513. America in '68: Nixon's Great Comeback (Part 6)

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Rest Is History – Episode 513. America in '68: Nixon's Great Comeback (Part 6)

Host: Goalhanger
Guests: Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook

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Introduction

In Episode 513 of The Rest Is History, hosts Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook delve into the dramatic comeback of Richard Nixon during the tumultuous 1968 American presidential election. This episode, titled "America in '68: Nixon's Great Comeback (Part 6)," offers an in-depth exploration of Nixon's strategic maneuvers, campaign tactics, and the political climate that culminated in his narrow victory.

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Nixon's Background and Early Political Career

Dominic Sandbrook opens the discussion with a poetic tribute to Nixon's humble beginnings and the influences that shaped his ambition:

Dominic Sandbrook [00:26]: "A father who had to go to work before he finished the sixth grade sacrificed everything he had so that his sons could go to college... And tonight he stands before you, nominated for President of the United States of America."

Tom Holland responds by acknowledging the impressive portrayal of Nixon's persona:

Tom Holland [02:02]: "I think you did well. Actually, you did very well. I don't think Nixon broke down at all while doing that stage."

The conversation emphasizes Nixon's resilience and relentless pursuit of the presidency despite multiple setbacks.

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The 1968 Campaign Strategy

Nixon's 1968 campaign is characterized by meticulous planning and innovative strategies aimed at appealing to the "silent majority" of middle America. The hosts discuss how Nixon’s campaign team, led by H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, devised methods to transcend traditional political approaches.

Tom Holland [10:23]: "Law and order. He's clever in how he packages it."

Nixon positioned himself as a stabilizing force amid the chaos of Vietnam, civil rights unrest, and political assassinations, presenting himself as a candidate who could restore normalcy.

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Media and Advertising Tactics

A pivotal aspect of Nixon's campaign was its groundbreaking use of television and media. Under Haldeman's guidance, the campaign shifted away from conventional rallies to controlled television appearances designed to present Nixon as approachable and trustworthy.

Tom Holland [29:51]: "We will, and I quote, move out of the dark ages and into the brave new world of the omnipresent eye."

Roger Iles, who would later become the founding CEO of Fox News, crafted televised segments where Nixon interacted with voters in a carefully curated setting, enhancing his media presence and relatability.

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The Role of Law and Order and Race in the Campaign

Nixon's emphasis on "law and order" served as a coded message targeting white voters' anxieties about civil unrest and racial integration. While outwardly advocating for peace and unity, his rhetoric subtly addressed underlying racial tensions without overt mention of race.

Tom Holland [34:42]: "Law and order is also code for black unrest in the inner cities."

This dual messaging allowed Nixon to appeal to a broad electorate without alienating progressive voters, showcasing his adeptness at political maneuvering.

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October Surprise Conspiracy Theory

A significant portion of the episode examines the infamous "October Surprise" conspiracy theory, which alleges that Nixon orchestrated the collapse of a peace deal in Vietnam to secure his presidential victory. The hosts dissect the validity of these claims, ultimately casting doubt on their authenticity.

Tom Holland [44:56]: "I don't think it is true."

Research and contemporary historical analyses suggest that the peace deal was fundamentally unfeasible, undermining the conspiracy theory's premise that Nixon single-handedly sabotaged the negotiations.

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Election Night and Outcome

As election night unfolds, the tension between Nixon and his Democratic opponent, Hubert Humphrey, reaches its peak. The hosts narrate the nail-biting climax of the 1968 election, highlighting the crucial states that determined the outcome.

Tom Holland [53:07]: "We want to bridge the generation gap. We want to bridge the gap between the races. We want to bring America together."

Despite predictions and a double-digit lead, Nixon secures the presidency by a razor-thin margin of half a million votes, illustrating the intense competitiveness of the race.

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Conclusion and Reflections

The episode concludes with reflections on Nixon's victory, acknowledging the complex legacy he would leave behind. The hosts hint at the forthcoming exploration of Watergate in future episodes, setting the stage for understanding the long-term implications of Nixon's political strategies.

Richard Nixon [54:16]: "Maybe, Tom, I think we should have Dick Nixon himself to play us out."

Tom Holland dismisses the immediate unification narrative, suggesting that Nixon's presidency would later be marred by scandal and controversy.

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Notable Quotes

• Dominic Sandbrook [00:26]: "A father who had to go to work before he finished the sixth grade sacrificed everything he had so that his sons could go to college... And tonight he stands before you, nominated for President of the United States of America."

• Tom Holland [02:02]: "I think you did well. Actually, you did very well. I don't think Nixon broke down at all while doing that stage."

• Tom Holland [29:51]: "We will, and I quote, move out of the dark ages and into the brave new world of the omnipresent eye."

• Tom Holland [34:42]: "Law and order is also code for black unrest in the inner cities."

• Tom Holland [44:56]: "I don't think it is true."

• Tom Holland [53:07]: "We want to bridge the generation gap. We want to bridge the gap between the races. We want to bring America together."

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Key Takeaways

• Strategic Campaigning: Nixon's 1968 campaign was marked by innovative media strategies and a targeted appeal to middle America, emphasizing "law and order" as a means to address societal anxieties.

• Media Mastery: The campaign's use of television prefigured modern political advertising, setting a precedent for future elections.

• Complex Messaging: Nixon adeptly navigated the racial and social tensions of the era, using coded language to unify a diverse electorate without overt divisiveness.

• Election Dynamics: The narrow victory underscored the deep divisions within American society and the high-stakes nature of the election.

• Legacy Formation: While Nixon's comeback was a significant political achievement, it also laid the groundwork for the controversies that would later define his presidency.

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This episode offers a comprehensive examination of Richard Nixon's 1968 presidential campaign, highlighting the interplay of strategy, media, and societal factors that contributed to his election. Through engaging dialogue and critical analysis, Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook provide listeners with a nuanced understanding of one of America's most pivotal political moments.

Transcript

[Tom Holland]

Thank you for listening to the Rest is History. For weekly bonus episodes ad free listening early access to series and membership of our much loved chat community. Go to there and join the club that is there.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

I see another child tonight. He hears the train go by at night and he dreams of faraway places where he'd like to go. It seems like an impossible dream, but he is helped on his journey through life. A father who had to go to work before he finished the sixth grade sacrificed everything he had so that his sons could go to college. A gentle Quaker mother with a passionate concern for peace quietly wept when he went to war. But she understood why he had to go. A great teacher, a remarkable football coach, an inspirational minister encouraged him on his way. A courageous wife and loyal children stood by him in victory and also in defeat and in his chosen profession of politics. First there were scores, then hundreds, then thousands, and finally millions worked for his success. And tonight he stands before you, nominated for President of the United States of America.

[Richard Nixon]

The unmistakable tones, one might say, Dominic, of Richard Milhouse Nixon, your great hero, accepting the Republican presidential nomination of Miami beach on the 8th of August, 1968. Well, and how do you think I did with that?

[Tom Holland]

I think you did well. Actually, you did very well. I don't think Nixon broke down at all while doing that stage.

[Richard Nixon]

No. So it's an impressionist impression.

[Tom Holland]

Yes, it is.

[Richard Nixon]

I'm evoking the sense of the maudlin, the self pity, the melodrama inherent within Nixon's oratory.

[Tom Holland]

You captured the inner man.

[Richard Nixon]

That's what I was trying to do, yes.

[Tom Holland]

So that is textbook Nixon, isn't it? Because some people listening to that may consider that excruciatingly manipulative. Yeah, some might indeed nauseating. But other people might think it brilliant. Absolutely brilliant, brilliantly crafted.

[Richard Nixon]

He kept out checkers his dog this time, didn't he?

[Tom Holland]

He didn't mention checkers. And the thing is, there were always more of the latter, the people who thought it was brilliant than the people who thought it was nauseating. And that is why Richard Nixon was one of American history's great winners. You know, he doesn't just win the presidency once, he wins it twice. And we've gone all through this story of 68 without really talking about Nixon. And the funny thing about the 68 story is that he is often a little bit overlooked because he is the big winner. After all the chaos and the excitement of the year, the things that draw most people's attention, the assassinations, the yippees, the Vietnam War, all that kind of business.

[Richard Nixon]

Because his campaign is very deliberately boring, isn't it? Yes, and actually that becomes a slight problem towards the actual date of the election. But that's his goal, isn't it?

[Tom Holland]

But his campaign works, right?

[Richard Nixon]

In the long run. Yeah.

[Tom Holland]

The champion of middle America, he pulls off one of the great comebacks in American history, but not an uncontroversial victory. So we will come to that, the conspiracy theories that surround it. But perhaps we should start. Tom, we did episodes on Watergate back in the very early days of the rest of history. But for those people who didn't listen to those remind ourselves about Richard M. Nixon. I noticed you called him. You said he was my hero. I wouldn't quite say he was my hero.

[Richard Nixon]

No, I was being ironic.

[Tom Holland]

I do have a tendress for Richard Nixon. I find him endlessly entertaining and fascinating. Nixon, as he would be the first to tell you, came from a very poor family in Yorba Linda, California, in 1913. Quaker family. And he's a genuine meritocrat. I mean, he really does pull himself up by his bootstraps. He goes to Duke Law School, he's in the Navy in the war. He goes to Congress.

[Richard Nixon]

And he can't go to Harvard, can he? Because he can't afford the fees or something, Right?

[Tom Holland]

Exactly. He can't go to the east coast. Or at least that's what he says. And of course, he wears that very heavily. And he always talks about the East Coast Ivy League people who look down on me because I only went to Whittier College and Duke Law School, all this stuff. He made his name in Congress as an anti communist, very aggressive, very partisan. Got into the Senate. The Democrats hated him. They always thought he was underhand, far too pugnacious, far too belligerent, A nasty man, I think is what they thought. He became Eisenhower's vice president. You mentioned Checkers, the dog. That's how he got public attention, by doing this TV broadcast in which he talked the girls Love the Dog. And they're going to keep him because.

[Richard Nixon]

He'D been given by a donor.

[Tom Holland]

Yes, exactly. Then he lost the 1960 election to Kennedy. I remember when we did our Kennedy series, we talked about the Nixon Kennedy debates and how unbelievably impressive they are by modern day standards. They're so articulate, serious, thoughtful, well informed.

[Richard Nixon]

And actually Nixon and Kennedy got on all right. I mean, there were stories of them going back to Washington from debates and the train.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah, on the train. When they were young men doing the fat. And they were young men. Exactly. Nixon is a smart guy and actually if you're not fighting a campaign against him, he's not terrible company. You know, he's very well read, he's serious, he's self improving all of this. So, you know, he's in a different league from a lot of his successes. I think it's fair to say then having lost in 1960, he lost the race for governor of California, his home state, in 1962. And then he snapped and he showed the ugly face of Nixon. So he snapped at the press after losing. Just think how much you're going to be missing you. You don't have Nixon to kick around anymore because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference. This kind of real bitterness to him.

[Richard Nixon]

And self pity, one might say, and self pity.

[Tom Holland]

And the papers printed his obituary and they basically said he's done, he's out. That's the end of Richard Nixon in politics. So Nixon then went off to New York and he became a Wall street lawyer. He lived on fifth Avenue. His daughters were debutantes. I mean, they genuinely had debutante balls in Manhattan in those days. Maybe still do, I don't know. Hangs around in country clubs with country club Republicans. He works for Pepsi. He's a sort of corporate ambassador. So he goes off to European and Asian capitals and meets bigwigs and he's still very well connected.

[Richard Nixon]

Does he find this a bit demeaning, that he's well represented, kind of vested corporate interests rather than Uncle Sam?

[Tom Holland]

He says to his friends he finds it degrading to be doing this on behalf of Pepsi. Now everybody who knows anything about Nixon will know the side of Nixon, the dark side, the insecurity about his background, the brooding vengeful nature, the social awkwardness, the inability to forget slights, all of this kind of stuff. He is, I think, I mean, the one reason I find him so interesting and in a weird way a little bit endearing is I think he's the embodiment of all the worst banal traits that we all have, or at least all of us on. The rest is history.

[Richard Nixon]

Speak for yourself.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah, but actually there's a side of Nixon that comes out now which is perhaps more admirable side. He hates this new life and the legal business. And he says to his friends, if I have to keep doing this, I will be dead, mentally dead in two years and physically dead in four years. I find it so boring. And some of his friends are actually worried that he would give into depression. So the pioneering black baseball player Jackie Robinson wrote him a letter. You are good for politics. Good for America. Don't let the critics cause you to give up your career. Billy Graham, who has made a few cameo appearances in this series. There are few men whom I have loved as I love you. It would be the greatest tragedy I can think of for you to turn to drink or any of these other escapisms.

[Richard Nixon]

What's he thinking about?

[Tom Holland]

Yeah, what's he thinking about? Anyway? Nixon doesn't. The underestimated thing about him, he's very hardworking. He's actually quite resilient. And he spends these years reading Edmund Burke, Machiavelli, Friedrich Nietzsche. He's a serious person, Nixon. He's not just the sort of the joke in the bowling alley in the White House. And there's also a sort of melancholy to him. So he sits alone on his 52nd birthday in his study in New York, writing these resolutions on a pad. Set great goals, daily rest, brief vacations, knowledge of all weaknesses, better use of time. Begin writing book articles or speeches on provocative new international and national issues. Now, Nixon loves a resolution.

[Richard Nixon]

There's the sense that you get also with Johnson and with Wallace, that none of them can really function without politics. That without politics, they feel that they're not really themselves completely.

[Tom Holland]

There is. Yeah, absolutely. Because actually, if you wanted to fix Nixon's life, you would say, come on, you've been vice president. That's not bad. Settle down and make loads of money as a New York lawyer, corporate lawyer. You'll be laughing, you'll have a brilliant life, and you won't have people shouting at you, and you won't be being nasty to people and stuff, and it'll be great. But he can't. He's got the itch, you know, must give speech on an important international issue, this kind of thing. So actually, he throws himself back into it. He despises the politics of Barry Goldwater, libertarian, much more right wing in 1964, but he works for him anyway and works hard for the Republican Party candidates.

[Richard Nixon]

So a bit like Hubert Humphrey with lbj, that both of them are biding their time, but also having to suck up stuff they don't agree with to display their loyalty to an extent.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah. I mean, Nixon is really. Nixon works what people call the kind of rubber chicken circuit.

[Richard Nixon]

The Rubber Southern Chicken.

[Tom Holland]

Exactly. If it's Friday night, he's there in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in a Holiday Inn, making a speech to the Chamber of Commerce. That's his idea of a brilliant night out. So in the mid-60s, he visits hundreds of hundreds of groups, especially in the south, because he recognizes that the south is the new battleground for the Republicans. You know, he can make a lot of gains there, basically. And he's always very clever. He is conservative, but he's never too conservative. You know, he's never racist, but he intimates to Southern audiences there's too much federal interference and this kind of thing, but he's. He kind of soft.

[Richard Nixon]

Law and order.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah, law and order. He's clever in how he packages it. So by 1967 or so, he's got a lot of credit with ordinary Republicans. Loads of credit. You know, he's the beaten guy who came back, dusted himself down, and has put in the hours in the most unglamorous places possible.

[Richard Nixon]

And people like a comeback.

[Tom Holland]

They do.

[Richard Nixon]

Makes for a good story, doesn't it?

[Tom Holland]

Great American story, right?

[Richard Nixon]

Yeah.

[Tom Holland]

So he says to his family, you know, I'm thinking about running for president, and they are devastated. His wife Pat, who at this point is trans demographied from being in the sort of early 50s, a slightly generic kind of smiling American housewife, now looks like the most miserable person on the planet. Like, utterly downtrodden, because he's off every.

[Richard Nixon]

Weekend touring the South.

[Tom Holland]

I think life with Dick Nixon is quite hard work.

[Richard Nixon]

Okay.

[Tom Holland]

You know, he's always off reading Edmund Burke and talking about Disraeli, which he does, and plotting political comebacks, and. Actually, that's not really the life that she wants, because what does she want?

[Richard Nixon]

She wants country clubs and stuff.

[Tom Holland]

I think she'd probably prefer the country clubs. Yeah. I mean, who wouldn't, right? I mean, being a presidential candidate's wife.

[Richard Nixon]

Is awful because their daughters are very glamorous, aren't they?

[Tom Holland]

Trisha and Julie.

[Richard Nixon]

Yeah.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah, they're very glamorous. And so people would often say, how is it that Richard Nixon has such glamorous daughters? I think it greatly redounds to Nixon's.

[Richard Nixon]

Credit, of course, but, well, having two lovely daughters.

[Tom Holland]

People say that of you, Tom. Let's be frank. Anyway, Pat is persuaded by their friends in California. Come on, you can't stand in the way of Dick's dream. So he cranks up his campaign, and it's going to be run. And this will be a big thing in his administration. It's run by people who are not really part of the Republican Party apparatus. They're his own loyalists. They're his own creatures.

[Richard Nixon]

And so that's another reflection of the fact that he is congenitally suspicious.

[Tom Holland]

Exactly.

[Richard Nixon]

That he wants to surround himself with his own creatures.

[Tom Holland]

Yes. So he's got these Californian guys, people who know the Watergate story will know their names. H.R. huldeman, John Ehrlichman. They had been friends since UCLA. Holdeman is an advertising man. They're all about the packaging and the presentation. And traditional Washington insiders distrust and dislike them. They say, who are these guys in the West Coast? You just care about the media. But they are incredibly loyal to Nixon personally, which is really important to him. Now, he's got a couple of problems. Number one, he is seen as a loser because he has lost two elections on the bounce. So he needs to prove he can win. And he says from the beginning, I'm going to enter every single Republican primary where a lot of people at this point are picking and choosing. I will enter and fight in every single state. Because he's confident that all that rubber chicken circuit work will pay dividends.

[Richard Nixon]

But also it shows his energy. Right. And his commitment to the entirety of the United States.

[Tom Holland]

Exactly. The second problem is his image as a terrible person, as a terrible human being. So people have always seen Nixon as very aggressive, as a divider and not a uniter. So Nixon, to use his own scornful phrase, he decides to present Nixon as nice guy.

[Richard Nixon]

So this is where he's going on sandy beaches in his smart shoes. Smart black shoes.

[Tom Holland]

Exactly. Smiley.

[Richard Nixon]

He's a regular guy with a sort of rictus grin.

[Tom Holland]

Hideous grin, yeah. But also his politics. So his politics at this point are centrist politics. He's Mr. Normal. A bit 1950s, you know, the cities are in flames. It's all kicking off under the Democrats. Wouldn't it be better to get back to life in the mid-50s? That's what I, Dick Nixon, stand for. No mad experiments, no ideological crusades, apple pie, the white picket fence, I'm home, honey.

[Richard Nixon]

All that.

[Tom Holland]

Exactly. So on Vietnam, for example, where he'd previously been a hawk, and he had previously been very, you know, let's. Let's fight this war. Let's do this. After the Tet Offensive, he says to his speechwriters, mm, it's pretty obvious we're not going to win this on the battlefield. Like, this is a. This is a right mess. So his line is, peace with honor. Yeah.

[Richard Nixon]

Which is brilliant, isn't it? Because what does that mean?

[Tom Holland]

Yeah, it doesn't mean anything at all. Then when he says that to people, peace, but with honor, they say, oh, that's exactly what I love that. Brilliant. Love it. And actually, the amazing thing is that if you look at The Press in 1968, all the coverage, they are persuaded Everybody says, oh, Dick Nixon. We were quite hard on him. He's matured. We've kicked Dick Nixon like a dog. But actually he's not such a bad guy. So Theodore H. White, who wrote the Making of the President 1960, the great book on presidential campaigns, and had been really hard on Nixon, said, you know, he's hollow. He's a plastic man. He says Nixon is now a softer, more mellow, more self confident, more amusing, well to do lawyer, statesman. I find him a good man. Now, Norman Mailer. So Norman Mailer, like you, Tom, was very impressed by Trisha and Julie. Norma Mailer at this point always writes about himself in the third person. This is in Harper's Magazine, like Julius Caesar. Nothing in Mailer's prior view of Nixon had ever prepared him to conceive of a man with two lovely girls. Was it even possible that Nixon was a good man, not a bad man? And my favorite one of these is Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. Are you a fan of his writing, Tom?

[Richard Nixon]

I don't know. I've never read him.

[Tom Holland]

Okay, so here's the Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Man, he had a great relationship with Nixon.

[Richard Nixon]

Oh, he's the one who said he was so crooked that he wouldn't be able to put his pants on straight.

[Tom Holland]

Exactly. We read him in the Watergate episode.

[Richard Nixon]

Yeah, we did.

[Tom Holland]

Hunter S. Thompson wrote in 1968. For years I've regarded Nixon's very existence as a monument to all the rancid genes and broken chromosomes that corrupt the possibilities of the American dream. He was a foul caricature of himself, a man with no soul, no inner convictions, with the integrity of a hyena and the style of a poisoned toad. I've had reviews like that.

[Richard Nixon]

Just a question. I mean, I know that Nixon, you know, Watergate and everything. Yeah, all of that. But the reactions to him in the 60s do seem in excess of what he's done up until that point. I mean, he doesn't seem.

[Tom Holland]

No, that's the weird thing, doesn't seem that bad.

[Richard Nixon]

I mean, relative to some of the other characters that we've been talking about in this series.

[Tom Holland]

So it's partly because of anti Communism. That's partly because of his role in anti communism and what's perceived as red baiting. He had gone for a couple of kind of Democratic favorites. Most famously, a guy could Alger Hiss. And Nixon had actually, I think it's fair to say, exposed him as being, if not a traitor, then at least a fellow traveler.

[Richard Nixon]

But it seems more than a political Reaction?

[Tom Holland]

Yeah, it's snobbery.

[Richard Nixon]

Well, is it? But it's a kind of visceral reaction to him as an individual that he just seems horrible.

[Tom Holland]

I think it's that people feel he embodies all the. What they dislike most about mass culture, mass society. He's common, he's vulgar, he's aggressive, he's partisan. You know, I do think there's a fair bit of social and cultural snobbery. He's also. They regard him as charmless, as awkward, socially awkward, as graceless.

[Richard Nixon]

Maladwa.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah, maladwa, exactly. Anyway, Hunter S. Thompson, who had said all that, actually ends up sharing a car with Nixon in the 1968 primaries. They end up talking about American football. Nixon is a real nerd, and he knows all the details of, like, where the players went to college and stuff. Hunter S. Thompson is absolutely bowled over by this. He says of Nixon, the new Nixon is more relaxed, wiser, more mellow. I went to New Hampshire expecting to find a braying ass, and I came away convinced that Richard Nixon has one of the best minds in politics. People are like, wow, brilliant.

[Richard Nixon]

But by the time he comes to write about Watergate, he's changed his mind again.

[Tom Holland]

Changed his mind again, Exactly. So Nixon does have rivals. There's a guy called Nelson Rockefeller.

[Richard Nixon]

Very rich, he's quite impressive.

[Tom Holland]

Very impressive. Governor of New York.

[Richard Nixon]

He comes up, he has that brilliant phrase about Vietnam, that America is a commitment, looking for a justification.

[Tom Holland]

Oh, right. Well, he's an impressive and a smart guy, but he's a rich east coast establishment divorcee. And he is regarded by the conservative grassroots as basically what they call them, a rhino Republican in name only.

[Richard Nixon]

Okay, right.

[Tom Holland]

And yet another limousine liberal. Yeah. So Rockefeller, not sure whether to enter. He gets Mitt Romney's father, George Romney. He was the big car executive, CEO of American Motors. He was the head of the Mormon Church in Detroit, governor of Michigan. He runs in Rockefeller's stead. But everybody thinks that Rodney is an idiot. He came back from a trip to Vietnam and said, I just had the greatest brainwashing that anyone can have from the generals. And everybody says, oh, well, if you're going to be brainwashed by the generals, you're obviously a complete fool. You can't get around saying you've been brainwashed as a presidential candidate. That's mad.

[Richard Nixon]

Unless you're the Manchurian Candidate, of course.

[Tom Holland]

What Eugene McCarthy said about George Romney, he says, why did I need a brainwash? A light rinse would have been sufficient. Very good. So Romney pulls out Nixon's got a sort of. He can cruise through the primaries and then he gets to Miami beach, the convention, and the big threat to him is actually Ronald Reagan, our old friend. Oh, so Ronald Reagan at this point? No, that. That noise that he's making is more hard edged. It's a kind of law and order noise. Oh, yeah. More gravelly maybe. So Reagan is the darling of the south because they see him as the candidate of law and order, crime, not friendly to civil rights, all of this. And if he can persuade the Southern delegations to abandon Nixon, Reagan might have a shot at the nomination. So Nixon has to work really hard on the south, and he basically enlists this bloke who is actually, I think is fair to say, not one of my favorite people in American history. He's the senator from South Carolina, Strom Thurmond. Strom Thurmond was a Senator until about 2020 or something.

[Richard Nixon]

I mean, he sounds like a. A super villain from a Marvel comic.

[Tom Holland]

He was a senator still when he was about 170 years old.

[Richard Nixon]

He was, wasn't he?

[Tom Holland]

Yeah. He had built his career on segregation. It would astound people to hear that in the final days of his life, it turned out he had at least one out of wedlock, mixed race child. Which perhaps puts his segregationism into a slightly different context. Anyway, Thurmond Nixon reaches out to Thurmond and says, come on, be my salesman with the Southerners. And Thurmond says, great, will do. So Thurmond arranges for all the Southerners to meet Nixon. And Nixon says to them, listen, you know, I know Reagan is your favorite, but you can get what you want from me. I know you don't like the road that America has taken. I will appoint more conservative judges. I will call off the federal government. I will stop pandering to civil rights groups. He says, in particular, I will give you what you want over the integration of schools. They are really concerned about this issue. Very familiar to our American listeners, but probably not outside America of school busing. That means integrating schools by busing black children into white areas and vice versa to create a mix across the city. White parents hate this with a passion. And Nixon says, I don't agree with it and I won't do it. And they think, great. You know, he doesn't do this in George Waller style terms. He does it purely in terms of pragmatism. He goes out of his way to say, you know, I'm not a racist and all this stuff, but it works. He defeats the Reagan rebellion, South falls in behind him, and he is clearly going to win the nomination. But there's one more SOP to the south, and a very entertaining one. He has to pick his vice president, and he picks my favorite of all America's vice presidents, Spiro Agnew, the governor of Maryland. Now, Spiro Agnew was pretty much a nobody. They did some brilliant vox pops in Atlanta on the day he was picked, asking people in the street, what do you think about Spiro Agnew? And the three replies that stand out are, it's some kind of disease, it's some kind of egg, and he's that Greek that owns that shipbuilding firm, I. E. Aristotle and Assis. Spiro Agnew is indeed Greek extraction. He'd been a centrist, moderate governor of Maryland. But after the riots in the spring of 1968, he invited Baltimore's black leaders to come to the state capital. And he'd basically given them a massive harangue. And he had said, it's all your fault that this has happened. You haven't done enough to criticize the Hanoi visiting, caterwauling, riot, inciting, burn America down black radicals. They were really cross about this and they all walked out. And Agnew was then deluged with letters from the voters of Maryland saying to him, well done. What a brilliant man you are. Well done. Fantastic.

[Richard Nixon]

And is that why Nixon basically picks him?

[Tom Holland]

This is why Nixon picks him because he's a border state and because he's been tough on black civil rights leaders. And this is great from Nixon's point of view, because Nixon's strategy is all about what we would now call middle America, or he would later call the great silent majority. So his biographer, his most recent biographer, John A. Farrell, describes. These are people who, they watch nascar, they watch the NFL, they go to church, they volunteer for the Boy Scouts, they think Bob Hope is very funny. They think John Wayne is tremendously cool. They know people whose kids are fighting in Vietnam. They are the salt of the earth. Ordinary middle Americans indeed have volunteered to fight in Vietnam, or indeed have volunteered to fight in Vietnam. Exactly. You know, they like to spend their weekends fishing and hunting and driving around and their pickups. Yeah, and just Chevys, all of that stuff. And I think Nixon's superpower is that he gets them. He instinctively gets them. He doesn't have to think about it. He doesn't need a poll. He just knows because he's one of them to some degree what middle Americans are frightened of what they want. And that's why that speech that you Began with as more cautious as people might find it. It is a masterpiece of its kind. Because he starts, he says, when we look at America, we see its cities enveloped in smoke and flame. We hear sirens in the night. We see Americans dying on distant battlefields abroad. All this. And then he says, we hear the Americans crying out in anguish, did we come all this way for this? And then he says, listen to another voice. It is the quiet voice and the tumult and the shouting. It is the voice of the great majority of Americans, the forgotten Americans, the non shouters, the non demonstrators. They're not racists or sick. They're good people. They're decent people. They work and they save and they pay their taxes and they care. Now, again, a lot of people listening to that may say, God nauseating. But loads of people think, oh, brilliant, he gets me. I'm one of those people. I like to think I'm one of those people.

[Richard Nixon]

I mean, he's not offering any hard policies there, though, is he?

[Tom Holland]

No, he's not at all, because he's offering his peace with honor in Vietnam. Who knows what that means? And he says, no more disorder at home. We'll listen to the still, quiet voice of the ordinary Americans.

[Richard Nixon]

And what does that mean in practical terms?

[Tom Holland]

It doesn't mean anything. But he's got a great peroration. My fellow Americans, the long dark night for America is about to end. The time has come for us to leave the valley of despair and climb the mountain so we may see the glory of the dawn. A new day for America and a new dawn for peace and freedom in the world.

[Richard Nixon]

I mean, that is a ripoff of Martin Luther King.

[Tom Holland]

It's clearly a total ripoff. Who would have thought that Richard Nixon's speech, race.

[Richard Nixon]

It's like the monkeys ripping off the Beatles.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah. Or is Nixon the Beatles? And is Martin Luther King? I think so. Is Martin Luther King acabilk?

[Richard Nixon]

Don't think so.

[Tom Holland]

But here's the thing, right? This is my favorite bit about this. It's been a tremendous success, the Republican convention. Nixon, the man of middle America, not extreme or this. He's come forward and he's their choice for president. He's a massive favorite to win the election, but here's the window into Nixon's soul. So afterwards, he's absolutely buzzing, as he always is after these. He wants to talk. He won't go to bed. And he obviously doesn't want to talk to Pat. He's got no interest in talking to pat. So at 1:30 in the morning, he calls the speechwriter and later columnist William Safire and he says, come to my suite for a drink. So Sapphire comes up to Nixon's. Nixon's suite. Nixon's standing there kind of staring out of the window, lost in thought, looking intense. Looking intense. And he says to Sapphire, they won't like their speech, will they?

[Richard Nixon]

Is he from Somerset?

[Tom Holland]

Right. They won't.

[Richard Nixon]

They all like that speech.

[Tom Holland]

It's like the John Adams voice that we did.

[Richard Nixon]

They call me intelligent and cool and no sincerity. And then it kills them when I show them I know how people feel. I could write a speech like that and they hate me for it.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah, that's the thing, he says they won't like it. The New York Times and those boys. Theo, get your bleeping machine ready. Them sir? Stixon, none of them could write a speech like that and they hate me for it. Now it's kind of bonkers on the most triumphant night of his career that he is sunk in this terrible self pity and he goes on like this for an hour and a half. Sapphire gets away at 3 o'clock in the morning and the last thing he hears, Nixon as he leaves the apartment is Nixon saying rather plaintively to his secret Service bodyguard Do you know anywhere where I could get a glass of milk? That is Nixon.

[Richard Nixon]

So not groovy.

[Tom Holland]

That is Nixon, that is. What a. What a brilliant man he was. So he leaves the convention on an absolute high. Then three weeks later, as we heard last time, things get even better for him. The Democrats self immolate in Chicago. The violence, the chaos at the convention, all of this. He now has a double digit lead in the polls. It seems that he can't be stopped, that victory is inevitable. But is it? Is there a twist in the tale, Tom?

[Richard Nixon]

Is there a twist in the tale? Well, let's take a break and when we come back we'll find out. Hello and welcome back to the final section of our epic on America in 1968. And Dominic, we are in the presidential campaign. It's Humphrey against Nixon and Nixon. I mean he's in a good place.

[Tom Holland]

He's in a really good place.

[Richard Nixon]

He's miles ahead. Humphrey's trailing, he's being heckled by anti war protesters. Everywhere he goes. Dump the hump calling him a murderer. I mean it's awful for him, brilliant for Nixon. But you hinted at a twist in the tale, so is there a twist in the tale?

[Tom Holland]

Tom, there's more than one twist. I've got as many twists as you can take. It's a corkscrew It's a roller coaster.

[Richard Nixon]

Like Nixon himself, right?

[Tom Holland]

Yeah.

[Richard Nixon]

So crooked. He's like a corkscrew. He can't take his own pants off.

[Tom Holland]

Yes, pretty much can't screw his pants on straight.

[Richard Nixon]

That's right, yeah.

[Tom Holland]

Of course he should have had George Wallace's pants in the Wallace episode because do you recall shiny pants.

[Richard Nixon]

There's a lot of pants based action in this.

[Tom Holland]

That's America though, isn't it? That's just America.

[Richard Nixon]

Malcolm Turnbull as well, losing his pants.

[Tom Holland]

No, it wasn't Malcolm Turnbull. Malcolm Fraser.

[Richard Nixon]

Malcolm Fraser. Sorry, yeah. Apologies to Malcolm Turnbull in Memphis, Tennessee.

[Tom Holland]

Come on. We've clearly been recording this for too long because we just free forming gibbering. Right. So Nixon's plan, because he's so far ahead in the polls he's going to fight a very tightly controlled, very conservative campaign, not throw it away.

[Richard Nixon]

So like carrying a Ming vase, that strategy.

[Tom Holland]

Not exactly. And the reason it's worth dwelling on Nixon's campaign is it is the prototype really for all subsequent presidential campaigns. So the key person is Haldeman. Haldeman. HR Haldeman, who ends up becoming his White House kind of chief of staff. Haldeman was a Christian Scientist, he's a very crew cut, very square kind of bloke. He'd worked for J Walter Thompson Ad agency in Los Angeles. And Haldeman said, we're going to break with all previous political campaigns. We will, and I quote, move out of the dark ages and into the brave new world of the omnipresent eye.

[Richard Nixon]

So not a million miles from Abby Hoffman who likewise has a sense of the power of television. I mean that's what I find so interesting about this series is the kind of unexpected crossovers from left to right and from the countercultural to the very, very mainstream.

[Tom Holland]

I don't actually think that's a ridiculous comparison at all. I think that awareness of the sort of Marshall McLuhan kind of era.

[Richard Nixon]

Yeah, all of that.

[Tom Holland]

The medium is the message. Hoffman and the yipees did believe it and Haldeman and Nixon absolutely believe it. So Haldeman says, look, all presidential candidates waste their time going on these rallies like Robert Kennedy had been doing. This is a complete and utter. You just get knackered, you get cross, you know, what's the point? Just do one event a day for form's sake left to hold them. And Nixon would have done none and do everything else on television. And the way they do the tv, they get a guy called Roger Iles who ends up becoming the founding CEO Of Fox News. Isles designs these shows where Nixon stands in this kind of little arena surrounded by voters, and he answers their questions, and they pay for 10 of these on network TV. And I also said, look, the way this works is basically, even if you don't support Nixon, subliminally, you end up rooting for him because he's surrounded by people. They're all sitting, he's standing. It's like he's at bay in an arena.

[Richard Nixon]

So, like Tony Blair's masochism strategy, Tony.

[Tom Holland]

Blair's masochism strategy is precisely this. He is alone. He is standing while all others are seated, he is surrounded by people looking into the pit at him. And most people would think of that as a nightmare. That's what I says now is tells this to a young writer called Joe McGuinness. Joe McGuinness is in his early 20s, and unbelievably, he gets complete access to the Nixon campaign, and he writes a book about it called the selling of the President, which is a wonderful book to read if you're interested in this campaign or campaigning generally, because never before had anyone lifted the lid on the extraordinary cynicism of a presidential campaign. So Isles has this wonderful monologue to his staff, and he says to them, our candidate, people think he's really boring, a pain in the ass. They look at him as the kind of kid who always carried a book bag, who was 42 years old the day he was born. They figured that other kids got footballs for Christmas. Nixon got a briefcase, and he loved it. Of course, George Wallace would have thrown him into the river with that briefcase.

[Richard Nixon]

Is Nixon listening to this?

[Tom Holland]

No, Nixon's obviously not. Imagine. Yeah, he's just sitting there looking miserable while they're talking about, oh, they're dumping.

[Richard Nixon]

On Dick Nixon again.

[Tom Holland]

Kyle says he looks like somebody hung him in a closet overnight. And he jump. He jumps out in the morning with a suit all bunched up, and he starts running around saying, I want to be president. Wow.

[Richard Nixon]

And this is the guy who's rooting for Nixon.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah. Anyway, so they basically know this, and they. And they package Nixon. They sell him. One of Nixon's ad directors said to Jeremy Guinness, we've deliberately set out to make our ads, and I quote, cheap and vulgar to appeal to the lowest common denominator of American taste.

[Richard Nixon]

But that's a fascinating that Nixon's own propagandists have a certain kind of snobbish contempt for him.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah, of course. I know. It is extraordinary. And actually, the thing about the ad Guy. If you look at the Nixon ads, they are unbelievable because they're not cheap and vulgar. They are brilliant. They are these kind of avant garde montages. You should watch them, Tom.

[Richard Nixon]

Well, I have. They're a bit like a kind of Doors video.

[Tom Holland]

They're like people screaming.

[Richard Nixon]

It's like Apocalypse Now.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah. It's creating the sense of disorder. And then at the end, it projects Nixon as the only solution to all this. So kind of shots of people sobbing in the streets, being hit over the head by cops, GIs in Vietnam. And then the slogan, the tagline is, this time, vote. Lug your whole world, Somerset again.

[Richard Nixon]

No, go with it. Go for it, Dominic. This time, vote like your whole world depended on that.

[Tom Holland]

Is how Americans speak, let's be honest.

[Richard Nixon]

Well, that's how the Founding Fathers spoke. So if it's good enough for the Founding Fathers, it's good enough for them.

[Tom Holland]

So, anyway, listen, back to the ads. All this raises a crucial question, and this is the question that academics are most interested in. This is a key moment in the Republican Party's move to the right. Nixon's embrace of a law and order campaign. And is it, as many historians believe, all about racism? Because, of course, this is against the backdrop of so many riots, of the kind of fragmentation of the civil rights movement, but also of the Wallace campaign, because Wallace is making so many similar sounding arguments. So here's the interesting thing. We know that Nixon did say racist things in the White House. I mean, he's on tape doing it. That said, his record actually up to this point is pretty good. He'd supported the Civil Rights acts, fair housing and this kind of thing.

[Richard Nixon]

We heard him sampling Martin Luther King.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah.

[Richard Nixon]

In the previous half. He has this thing, doesn't he, where he's always saying, I see a day. Which is obviously a kind of riff on I have a Dream.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah.

[Richard Nixon]

And he repeats it over and over again in a kind of cod, Martin Luther King way.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah, but that's just rhetorical larceny. I don't think he's deliberately trying to repeat.

[Richard Nixon]

Do you not think? I think that in the wake of Martin Luther King's murder, to echo his rhetorical style so overtly. I mean, you can't think that people aren't going to notice it and you're kind of making a point with it.

[Tom Holland]

I'm not so sure, because I think in the 50s and 60s, that style is very common among politicians. So Kennedy spoke in a very repetitive.

[Richard Nixon]

Not I have a dream, but Norman Mailer noticed it.

[Tom Holland]

Norman Mailer said he Is copying Martin Luther King.

[Richard Nixon]

Copying Martin Luther King. He's suddenly begun it, and he says it's basically it was since King's assassination.

[Tom Holland]

That's interesting. I think the real question, though is, is he just blowing a dog whistle? So he says to his aides, you know, I'm not just going to copy Wallace. We're going to have to be more sophisticated than Wallace. But at the same time, he is competing for voters with Wallace in the sort of sun belt states, the border states and so on, or places like Florida or the Carolinas with this message of strong defense, traditional values, opposition to school busing, law and order. And some historians now, when you open a book about this campaign, will say, this is just coded racism. Nixon is getting into the gutter with Wallace. Now, at one level, I think that is actually a little bit unfair because I think it is completely legitimate to worry about law and order given that the crime figures have gone through the roof and frankly, hundreds of people have been killed in riots since 1964. Nixon's ads don't show black rioters. They only ever show white rioters. In his speeches, he never, ever mentions race, really. He never says anything racist. So you could say, well, you know, he's been very harshly treated. On the other hand, there is no getting away, I think, from the fact that law and order is also code for black unrest in the inner cities. And Nixon isn't campaigning in a vacuum. He's campaigning in a world in which Reagan and Wallace are saying similar things. And we know from Haldeman's notes that Nixon was actually quite cynical about this.

[Richard Nixon]

Right. Well, cynicism is the word. Yeah, isn't it?

[Tom Holland]

So Haldeman writes, Irish Ital Pole Mex are afraid of Negroes. Need stronger position on this. Must do something. Must dry up Wallace vote. And then there's an infamous account of Nixon himself rehearsing a TV ad. And the TV ad ends with him saying, the horror of the problem is law and order in our schools. And then he finishes the rehearsal, and then he says to himself, yep, that hits it right on the nose. It's all about law and order and the damn Negro Puerto Rican groups out there.

[Richard Nixon]

I mean, clearly his aim in the most cynical sense is to triangulate.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah, that's the word. Yeah.

[Richard Nixon]

To appeal to the Wallace constituency. And yet at the same time, I mean, he is articulating progressive sentiments, isn't he? And he is echoing the language of Martin Luther King. So from a campaigning point of view, I mean, not necessarily a moral point of view, but from a campaigning point of view, it's a brilliant strategy.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah, it's very effective. I mean, by the way, for the people who are raising their eyebrows when you said progressive sentiments, he says, we can't become two nations, one black, one white. We must move with compassion and conviction to bring the American dreams to the ghetto. And then there's an amazing speech that he gives to white voters in suburban Philadelphia. We will be giving similar kinds of progressive speeches, won't we, to the audience in Philadelphia when we arrive there to do our show. Nixon says to this audience, you're very fortunate. You know, you're very affluent people. But in the great cities of America, there is, quote, terrible poverty. There are poor people, there are people who haven't had a chance, the chance that you've had. And he says to them explicitly, you can't sit in your houses and just be comfortable with your lot. This won't be a good country for any of us to live in until it's a good country for all of us to live in.

[Richard Nixon]

And that talk, you know, the passage from the acceptance speech that I began with that child, which is Nixon himself is counterpointed to children who don't have the chances that he had.

[Tom Holland]

Yes, exactly.

[Richard Nixon]

So that's the brilliance of it.

[Tom Holland]

This is what makes Nixon so fascinating, is that I can't think of many other characters in modern American history, or indeed British history, who are so good at sending different messages to different audiences at the same time, and which can.

[Richard Nixon]

Only be heard, in a sense, by, you know, if your ear is attuned to the dog whistle, I suppose.

[Tom Holland]

Exactly. This is a brilliantly cynical campaign. But there is a problem you alluded to earlier. It's actually very boring compared with the Democrats. You know, Nixon's just going around in the sanitized atmosphere of the TV studio. As Joe McGinnis said in the selling of the President. It's as though basically he was in an Astrodome where the wind would never blow, the temperature never rise and fall, and the ball never bounce erratically on the artificial grass. And the press start to point this out and they become basically bored with him.

[Richard Nixon]

Yeah, well, if they're following the Democrats, they're bound to be bored following Nixon.

[Tom Holland]

And actually, as we get into the autumn, Humphrey starts to inch back. The economy, you know, is still pretty good. He's still got the big Democratic machine. He's got the unions on his side, if he can fire them up. He's running out of money, Humphrey. And he spends his last half a million dollars on 30 September to buy network time for a speech he's giving in Salt Lake City. And in this speech, he just thinks, sod it, I'm going to go for it. And he breaks with LBJ in the speech on Vietnam. On Vietnam, he says, I will stop the bombing of the North. For the first time, he goes against the administration's policy. And that actually breaks the logjam, as it were, because it ends the protests against him. Liberal donors start to give him money. The unions are now worried about George Wallace making inroads among kind of blue collar Democrats. So they start cranking up their machines. And as we get into October, there's a sense that all the time the ground is shifting. Suddenly, day by day, Humphrey is eating into Nixon's lead.

[Richard Nixon]

Aren't parallels starting to be drawn with Harry Truman's famous victory against Thomas G. Dewey?

[Tom Holland]

Yes, exactly. Then actually, do you know what? Humphrey has all the momentum suddenly because he's been written off and stamped on for so long. And now the story is he's pulled it out at the last minute and the polls are narrowing all the time. And Nixon actually says to his aides, events, events could kill us in this. And of course, this brings us back to the issue that's been there all through this series, which is Vietnam. And this takes us to the great conspiracy theory about Nixon's victory. Vietnam has been a stalemate, an incredibly bloody stalemate all year. The North Vietnamese lost tens of thousands of men in the Tet offensive, and they've been licking their wounds. But at the same time, 17,000American servicemen will lose their lives in 1968, the worst, bloodiest year of the war. Johnson's sitting there in the White House now. His attitude is very complicated. On paper, he ought to favor Humphrey, his vice president, But Johnson is a dreadful bully, and he kind of enjoys stamping on Hubert. And there's part of him I think that would be, you know, if Hubert loses, he couldn't care less, really. He thinks Hubert is just a dead loss.

[Richard Nixon]

So the Nika book is all over the fact that LBJ wants Nixon to win. How much credence do you give to that?

[Tom Holland]

I think a little bit of credence, actually. I think LBJ is genuinely torn because as we said before, LBJ and Nixon are similar personalities. Nixon, we know that he is short. He promised lbj, I will uphold your policy. I will never criticize you.

[Richard Nixon]

And he doesn't, does he?

[Tom Holland]

And he doesn't. And there's a lot of stuff in that Lutenik book about Billy Graham as a go between. Between the two men, which I think is true. So LBJ is torn. He's a lifelong Democrat, of course he wants his allies to win. On the other hand, of the two, Humphrey and Nixon, I think he has more respect for Nixon ultimately, because he has no respect for Humphrey at all. So he's undecided. And all Autumn, people are wondering, you know, Lyndon Johnson is still the President. Is he going to intervene in the race? Is there going to be an October surprise that will change the whole narrative? And then on the 31st of October, Halloween, the bombshell comes. Tom. So there's just five days to go till the election. And LBJ goes on TV and he says there's going to be a total bombing halt. We're stopping because a peaceful settlement to the war could be at hand. I'm going to send a US delegation to Paris for peace talks in a week's time. You know, everything has changed. And this is an amazing moment, right? The war could be over. Bombing could be over, the bloodshed, and is that going to be the thing that swings it for Humphrey? But it's what happens next that is one of American political history's great conspiracy theories. So, just to lay it out, Nixon undoubtedly knew and had known for weeks that LBJ was working on a peace deal. The conspiracy theory. Nixon was frightened that this would cost him the election, and he worked secretly to destroy it. And the way he destroyed it was by using a woman called Anna Chenault, who was nicknamed the Dragon Lady. So she was Chinese born. She'd been married to an American general who had commanded a group of fighter pilots, Chinese and American fighter pilots, in the Second World War. Anna Chenault is a big society hostess and Republican fundraiser. Very active in anti Communist circles, loads of contacts in Southeast Asia. And the conspiracy theory runs like this, that Nixon got her to contact South Vietnam's President Thu and told him, I'll get you a better deal. Don't go to Paris for the peace talks. Do what I tell you and you'll be all right with me. TIU did as he was told. He didn't go to Paris. The peace talks fell apart. The peace chance was gone. It was Nixon who destroyed it, breaking the Logan act of 1799. Not the Logan act, the Logan act, which forbids private citizens from making diplomatic links with foreign governments. So it's treason. LBJ knew it was treason, but he didn't go public because he didn't have concrete proof and he didn't want to taint Nixon's ascension to the presidency. And so Nixon got away with sabotaging the peace deal and stole the election. And thousands of people died unnecessarily. What a terrible thing for Nixon to have done. Tom, is it true? No, I don't think it is true.

[Richard Nixon]

Okay.

[Tom Holland]

I don't think it is true.

[Richard Nixon]

And neither does Luke Nichter.

[Tom Holland]

Right.

[Richard Nixon]

He doesn't either.

[Tom Holland]

First of all, it is true that Nixon's campaign was in touch with Anna Chanel. No doubt about that. He met her at his Part Lane apartment. He met her with the South Vietnamese ambassador.

[Richard Nixon]

She's the kind of woman who loves the presidential candidate, though, isn't she?

[Tom Holland]

Totally. She is. She's always hanging. She's a society.

[Richard Nixon]

Society hostess.

[Tom Holland]

Exactly. She says that Nixon promised her that he would make sure Vietnam gets better treatment from me than under the Democrats. I think he probably did promise her that. No doubt in my mind he promised her that. I also do think it's true that he said to her, it'd be brilliant if you could be a go between. Between me and Saigon. Because we know that because Haldeman wrote notes about it. Keep Chenault working on svn, South Vietnam. We also know beyond doubt that Lyndon Johnson knew that Nixon was in with this Anna Chenault, because we have a record of him talking to a friend of his from the Humphrey campaign on 1 November. Nixon is in deep telling Chu and all of them not to go along with me on anything. Chu thinks that we will sell him out, and Nixon has convinced him. And this damn little old woman, Mrs. Chanel, she's been in on it. That's very much LBJ. But I think that. I think the caveats, however, are too great. So the first caveat is Nixon having contacts with South Vietnam is completely natural and reasonable. He has been to Saigon multiple Times since the 1950s. He already has contacts there. It's not weird that he has contacts with the South Vietnamese leadership, given that he's ahead in the polls. He's going to be president very shortly and his country is engaged in South Vietnam. It would be bizarre if he wasn't in touch in some informal way with the South Vinaigrettes, don't you think? I mean, it obviously stands to reason that he would be talking to them, I guess. I think he did use Mrs. Chenault as an intermediary, but I don't think she's as important as Everybody thinks.

[Richard Nixon]

Including Mrs. Chenault?

[Tom Holland]

Yeah, she bigs up her own role. She likes. Thinks she's terribly important. But I Think Nixon probably has many intermediaries and she is merely one. And above all, the conspiracy theory completely misses the point. The South Vietnamese were never, ever, ever going to go for Lyndon Johnson Steele anyway. And as it happens, what I think is the last word on this was published only a couple of weeks ago in the journal Diplomatic History by historian David L. Prentice. And he dug into the South Vietnamese sources that other historians have ignored. So to cut the long story short, he says, listen, President Thu was never, ever going to go along with the peace deal. Had the Viet Cong around the table with him in peace talks. That was like an absolute red line for him. Also, President Chu already thought the Democrats and Humphreys a waste of space. Like, he doesn't even want to bomb the North. I want someone who will bomb the North. So President Chu already thought Nixon would be much better for him. He doesn't need Nixon to tell him. He doesn't need Mrs. Chenault to turn up with a message. He's never going to go to Paris for these peace talks and he's always going to sink the deal.

[Richard Nixon]

But how come LBJ didn't know that?

[Tom Holland]

LBJ was slightly being deluded, I think by his chief negotiator, Avril Harriman, who was a very keen Democrat and basically said, my priority is actually to get Humphrey elected. So I think he's getting confusing signals from his own people. Lbj. I think LBJ has also deluded himself into thinking he has more agency and more control over the South Vietnamese than he does.

[Richard Nixon]

Yeah.

[Tom Holland]

And I think, you know, the Americans have a long history in this of deluding themselves about what's happening in Vietnam and also denying the South Vietnamese any agency. Any agency. And I think this is what this conspiracy theory does, right? It says it's all on Nixon, that the peace failed. The South Vietnamese are never going to sign this peace. Don't delude yourselves.

[Richard Nixon]

When do people start talking about this conspiracy? Is it post Watergate?

[Tom Holland]

Yeah, yeah. Roundabout Watergate. I would say so. 70s people are talking about in the 70s. And of course, what happens is people are primed to believe the worst of Nixon. Democrats love the thought of having an excuse why they lost. Right?

[Richard Nixon]

Yeah.

[Tom Holland]

It's because we were cheated by this terrible man. I don't doubt that Nixon is sending signals to South Vietnam, but I think they're completely irrelevant. I don't think they're why he wins the election at all. Anyway, let's get to election night. It's the 5th of November, 1968. Nixon's in the Waldorf Astoria, New York, on the 35th floor. Nixon, being the great family man that he is, has booked separate rooms for himself and Pat and his daughters. And he basically doesn't want to watch it with them. He said to them, I'm frightened I'm going to lose again. And they said, we can't take the disappointment.

[Richard Nixon]

I think that's fair enough.

[Tom Holland]

They're going to be off in a separate room. So he being Dick Nixon, every other presidential candidate sits with their closest friends, their aides got like Doritos or whatever. Nixon sits on his own in the dark with his yellow pad, writing resolutions to himself.

[Richard Nixon]

But it prepares you for the worst.

[Tom Holland]

It does. Well, that's his mentality.

[Richard Nixon]

I think that's what I'd do in his shoes. I wouldn't want. I mean, you wouldn't want to be Hillary Clinton, you know, with a massive great party, balloons and everything. And then, I mean, that would be terrible, of course, on international television.

[Tom Holland]

And that's what most presidential candidates do. They have the party ready. Nixon is a man who hates parties anyway, so, I mean, he's never going to be into a party. So the first returns start to come in. Wallace, the Wallace story. We kind of wrap that up in the Wallace episode. But just to remind people, he only won five states and 10 million votes. His support has been squeezed by both Humphrey and Nixon. So actually Nixon is going to fight off Wallace in Tennessee and the Carolinas, in Florida and Virginia in the sort of outer southern states. However, bad news for Nixon. Humphrey has also eaten into Wallace's support in the North. Basically, the blue collar union members are coming home, some of them for the very last time, to the Democrats. They're giving the Democrats one last chance in your Michigans and your kind of Rust Belt states and so on. So it's very, very close. You get to midnight, Humphrey is actually just ahead in the popular vote. And it's going to come down to the same four states that decided it in 1960 when Nixon lost. That's California, Ohio, Illinois and Texas.

[Richard Nixon]

Unbelievable tension.

[Tom Holland]

Great drama, Tom.

[Richard Nixon]

Yeah.

[Tom Holland]

Pat Nixon is in the bathroom being sick because she's so nervous.

[Richard Nixon]

Literally sick.

[Tom Holland]

Literally sick.

[Richard Nixon]

Wow.

[Tom Holland]

By the early hours of the morning, Nixon and Humphrey are now neck and neck. They're about 43% each. Texas goes for Humphrey, Pennsylvania goes for Humphrey, New York goes for Humphrey. But Nixon is ahead in California, in Ohio, in Illinois. And at last, the news from Chicago. Mayor Daly.

[Richard Nixon]

Wow, he pops up again.

[Tom Holland]

Mayor Daly has been sitting on these boxes, not releasing the results because presumably.

[Richard Nixon]

He wants The Democrats to win.

[Tom Holland]

He does. Yeah. I think he does want the Democrats to win. Mayor Daley has a slight history perhaps, of playing fast and loose with ballot box security, I think it's fair to say. And finally, he releases the results from Chicago and they send Nixon over the top in Illinois and they give him the presidency. So out of more than 70 million votes cast, he wins by just half a million. The margin is half a million votes. And he's done it. He has banished the memories of all his defeats and he has pulled off one of American history's great comebacks. Yeah.

[Richard Nixon]

So there is a second act in American political life.

[Tom Holland]

Exactly. He goes down the hall at 8 o'clock in the morning or so, glass of milk, to tell his family. This is the first they've heard of it because they've been locked up in.

[Richard Nixon]

Their room, vomiting in the bathroom.

[Tom Holland]

Pat can't believe it. She says, oh, Dick, are we sure of Illinois? And he says, we are sure, Pat. And she bursts into floods of tears. And then he comes downstairs to greet the media. It's midday in the Waldorf Astoria. And we always like a bit of moving Nixon rhetoric.

[Richard Nixon]

We like some syrup, don't we?

[Tom Holland]

We like a bit of syrup. So this is what he says. I saw many signs in this campaign. I don't want to degenerate into the Somerset voice again. Some of them were not friendly, and some of them were very friendly. But the one that touched me the most was the one I saw in Deshler, Ohio, at the end of a long day of whistle stopping. A little town, I suppose, five times the population was there in the dusk, almost impossible to see. But a teenager held up a sign, bring us together.

[Richard Nixon]

So that definitely happened.

[Tom Holland]

And that will be the great objective of this administration. We want to bridge the generation gap. We want to bridge the gap between the races. We want to bring America together. And so, Tom, the Nixon golden age begins.

[Richard Nixon]

Because, spoiler alert, bringing Amera together is exactly what Nixon succeeds in doing. All Americans united in the conviction that he should resign after Watergate.

[Tom Holland]

That's not even true.

[Richard Nixon]

That's not even true.

[Tom Holland]

No.

[Richard Nixon]

People were still rooting for him after Watergate. Yeah.

[Tom Holland]

There's still people who said, come on, Dick, Nixon's got a very bad press. We all, you know, do the odd thing we don't, you know, we're not too proud of. Okay, so, yeah, Tom, that's the.

[Richard Nixon]

So that's it. I just mentioned Watergate because you've heard six episodes on America, 968. But if you simply can't bear drawing a line under this. If you'd like to hear more Nixon, you can go and listen to the two episodes that we recorded about 73 years ago on Watergate. Dominic, again at his absolute best, as he has been in this series. So thank you very much, Dominic, for all of that, your unparalleled expertise. And thank you, everyone who has listened.

[Tom Holland]

Maybe, Tom, I think we should have Dick Nixon himself to play us out.

[Richard Nixon]

Bye, bye.

[Tom Holland]

Bye, bye. Nixon now more than ever. Nixon now.