In the early hours of May 9, 1970, President Richard Nixon made an unplanned visit to the Lincoln Memorial where he spoke with anti-war protesters and students for almost two hours. The protesters were conducting a vigil in protest of Nixon's recent decision to expand the Vietnam War into Cambodia and the recent deaths of students in the Kent State shootings.
Nixon had finished a press conference at 10 p.m. on May 8, in which he had been questioned about his decision to expand American operations in Cambodia as part of the Vietnam War. Nixon then made 20 telephone calls to various people including Billy Graham and Thomas E. Dewey and the NBC reporter Nancy Dickerson. [1] He then slept from 2:15 a.m. until around 4 a.m. [2]
Nixon awoke after 4 a.m. and put on a recording of Eugene Ormandy conducting Rachmaninoff at a loud volume in the Lincoln Sitting Room. This awoke his valet Manolo Sanchez. Looking at the gathering of people on the National Mall, Nixon asked Sanchez if he had ever visited the memorial at night and then told him to get dressed after Sanchez answered that he had not. [2]
Nixon, Sanchez, senior White House doctor Walter R. Tkach and Secret Service agents then drove to the memorial in a presidential limousine, with Nixon later recalling that he had "never seen the Secret Service quite so petrified with apprehension". Upon arrival Nixon and Sanchez walked up the steps to the statue of the seated Lincoln with Nixon pointing out the carved inscriptions of Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address and his Gettysburg Address. [2] White House Deputy for Domestic Affairs Egil Krogh was also present. [3]
Some students had recognised Nixon by now and, although surprised by his advent, walked up to him and shook his hand. Nixon said that the students "were not unfriendly" to him, but "seemed somewhat overawed". Nixon learnt that several of them attended Syracuse University, and spoke of the university's football team. Commenting later to journalists, the Syracuse University students felt that "most of what he was saying was absurd ... Here we had come from a university that's completely uptight, on strike, and when we told him where we were from, he talked about the football team." [2]
On the Vietnam War, Nixon told the students:
I hope that [your] hatred of the war, which I could well understand, would not turn into a bitter hatred of our whole system, our country and everything that it stood for. I said that I know probably most of you think I'm an SOB. But I want you to know that I understand just how you feel. [2]
He encouraged them to travel while they were young and praised the architecture of Prague and Warsaw. But a student told Nixon "We're not interested in what Prague looks like ... We're interested in what kind of life we build in the United States." [2]
Nixon then told the students that "the spiritual hunger which all of us have" which "has been the great mystery of life from the beginning of time" would not be solved by improving air quality and ending the war. A student later recalled that Nixon was barely audible and his sentences had no structure. Towards the end of the visit the crowd of students had grown to 30 and a student told Nixon, "I hope you realize that we're willing to die for what we believe in", to which he responded that "Many of us when we were your age were also willing to die for what we believe in and are willing to do so today. The point is, we are trying to build a world in which you will not have to die for what you believe in." [2]
The Secret Service agents accompanying Nixon grew concerned for his safety with the increasing crowd and tone of the exchanges with the students and pretended that a call was waiting for him in his car hoping that he would leave, but Nixon kept telling them "Let it wait". With the advent of dawn, Nixon returned to the presidential limousine, but as he walked back, "a bearded fellow from Detroit" in Nixon's words, rushed towards him and requested a photograph with him, that was duly taken by the White House doctor. In a documentary, Bob Moustakas, the "bearded fellow from Detroit" claimed that, during the encounter, he was on LSD. [4]
Nixon said that the man from Detroit had "the broadest smile that I saw on the entire visit". Nixon then left in the presidential limousine. [2]
On the return trip to the White House, Nixon insisted on stopping at the United States Capitol, where he took his former seat in the chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives and instructed Sanchez to make a speech. [5] [6] Sanchez spoke of his pride in being a citizen of the United States and Nixon and some female cleaners who were present applauded. One of the women present, Carrie Moore, asked Nixon to sign her bible, which he did, and holding her hand told her that his mother "was a saint" and "you be a saint too". [7] Nixon and his group, which now included White House Press Secretary Ron Ziegler and Nixon's Appointments Secretary Dwight Chapin, as well as Tkach, White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman and Sanchez, then ate a breakfast of corned beef hash and eggs at the Rib Room of the Mayflower Hotel. [1] [7] Nixon was determined to walk back the last half mile to the White House from the hotel, and aides tried to forcibly grab his arm. Eventually Nixon got into the car. [7]
In 2011 the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum released a series of presidential dictabelt recordings, of which five featured Nixon dictating his recollections of his visit to the Lincoln Memorial in a memo to Haldeman. On the memo Nixon instructs his recollections to be shared "on a very limited basis" to close aides. Writer Tom McNichol described the memo as an attempt at damage control as early press reports of the visit had described an "exhausted and overwrought president engaging students in nonsensical banter". Nixon said that "Even when I'm tired, I do not talk about nonsensical things" and defended the dialogue as his attempt "to lift them a bit out of the miserable intellectual wasteland in which they now wander". [2]
Writing in The Atlantic in 2011, Tom McNichol wrote:
"None of the students at the Lincoln Memorial remember Nixon's behavior the way Nixon does. More tellingly, none of his loyal aides remember it Nixon's way either." [...] "Listening to Nixon describe his bizarre sojourn to the Lincoln Memorial is to hear a man who's already sold himself on an alternate version of reality. Having convinced himself of his version of the facts, all that remains is for him to win over the rest of the world." [2]
Following the visit, Haldeman would write in his diary that he was "concerned about his condition" and concluded that the event had been "the weirdest day so far". Haldeman wrote that "he has had very little sleep for a long time and his judgment, temper, and mood suffer badly as a result....there's a long way to go, and he's in no condition to weather it." [2]
Krogh felt that the impromptu visit was a "very significant and major effort to reach out". [3] Nixon later expressed the view that those in the anti-war movement were the pawns of foreign communists. [3] After the student protests, Nixon asked Haldeman to consider the Huston Plan, which would have used illegal procedures to gather information on the leaders of the anti-war movement. Only the resistance of J. Edgar Hoover stopped the plan. [3]
Nixon's meeting with protesters was depicted in Oliver Stone's 1995 biopic, Nixon , in which Nixon is portrayed by Anthony Hopkins. [8]
Richard Milhous Nixon was an American politician and author who served as the 37th president of the United States from 1969 to 1974. A lawyer and member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was the 36th vice president from 1953 to 1961 under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. His five years in the White House saw reduction of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, détente with the Soviet Union and China, the Apollo 11 Moon landing, and the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency and Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Nixon's second term ended early when he became the only U.S. president to resign from office, as a result of the Watergate scandal.
The 1968 United States presidential election was the 46th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 5, 1968. The Republican nominee, former vice president Richard Nixon, defeated both the Democratic nominee, incumbent vice president Hubert Humphrey, and the American Independent Party nominee, former Alabama governor George Wallace. This was the last election until 1988 in which the incumbent president was not on the ballot. This was also the last election where a third-party candidate received an electoral vote.
The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon from 1972 to 1974 that led to Nixon's resignation. The scandal stemmed from the Nixon administration's attempts to cover up its involvement in the June 17, 1972, break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C., at the Watergate Office Building.
The silent majority is an unspecified large group of people in a country or group who do not express their opinions publicly. The term was popularized by U.S. President Richard Nixon in a televised address on November 3, 1969, in which he said, "And so tonight—to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans—I ask for your support." In this usage it referred to those Americans who did not join in the large demonstrations against the Vietnam War at the time, who did not join in the counterculture, and who did not participate in public discourse. Nixon, along with many others, saw this group of Middle Americans as being overshadowed in the media by the more vocal minority.
Harry Robbins "Bob" Haldeman was an American political aide and businessman, best known for his service as White House Chief of Staff to President Richard Nixon and his consequent involvement in the Watergate scandal.
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Alexander Porter Butterfield is a retired United States Air Force officer, public servant, and businessman. He served as the deputy assistant to President Richard Nixon from 1969 to 1973. He revealed the White House taping system's existence on July 13, 1973, during the Watergate investigation but had no other involvement in the scandal. From 1973 to 1975, he served as administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration.
Peter Joseph Brennan was an American labor activist and politician who served as United States Secretary of Labor from February 2, 1973, until March 15, 1975, in the administrations of Presidents Nixon and Ford. Brennan had previously been the president of both the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York and the Building and Construction Trades Council of New York, and he returned to the former position after leaving the Ford administration. He was a strong opponent of affirmative action measures to increase the number of minority construction workers. After organizing a demonstration in support of the Nixon administration that turned into the Hard Hat Riot of May 8, 1970, where construction workers violently attacked student anti-war protesters, Brennan was wooed by the Nixon administration as a potential supporter in the 1972 presidential election. His work for Nixon in that election was crucial in increasing the vote for Nixon in New York and in the union movement.
The Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam was a massive demonstration and teach-in across the United States against the United States involvement in the Vietnam War. It took place on October 15, 1969, followed a month later, on November 15, 1969, by a large Moratorium March in Washington, D.C.
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Anna Chennault, born Chan Sheng Mai, 陳香梅, also known as Anna Chan Chennault or Anna Chen Chennault, was a war correspondent and prominent Republican member of the U.S. China Lobby. She was married to American World War II aviator General Claire Chennault.
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Hannah Elizabeth Milhous Nixon was the mother of U.S. president Richard Nixon.
Richard Nixon's tenure as the 37th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1969, and ended when he resigned on August 9, 1974, in the face of almost certain impeachment and removal from office, the only U.S. president ever to do so. He was succeeded by Gerald Ford, whom he had appointed vice president after Spiro Agnew became embroiled in a separate corruption scandal and was forced to resign. Nixon, a prominent member of the Republican Party from California who previously served as vice president for two terms under president Dwight D. Eisenhower, took office following his narrow victory over Democrat incumbent vice president Hubert Humphrey and American Independent Party nominee George Wallace in the 1968 presidential election. Four years later, in the 1972 presidential election, he defeated Democrat nominee George McGovern, to win re-election in a landslide. Although he had built his reputation as a very active Republican campaigner, Nixon downplayed partisanship in his 1972 landslide re-election.
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"Bring Us Together" was a political slogan popularized after the election of Republican candidate Richard Nixon as President of the United States in the 1968 election. The text was derived from a sign which 13-year-old Vicki Lynne Cole stated that she had carried at Nixon's rally in her hometown of Deshler, Ohio, during the campaign.
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Manuel "Manolo" Sanchez was a long-time valet to Richard Nixon, known for his unfailing loyalty and fierce devotion to the former United States president. Sanchez was born in Spain and immigrated to Cuba at a young age. There, he worked as a dishwasher and laborer before moving to the United States. He was employed by Richard Nixon from 1962 to about 1980. The famously reserved Nixon developed a close friendship with Sanchez and once described him as a member of his family.
American diplomat Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) played an important and controversial role in the Vietnam War. Starting out as a supporter, Kissinger came to see it as a drag on American power. In 1968, Kissinger leaked information about the status of the peace talks in Paris to the Nixon campaign and was rewarded with being appointed National Security Adviser under Richard Nixon. As National Security Adviser, Kissinger sought initially to find a way to end the war on American terms. During his tenure, Kissinger came to differ with Nixon as Kissinger was more in favor of seeking an end to war as expeditiously as possible with minimum damage to American prestige. In October 1972, Kissinger reached a draft agreement that Nixon at first rejected, leading to the Christmas bombings of December 1972. The agreement that Kissinger signed in January 1973—which led to the American withdrawal from Vietnam in March of that year—was very similar to the draft agreement rejected the previous year. As National Security Adviser and Secretary of State, Kissinger favored continued American support for South Vietnam right until the collapse of that state in April 1975, which Kissinger blamed Congress for.
The presidential transition of Richard Nixon began when he won the United States 1968 United States presidential election, becoming the president-elect, and ended when Nixon was inaugurated at noon EST on January 20, 1969. Nixon had become president-elect once the election results became clear on November 6, 1968, the day after the election. This was the first presidential transition to take place following the passage of the Presidential Transition Act of 1963.
