The Run-Up to 1960

For Thursday, Matthews 13-14.

I WILL POST VIDEO FOR ASYNCHRONOUS VIEWING AND DISCUSSION ON THURSDAY.

The Vice Presidency: Why were RN and JFK hall mates?

From Ike aide and Nixon biographer Stephen Hess:

Where the Vice President—or the vice presidency—fit in Eisenhower’s matrix has an antique feel as viewed through the experiences of more than a half-century. When Dick Cheney claimed in 2007 that he didn’t have to comply with an executive order on safeguarding classified information because his office was part of the legislature, it was greeted as a laugh-line by late night comedians. After all, wasn’t he the most powerful vice president in history? Yet Cheney’s contention would not have been risible to Eisenhower, who wrote in his memoirs, “The Vice President of the United States, with the constitutional duty of presiding over the Senate, is not legally a part of the Executive branch and is not subject to direction by the President.” He even included Vice President Nixon as part of a group coming to a White House meeting “from the Senate.” Since Eisenhower placed the vice presidency in the legislative branch, everything Nixon did for him he claimed was on “a volunteer basis.” He listed some of the tasks he asked Nixon to perform, such as being his personal representative abroad and chairing a committee to end discrimination in government contracting. Even though Nixon had been in both House and Senate, Eisenhower rarely employed him for cloakroom lobbying, a prominent job of subsequent vice presidents. Nixon did not have an office in the White House. He was housed at the Capitol, as was his staff, and their paychecks came from the Senate budget. He was often at the White House for meetings of the cabinet, national security council, and legislative leaders, but he was not a presence in the West Wing as is today’s vice president.

The VP did not have an office in the White House complex until LBJ served under JFK.

The VP did not have an official residence until the 1970s.

Nixon's roles:

• Hatchetman
• Backup in health crises

• Heart attack in 1955
• Stroke in 1957
• 1958 agreement - forerunner of 25th Amendment

The 1956 Election 

• JFK, HHH, and the VP race
• Ike leaves Nixon hanging

Foreign Policy

• 1956 Arab-Israeli War:  Nasser nationalized Suez Canal,
• Soviet invasion of Hungary
• 1957 Algeria (118-119)

Partisan Politics

• 1956
• 1957 and 1960 Civil Rights Acts
• 1958 election
• JFK, RFK v. Hoffa

Cold War

• 1957  Sputnik
• 1958  Caracas
• 1959  Kitchen Debate (p. 125)
• 1960   U-2

THE NOMINATION SYSTEM IN 1960 WAS DIFFERENT.

WHY WAS CATHOLICISM SUCH A BIG DEAL?

ROLE OF WEST VIRGINIA.

The Run-Up to 1960

 Nixon in Caracas 1958:

 

The Kitchen Debate with Khrushchev 1959:

 

JFK v. Hoffa 1957:

The movie version:

George Shultz Dies

Nixon's Secretary of Labor, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Secretary of the Treasury George Shultz passed away yesterday. 

During his time as Secretary of Labor he resolved the Longshoremen's Union strike by taking a hands off approach and letting the two sides resolve the issue. He also was responsible for the first use of racial quotas by the federal government as he required construction unions to admit a certain number of black construction workers. 

While he was Secretary of the Treasury he was a part of the conference that ended the Bretton-Woods system and the gold standard. Moreover, he was co-founder of a group that went on to become the G7. 

He later served in the Reagan administration as Secretary of State and was instrumental in the end of the Cold War. 

RN and JFK in the 1950s

 Anticommunism in 1950s

October 1, 1949:  Mao wins in China.  MAKE A MENTAL NOTE OF THE CHINA LOBBY

Catholic opposition

• This 1947 pamphlet produced by the Catholic Catechetical Guild Educational Society was part of a "Red Scare" in the U.S. that raised fears about the horrors of a communist takeover
• Decree against communism

June 25, 1950: Korean War starts

Joe McCarthy 2/9/1950:

"I have here in my hand a list of 205 . . . a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department."

Maryland and the 1950 version of Deep fake

The legend of George Smathers, "Red Pepper" (Matthews, p. 70) and "Vote American"

Sun, Apr 30, 1950 – 27 · The Tampa Tribune (Tampa, Florida, United States of America) · Newspapers.com

The home of Manchester Boddy (Matthews p. 69) is a local attraction in La Canada.





Sat, Nov 4, 1950 – 1 · The Baltimore Sun (Baltimore, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America) · Newspapers.com

Dean Acheson, left (Yale `15, Harvard Law `18)
Adlai Stevenson, right (Princeton `22, Northwestern Law `26)

THE 1952 CONVENTION: MAKE A MENTAL NOTE ABOUT EARL WARREN

The mention of the dog was just a humorous aside in a shrewd political speech.

1954 Dienbienphu

Nixon, TV, and the 1950s

From a History Channel documentary on the Matthews book: 

Matthews pp. 82-86 - Checkers (start about 16:00)

First Assignment, Spring 2021

 Choose one:

• From popular books or periodicals, identify one myth about Nixon's pre-presidential career. Explain why this belief is inaccurate, and why people came to hold it.
• Analyze TV commercials in the 1960 campaign: http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/1960. Explain the strategy behind each candidate's TV campaign. Consider the policy environment and the state of public opinion. Did one candidate communicate more effectively than the other?
• Pick one of the debates in the 1960 campaign: https://www.debates.org/index.php?page=1960-debates. Who "won" and why? Consider both the content of what they said as well as their presentation on television.

The specifications:

• Essays should be typed (12-point), double-spaced, and no more than four pages long. I will not read past the fourth page. 
• Please submit all papers in this course as Word documents, not pdfs.
• Cite your sources. Please use endnotes in the format of Chicago Manual of Style.  Endnotes do not count against the page limit. Please do not use footnotes, which take up too much page space.
• Watch your spelling, grammar, diction, and punctuation. Errors will count against you. Return essays to the Sakai dropbox for this class by 11:59 PM, Friday, February 19. Papers will drop one gradepoint for one day’s lateness, a full letter grade after that.

Mister Nixon Goes to Washington. So Does Mister Kennedy

 FOR THURSDAY, READ MATTHEWS THROUGH CH. 7

The GI Generation (born 1901-24)-- as a percentage of House members, senators, governors

• 1945 16%
• 1947 26%
• 1951 40%
• 1953 48%
• 1961 69%
• 1969 72%

Every president from JFK through Bush 41 was in uniform during WWII:

• JFK - Navy, South Pacific
• LBJ - Navy, South Pacific (briefly)
• Nixon - Navy, South Pacific
• Ford - Navy, South Pacific
• Carter -- naval cadet
• Reagan - Army (made training films)
• Bush - Navy, South Pacific

JFK's first book (senior thesis at Harvard):

Nixon in the Navy

JFK's wartime experience got the Hollywood treatment:

Nixon and Churchill.  In 1970, RN recounted a discussion with antiwar protesters:

About the peace thing, he said, "I told them that I know it is awfully hard to keep this in perspective. I told them that"--he seemed to grope for a date--"in 1939 I thought Neville Chamberlain was the greatest man living and Winston Churchill was a madman. It was not until years later that I realized that Neville Chamberlain was a good man, but Winston Churchill was right." Then he sort of shrugged his shoulders and said, "I doubt if that got over."

Communism and the Cold War.  

Nixon's victory was NOT an unusual event in 1946.

Oil money in 1946

The Hiss Case

Evan Thomas writes:

At a later session, as Nixon and Hiss were sparring over some point of law, Hiss huffily declared, “I am familiar with the law. I attended Harvard Law School. I believe yours was Whittier?” Robert Stripling, the committee's chief investigator, observed that “Nixon turned red and blue and red again. You could see the hackles on his back practically pushing his coat up."

Hiss was indeed a spy.

Whittaker Chambers, Witness:

Those were the forces - Thomas Murphy, Richard Nixon, the men of the F.B.I. - who, together with the two grand juries and Tom Donegan and the two trial juries, finally won the Hiss Case for the nation. It is important to look hard at them for a moment. . . . For the contrast between them and the glittering Hiss forces is about the same as between them and the glittering French chivalry and the somewhat tattered English bowmen who won at Agincourt. The inclusive fact about them is that, in contrast to the pro-Hiss rally, most of them, regardless of what they had made of themselves, came from the wrong side of the railroad tracks. . . .

No feature of the Hiss Case is more obvious, or more troubling as history, than the jagged fissure, which it did not so much open as reveal, between the plain men and women of the nation, and those who affected to act, think and speak for them.

Nixon did not play a prominent role in the HUAC investigation of Hollywood, but his presence on the committee left bad memories among people in the industry.

A friendly witness, the president of SAG:

McCarthy and the Kennedys: 

A friend of the family

"It was hard to find a more committed Cold Warrior in either party than the thirty-four-year-old from Massachusetts"(Matthews, p. 75).

Helen Gahagan Douglas

Vito Marcantonio