and then I got my hands on four hundred additional oral histories from what your college, and those were seized in the Watergate seizure, and so those really weren't released until about two thousand and nine, and that was ten thousand pages of oral histories. I digested all of that, and then I dove into the archives and I went through about one hundred and twenty five thousand pages of materials at the archives. And what was really interesting there was when Loie Gaunt and Marjacker, who are Nixon staffers, boxed all this stuff up back in the Senate days, the congressional days, the vice presidential days, the nineteen sixties. They had the document stapled and paper clipped and they put them into boxes. And as I was going through them, I was having to bring them to the archivists and have the staples removed because they'd rusted through, and those old steel paper clips had rusted through, and you have to have the archivists that the National Archives removed those binders from them so that you can separate the pages, and so I knew no one had ever looked at this stuff. And then I started talking to Nixon intimates, and I gradually was able to break into their kind of cocoon, and I ended up interviewing over sixty Nixon intimates, and just as a fascinating all American story to tell the actual life story of Richard Nixon, because it is so all American. I started in two thousand and nine and the book was published on September first, twenty twenty three. And he really had to take years of going through. You know, I've spent over seven weeks in the National Archives digging through items. And when I would go down, I wouldn't read the materials, I'd photograph them. One day of that the archives might actually turn into five days of research materials. It's a mind boggling amount of information to go through and construct.
You like to comment that if you took everything you did, it would be fifty six feet of information. You spent almost as much time with Nixon as Nixon did.
Yes, it's quite a track down a rabbit hole if you figured out it goes five stories down.
Did you find the more you learn, the more you were drawn in.
Yes. Absolutely, the more I looked into his life, the more it just pulled me in further and further, because it is such a fascinating all American story where people will say Richard Nixon like to write letters, or he didn't like to accept honorarium for speaking. And I would find letters where he would write to people and he would turn down their honorarium, and then when they send it to him anyways, he would send them back in accounting with what he did with the money, telling them, well, I think you would have liked this charity, so I donated the money of this charity. And sometimes I even found where he did the math wrong and he would donate more to charity than they sent him in honorarium. And when you're finding these nuggets of information and you're discovering this information about somebody and you're really getting the perspective that no one has seen on a broad public scale, you can't help but be just pulled into it and fascinated. And I'm a trial turning so I always look at evidence, and I'm always examining evidence. I'm always doing investigation, and so I'm probably predisposed to enjoy that anyways, but it was fascinating to me. I'm still doing it. I'm doing a deep dive right now on his World War Two service and it's just fascinating to really dig into those years.
Why do you think nobody else is on earth the real Richard Nixon?
Because in the nineteen seventies you had a couple of authors, and back in those days they were coming out with psycho historians, and von Brody was one of them. And I kind of jokingly say that she was one of the first to write and she hated nexton. She said she despised them, and she looked at his life through a prism that I say other authors look at the doe wide prism of von Brody, where you want to construct a history that meets your preconceptions that he's somehow a villain. You start with the concept that he's a villain, and now you have to fill in the material to support that background, and it's just nonsense. He's not a villain, and he's quite all American, and if you look at what he did, everything he ever did was in support of America, not challenging the nineteen sixty election results when there was overwhelming evidence a fraud and walking away from that and entering private practice, leaving the White House rather than fighting. It was in his best interest to stay and fight, but it was in the country's best interest to move on. And it really is fascinating. And if you look at his history, look at all the women that's stuck by him from his earliest days. Even Evelyn Dorn, who was his legal secretary in nineteen thirty seven, was dedicated to him the rest of her life. Louie Gaunt marje Acker from the Senate days dedicated to him the rest of his life, and their lives. And a bad character of villain. He doesn't develop that type of loyalty, especially amongst women that are hardworking in Pennant people themselves.
When do you think he became ambitious?
Oh, from the jump. When he was living in Yorba Linda five six seven years old, his mom taught him how to read. He would run barefoot to the library daily, sometimes twice a day, to pick up books that he would read. And I think he was born ambitious, and he grew up in a very hard working, independent, self reliant family and he always pursued the best in himself. When he was in the eighth grade, he said that his plans for the future were to graduate from whit are your high school and whit your college, and go to law school so that he could be of some good to the people. And he basically lived that in his entire life, which is fascinating because most people say they want to be a fireman or a police officer at that age, but he lived his life stream.
One of his preeminent characteristics was he was an amazingly good debater, and of course altimately proved during the nineteen sixties when he went back to New York that he was really a very, very good lawyer. My sense was that his high school debating career was a part of that honing process and that confidence building.
Process, absolutely, and it started even before high school. He started at Eastwoodier Elementary in the fifth grade when his family moved back from yurber lind in nineteen twenty two, and he had some teachers there that really encouraged debate, and he would debate over topics like, you know, whether it was better to own a home or rent, or whether a cow was more productive than a horse. And by the time he was in high school, he was now skilled at debate and formulating arguments. And the Los Angeles Times used to have these constitutional oratorical contests that they sponsored, and he was a champion of those constitutional oratorical contests by the tenth grade. And then he would challenge his classmates at school to argue whether a giraffe with the sore throat suffered more than a centipede with corns. And he just had that extreme talent. And then in Woodier College, his family would lend Woodier College their family car and they would go on debate competition tours up the North coast all the way to Washington or sometimes out to Utah, and I think one year he won all twenty nine contests and was the extoraneous speaking champion of Los Angeles. You know, just tremendous success in debate.
He actually was chosen by the Harvard Club of California as their best all around student, and then both Harvard and Yale offered him scholarships to go to two of the preeminent universities in the country, and he turned him down.
Yeah, his brother Harold was ill and had turriculosis. In fact, he died when he was a junior in college, and Nixon knew he had to stay with the family and help out with the family and with everything that was going on with Harold and his illness.
But then when he does graduate from whatever, he does go to Duke.
On a full scholarship and had tremendous success. He was president of the Duke Bar Association, the student bar association. He was in the top three in his class. He was offered a job in New York and turned it down afterwards to come back to Whittier and pursue his dream of entering politics.
Ultimately, were you able to talk to students who knew him like a Duke?
Not at Duke, But I was able to talk to Hubert Perry, who went to college with him at Woodi your high school, and at Whittier College.
How did he describe Nixon?
Oh, he thought Nixon was just brilliant. He knew that Nixon was on his way. He always knew that Nixon was going to the top. You know, listen to this. When he was graduating Whittier College, his classmates, the jocks on campus, they wrote him a letter and is said, out of every graduating class there's at least one person that becomes an outstanding person, and we all believe that you were destined to be that person, and then they signed their name to it. It's fascinating to see those types of materials and discover them in the archives.
Now. He graduates from Duke in thirty seven. What does he do between then and going into the military.
He comes home to Whittier, takes California Bar exam. He passes on the first try, and he goes to work at Wingerton Beuley and the Premier Law Firman Whittier. They are pretty much representing corporate and estate planning clients. He becomes their chief trial Attorney. He also becomes the Whittier Assistant City Attorney. He is Treasurer of the Whittier Bar Association. He's president of the Duke Alumni Association. He's president of the Whittier College Alumni Association. He's invited to be on the Board of Trustees at Whittier College and he's the youngest member ever and he's on the board with former First Lady lou Henry Hoover. He's chairman of the twenty thirty Service Club. He is the program chair of the Junior Chamber of Commerce. He taught up course in practical lot at Woodier College. He was the first president of the newly formed Orange County Association of Cities. He's saying baseness choir. He led a popularly quicker young people's classic church. The church would haul their piano up into the hills of East Woodier so that he could play for the sunrise service at Easter. And he's dating Patricia Ryan. And he went into the development of frozen orange juice with a company called Citrafrost, and now that failed ultimately, But all of those activities, and it's only within a four year period between mid nineteen thirty seven and December of nineteen forty one when he then goes off to the OPA, the Officer Price Administration. And it's just amazingly all American activities, you know. Like I mentioned, he was at the twenty thirty Service Club, and he would still go give talks at other service clubs like the Rotary. He'd play their club songs on the piano and lead sing alongs. He would discuss ballot propositions before the general election, just NonStop activity.
How does he end up in the Navy?
He went to the Office of Price Administration, and he reported that on January ninth, nineteen forty two. It's actually quite fascinating because this is where, for the first time in his life, his individuality and his reliance on the individual as opposed to the government is first challenge, because the OPA is in charge of rationing, and he sees how people are heady with power, the way they can control small businesses across the country. Because he was actually in the tire rationing department and at the time, all of the rubber was coming from Southeast Asia, which was taken over by Japan, and so America's supply of rubber was almost virtually cut off, and they had to limit public consumption of tires. And so he sees how people really like this power of government and this authoritarian nature of the New Deal liberalism, and he doesn't like it at all. And by March second, less than two months, he's taking steps to join the United States Navy. And you're talking about a man that gets seasick. You know, the summer before he had gone on a cruise with pat through the Caribbean, and he was seasick almost the whole time. And he goes off to the Navy by August seventeenth.
Before we talk about the war. What's the relationship like with Pat? I mean, she's with him his whole life, and they seem to have been remarkably close. But how does all that start.
They met when they were both auditioning for the performance of The Dark Tower in the Community theater. I told you all those things he did in that period, Well, he was also acting in community theater. The first night they were auditioning he met Pat. He told her that night they'd be married. And that was in early nineteen thirty eight, and they were married in nineteen forty and he was just head over hills in love with her. You know, Pat is a very remark makable woman in her own right. Her mother died when she was twelve, and her father died when she was eighteen. And she's down on a little farm here in Artesia, about ten miles away from Whittier as the crow flies. And she puts herself through the University of Southern California, and then she takes a teaching position at Whittier High School. And she used to say that the only reason why she took the position when she was destined to meet and marry Richard Nixon in his own hometown, and they had a great, great relationship.
She had already taken the position before she met him.
Yeah, she had taken a position. She was teaching at Whittier High School and she was teaching in the business department, and she was also teaching night courses and typing. And one of her students recommended she try out for the local community theater. So she went out to dinner at the Hoover Hotel in downtown Whittier and then walked over to Saint Matthias Church and there she met Richard Nixon and he drove her home that night and told her they be married.
How long did they court?
They courted from February nineteen thirty eight to June nineteen when they were married, and he was head over hills in love and they would write each other love notes, and here's how much in love. He was. Pat used to love to ice skate, and Richard Nixon was not a good ice skater, and he had a friend from what are Your College that actually grew up in Iowa and was an accomplished ice skater. And that kid's name was Kenny Ball, And so several years after they graduated from what Your College, Kenny Ball was surprised when he saw Nixon turn up at the ice skating rink. Kenny Ball said that after about three days of practice, Nixon wasn't getting any better. In fact, he was getting worse. And one day in particular, he saw Nixon flying across the ice so hard he hid his face on the ice and he was all covered in blood. And so Kenny goes over and he picks him up, and he says, Dick, why do you keep doing this to yourself? And Nixon looks up at him and he tells them, because I've got a great date to go ice skating with on Saturday night, and I must be able to keep up.
He was dedicated, well, I mean, I think he had a reputation for working unbelievably hard and whatever he did. So he goes off to war, comes back and has his opportunity to get into politics.
Yes, and interestingly, most people will tell you, you know, if you read those early biographies, they'll say that one of the reasons why he had a chip on his shoulder is that he always wanted to be part of that Northeast establishment and wanted to be in a big New York law firm. Well, he's in Lower Manhattan in the last six months of nineteen forty five and actually more than that, almost all of nineteen forty five. And he's at ninety Church Street, which is where the Oculus is located now. It's right in the heart of Lower Manhattan next to where the World Trade Centers were. He's settling war contracts as the war is winding down, and he's so successful that he's awarded a letter of commendation to go along with the letter of commendation he got for his combat service in World War Two down the South Pacific. And he had multiple friends from serving in the South Pacific that were from New York. And he could have in New York and worked there. I mean, he could have written his own ticket, but he decided to go home and take on Jerry vorheas who You're going to know this better than I could ever. You'll know how assured he was of reelection. Jerry Vorheast was a five term incumbent Democrat. He had soundly beaten all of his Republican challengers before then. He was voted best Congressman in West of the Mississippi and was rated as having the third safest seat in the House Representatives. And Richard Nixon gives up everything on the East Coast to come home and take him on, and the Republican Party wouldn't even really support the candidacy. That's how really, how he got the nomination was it was a bunch of local people got together and said, well, you know, we're going to do our own rag tech campaign. And they found Nixon, and Nixon took on vorheas. They had five debates, and Nixon just completely annihilated him in those debates, and that's what was the real change in that election. And Nixon just outworked him and he beat him.
Is it really true that the group put an ad out saying we're looking for a candidate.
Yes, they put ads in papers and they couldn't even find anyone worthwhile. And so I had mentioned Schubert Perry earlier as one of the guys I interviewed. Well. His father, Herman Perry, was the president of the Bank of America branch there in Woodier, and he had known Nixon all of his life because he handled the Nixon family's banking. And he wrote to Nixon and asked him to run, and Nixon said, yeah, I'll come out and I'll try out for this, and that's how it became Richard Nixon.
Nixon at that point is just one more much like Jerry Ford in the same class. But it always seemed to me that the two things that shaped the left's hatred of him were the Alger Hiss case and then the campaign against Helen Gehegen Douglas.
Without doubt really the Alger Hiss case, because prior to then, communism in America was really thought of as like a far right extremist conspiracy theory, and it was never really taken seriously. And you even have Truman saying that this whole thing's a red herring. And Altra Hiss wasn't just some guy. He was at the ALTA conference, he was in the Truman administration, he was in the Roosevelt administration, he was at the founding of the United Nations, he was a very significant member of the State Department. And Nixon exposed him as being a communist sympathizer and a liar. And all of the media had been against Nixon. And what you have to add to that is, prior to this time, really you know, the Northeast is the center of thought for the United States, and here's this guy that's become a national politician, that Southwest, independent minded, you know, open fences, conservative type of person, pro capitalism, and he takes on Hiss and he beats him.
I mean, even today you can find people who'll argue that his wasn't guilty, although we know from the period after the fall of the Soviet Union, when the archives were opened briefly that in fact his got the highest civilian award from the Soviet Union for being such an effective agent. You look at this stuff and you think it's crazy. So they already disliked Nixon because of his But it seems to me that the rough and tumble of the campaign for the US Senate with helln Gehagen Douglass sort of seals the definition back East.
It does, and it's entirely misplaced. Because the Republicans lost the Congress and Richard Nixon wanted to accomplish things, and so he didn't really want to run for Congress in nineteen fifty and be part of a minority party and shared and Downey was the sitting Senator, and so Nixon decided he would run against Shardan Downey, That's who he thought he was going to run against, and shared Downey he was a sitting Democrat incumbent. He took on a challenge from Helen Gehagen Douglas and that got so nasty so early Sheridan Downey decided to back out of the race. And once he backed out of the race, another guy named Manchester Body entered the race, and he was a newspaper publisher. There was a lady named Janet Ghostki that was a friend of Sheridan Downey, and she went to him and said she wanted to volunteer for someone in the Senate campaign. Who did he recommend? Sheridan Downey recommended Richard Nixon, and Janet Ghostki volunteered for him and became a longtime supporter of Nixon. But the nastiness of that campaign really was between Manchester Body and Helen Gehagen Douglas, and those two tore each other apart. It was nasty by the time Nixon won the primary and Gahagen Douglas won the primary. Gahagen Douglas was very unpopular in her own party. Ed Paully from the famed UCLA poll Pavilion he had been a member of the Room administration. He met with Richard Nixon the day after the primary and said he couldn't outwardly support Richard Nixon, but he could sit on his hands in the race and not providing support to Helen Gahagen Douglas, and that everyone would know what that meant. And so you had all of these people lining up in support of Nixon as against at ga Haagen Douglas, and really Nixon, the only thing they really say about him is, well, he had to have said this thing that she's pink all the way down to her underwear. You've met Richard Nixon and you had a lot of experience with him. He was a very reserved man, and he was even more so in nineteen fifty. The likelihood of him commenting on a females under garments is really it's laughable. He was a guy that when he was handling divorce work just ten years before, and back in those days you didn't have no fault divorce. You had to prove cause to get a divorce. He couldn't even hardle. He listened to the intimate discussions that his clients would have to share with him to demonstrate causing their divorces, and so the likelihood of him commenting on her underwear.
The whole pink thing, including the pink sheet that was put out, I think it's Mark Antonio, the one true Communist in the House of Representatives. I think all of that was done actually by the Democrat who owned a newspaper.
Right Manchester Body, all of it, all of that was Manchester Body.
But he doesn't exist back east, so it gets transferred to Nixon.
Yes.
Do you think Nixon had any notion at that point that he might in two short years be the vice presidential nominee. No.
I think he was certainly driven. But at that time you had Governor Earl Warren, you had Goody Knight his lieutenant governor, you had Bill Nolan who was the senior Senator, all prominent Republicans and all powerful Republicans in California, and so he knew he was one of many. But I don't know that he foresaw Eisenhower number one coming out as a Republican and number two selecting him when he was elected in nineteen fifty. But one thing you have to remember is though in nineteen fifty, when he won that election against Helen ge Haagen Douglas. He won it by the largest landside of any Senate candidate in the country, and so it really did set him up in a position to be a vice presidential candidate with Eisenhower, especially because General Eisenhower he could have been a Republican or a Democrat more than likely, and although a conservative man, he probably was not inclined to get into the rough and tumble of the politics that a person would have to do. And so that kind of made Nixon the perfect fit for him. Because Richard Nixon, with his debate skills and his drive and his education, everyone he ever challenged he beat, and so it made him a perfect candidate.
He then faces the crisis in the campaign, and Eisenhower's pretty tough and says, look, either you answer this in a way people believe, or we're.
Going to drop you from the ticket, right, and he does it.
Yeah, here's a famous Checker's speech about that he's not going to return the little dog Checkers, which I think further infuriated liberals.
Well because of Roosevelt's dog. You know, it was really a play on Roosevelt's Yeah, I.
Was telling my team the other day about Roosevelt on a swing in World War Two, had left Fola behind on an island, and they sent a heavy cruiser back to pick up Folla, and Dewey attacked Roosevelt, and at the next press conference, Velt said, look, I'm not personally hurt, but I think if Foula sees him, she's going to bite him. And that just blew it apart of me. Part of why Roosevelt is a genius. This is where I start to notice him as a young man. I mean, Nixon has a pretty good eight years and then, considering how weak the Republican Party had been, really runs a remarkable race and almost wins in sixty.
Yes, but one thing I want to tell you real quick about that clean is a hounds tooth. This is a demonstrate next in humor. He was on a train campaign swing through the Northwest when that story broke, and back in those days, you know, they had the traveling press with him and everyone that was a part of that traveling press and that campaign swing. He inaugurated them into the Order of the Hounds Tooth and issued them all identification cards and gave them each a little fake Hounds tooth for their membership, which demonstrates as humor and being able to look at those issues which.
Came about gose Eisner said he had to be clean as a hounds tooth to stay on the ticket.
Right. But in nineteen sixty it's fascinating because in nineteen fifty eight, you know, I mentioned Earl Warren and Bill Nolan and Goodie Knight. Well, Earl Warren goes to the United States Supreme Court, Goodie Night becomes governor, Bill Nolan is the President of the Senate, and then the Republicans lose the majority in the Senate. So Bill Nolan challenges Goodie Knight for the governor's seat, and rather than run for reelection against Nolan, Goodie Knight runs for nolan Senate's seat, and they both lose, and Democrats sweep all the seats in nineteen fifty eight, and that leaves Richard Nixon the only Republican standing in California when just in nineteen fifty you know, he was the junior member of this powerful class, and he takes on Senator Kennedy, who was a freshman congressman just like him. You know, in nineteen forty six.
What do you think was Nixon's reaction to losing.
He had to have been devastated. Eisenhower encouraged him to challenge the outcome. In Eisenhower's cabinet offered to raise the money for a legal fight, but he looked at it and he said it wasn't in the country's best interest. Right in early December, when Kennedy flew down to Florida to meet with Nixon, Kennedy's first words were, well, no one's really sure what the outcome of the election was, and that was a very difficult time for Nixon, but he knew that a prolonged challenge was not in the United States best interest. More than anything else, Richard Nixon looked at service over self, all of his service, all of the things he did in high school, in college, in law school.
Do you think that came out of his mother's Quakerism.
Yes, it goes back to when he was in eighth grade that he wanted to be of some good to the people, and it wouldn't be of good to the people to have a presidential contest locked up for a year, and instead he decided not to challenge the results. You know, he even met with Earl Maso because Earle Maso was a reporter with the New York Herald, and he had been putting together a twelve part series exposing all the election fraud that he had found. And after four of his articles were published and they were being picked up by all of the other major newspapers in the country, Nixon called him up and said, I want to take you out to lunch. And they met and Maso told him about all of the fraud that he found, and he spent about forty five minutes telling Nixon all about it, and then he said that Nixon told him, well, that's interesting, but let me tell you about this. And then Nixon went around the world and named all of the countries that looked up to America that were fledgling democracies and wanted and needed to look to America as their beacon of light for democracy. And he told her a Maaso, we don't have fraudulent elections in the United States, and you have to kill these stories. And Maso thought he was a fool and refused to kill the stories. So Nixon went to his publisher and had his publisher kill the stories. He then turned around in mid December and he just opened up his home. I mean because back then the vice president even have a vice presidential mansion. They just had their own personal house. He opened it up to have a huge Christmas party for members of the Eisenhower administration, friends in media, and to then just move on. It was entirely because of this concept of putting the country first over his own personal individual interests.
Do you think it was a mistake to go back to California and run for governor.
Yes, But the reason why he did it was because the party was so split in nineteen fifty eight with that mess between Goody Knight and Bill Nolan. In sixty two, the party came to him and says, you're really the only guy that can heal this because you're the most prominent Republican in California. And so he takes on the position of running for the governorship. Because there's about a million more Democrats in California than Republicans. He needs every single Republican to vote for him, plus a significant amount of Democrats. And the John Birchers were opposed to Eisenhower, and Richard Nixon was opposed to the John Birchers, and the John Birchers started endorsing Republicans, and Richard Nixon said that he would not endorse any Republican ends for the general election unless they disavowed any relationship with the John Birch Society. And so he knew in doing that that he couldn't unify his own party, and there was no way he was going to get enough Democrats to vote for him, because they already had a Democrat incumbent. And so by making that move, he knew he was sealing his own fate, but he knew it was the best thing to do because the John Burchus they needed to be discouraged and disbanded, not promoted. And he made that decision, and he undertook that course of action, and it resulted in him losing the election.
He has a press conference that says, you're not going to have Richard Nixon a kick around anymore, goes to New York. But I think my sense was as early as sixty three sixty four he's beginning to see an avenue to re emerge as a national leader and handles the Goldwater nomination brilliantly. The level of the work ethic and the scale of the national organization. Trump is a little bit like this too, that this unending day after day you know, in Nixon's case, having I guess the equivalent of a rollodex nowadays would all be in a computer. But you know, every place he'd go, he'd stop, he'd call the key people, make a speech. Go to the next place, call all the key people, make a speech. And it had to have been seen as probably a long shot, which gradually, because Romney was a fool, and because Rockefeller couldn't contain himself, gradually began to be more and more possible. And then Reagan was a little bit timid. Then he wins a very very narrow election, having lost a very narrow election, And I always thought that it was those two experiences, having lost narrowly in sixty one narrowly in sixty eight, that led to sort of an over development of the committee to re elect the president. The Democrats collapsed in seventy two, with great help from George McGovern, they suddenly win this, you know, one of the largest victories in American history. Turn around and within two years he's out of office. Give us your take on what actually happened at Watergate.
I don't think anyone got their hands around what was happening. It was certainly, you know, a crackpot idea to have I, Howard Hunt and Gigod and Lyddie go and break in and see what they're going to find out at the Democrat national headquarters. It also seems to be a situation of extreme loyalty on the part of Nixon to the people below him. I don't know that he ever got his hands around what was actually happening with Watergate. And it's interesting because it was wrong and there was a series of mistakes made with it. But if you look at what he knew and when he knew it, all the information that was flowing up to him was being pushed up to him by people that were coloring it in their own particular best interest, and then you have John Dean come out and start testifying. The most descriptive characterization of it that I've heard from Nixon himself was that he would talk to Bob Hall about it and he would say, you know, it was a gnat that was flying around me. And I would say, Bob, you know, take care of that nat. And the next thing I know, I got swallowed by the gnat. And it's fascinating to look at because if you look at his administration, like in nineteen sixty eight. When he's elected, he wins a plurality, not a majority. The country's divided, we're at war. Martin Luther King's assassinated, Robert Kenny's assassinated, and he brings everyone together. And if you look at what he did during his administration, he never had a Republican House or a Republican Senate. And he does the EPA, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, all five Man missions to the Moon were in his administration. He does Title nine. He fundamentally changes women in government. He opens China, he signs the first nuclear arms limitation treaty. He goes to Moscow as a president, he starts the fight on cancer. He does all of these amazing things by working across the aisle and having been the only national candidate on five national ballots other than Roosevelt, and having had more people vote for him than any other politician in the United States. He's really in a position where he's changing politics in America. And it's like they had to take advantage of this knucklehead operation that they were doing, and then Nixon and his staff are stumbling over it as they're doing it. But it's in the best interests of the Democrat Party to attack him on it and the whole thing. It seems, certainly in hindsight that it was not something to resign over, But I don't think he appreciated the level at which he would be demonized for leaving, and he thought it was in the country's best interests rather than have a president hung up for a year in impeachment and do all these things. He wanted accomplishments. He didn't want just the title of the office. He wanted to accomplish things. It's fascinating. I don't have my hands totally around it either. There's so much there that I think that there's an incredible amount to be researched and to looked into more.
That's what I've gotten sucked into. For example, John dor who's the head of investigation for the House, had himself as a part of the Kennedy Justice Department, done a whole series of things, all of them more illegal than Watergate. But he's now the guy in charge of investigating Nixon. And among the Democrats there's a vivid awareness that both Johnson and Kennedy had broken the law many times more than Nixon.
Absolutely well, and even Judge Siica, the way he conducted the trials and the sentences and the ex party meetings with all of the prosecution and then everyone involved in it for the most part that were supposedly on the good side. You know, Syraha gets him to self into trouble and deep Throat, who he later knew was Mark Felt is a convicted felon. And by the way, talking about loyalty when he was convicted, Nixon stood by his side the entire time in the late nineteen seventies and supported him and still suspected that he might have been deep throat.
Well, of course, he was the number three person at the FBI. It's sort of classic listen, absolutely fascinating. Richard Nixon California's Native Son. I don't think anybody has ever done more research on Richard Nixon than you have. Paul. I want to thank you for joining me. I'm looking forward to being with you at the Nixon Library. I want to remind our listeners that your new book, Richard Nixon, California's Native Son, is available on Amazon and bookstores everywhere, would make a great holiday gift, so I encourage you to pick up a copy. And Paul I want to wish you and your family of very merry Christmas and happy holidays.
Mister speaker has been a pleasure. Thank you so much, and I look forward to seeing you in January.
And I should mention Callis and I will be at the Richard Nixon Library Museum on January ninth, twenty twenty four, at seven pm. Tickets are available now at Nixonfoundation dot org. Thank you to my guest Paul Carter. You can learn more about his new book, Richard Nixon, California, his native Son on our show page at Newtsworld dot com. Newtsworld is produced by Ganglish three sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer is Guernsey Slum. Our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for the show was created by Steve Penley. Special thanks to the team at Gingrich three sixty. If you've been enjoying Newtsworld, I hope you'll go to Apple Podcast and both rate us with five stars and give us a review so others can learn what it's all about. Right now, listeners of Newtsworld can sign up for my three free weekly columns at gingleistree sixty dot com. Slash newsletter. I'm Newt Gingrich. This is Newtsworld.
