Rick Perlstein

nixonland4

ABBREVIATIONS BPP: Berrigan Brothers Papers, Cornell University Special Collections, Ithaca, New York
CDN: Chicago Daily News
CT: Chicago Tribune
LAT: Los Angeles Times
LBJCR: “Civil Rights During the Johnson Administration, 1963–1969: A collection from the holdings of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, Austin, Texas” (microfilm)
MIP: Files on the events of 1970 collected by Maurice Isserman, in possession of author
MTR: Museum of Television and Radio, New York City
NLT: Nixon Library Tapes transcribed by author, National Archives, College Park, Maryland
NYDN: New York Daily News
NYT: New York Times
NYTM: New York Times Magazine
PDP: Paul Douglas Papers, Chicago History Museum
PDP722: Douglas Papers, Part I, Box 722, 1966 folder
PPP: Public Papers of the Presidents
RNLB: Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace, Yorba Linda, California
USNWR: U.S. News & World Report
WP: Washington Post
WSJ: Wall Street Journal

CHAPTER FOUR: RONALD REAGAN

70 “Now and then the police cars”: “Watts: Is the Next Time Now?” WP, May 29, 1966.
70 “I threw the firebomb”: “CBS Reports: Watts: Riots or Revolt?” November 1965, MTR , T77–0395. A group of Berkeley radicals: “Students with Causes Set Up Shop at Berkeley,” WP, September 30, 1965. Liberal technocrats reasoned: Charles Abrams, “The Housing Problem and the Negro,” in Talcott Parsons and Kenneth B. Clark, eds., The Negro American (Boston: Beacon, 1965), 52. Fortune magazine, speaking: Charles Silberman in Fortune, November 1965, in LBJCR, Reel 2.
70 Chief Parker quotes: “CBS Reports: Watts: Riots or Revolt?”; ]Governor’s Commission on the Los Angeles Riots, Violence in the City—an End or a Beginning? (Los Angeles: State of California, 1965)](http://www.usc.edu/libraries/archives/cityinstress/mccone/contents.html); Johnnie Cochran, Journey to Justice (New York: Ballantine, 1996), 73–78. 71 In March, there almost was another: “Two Slain in New Watts Riot,” LAT, March 16, 1966; “Watts Is Tense but Quiet,” NYT, March 17, 1966. Brown legislative package: “Watts Riot Stirs Political Battle,” NYT, March 18, 1966. White House conference cancellation: LBJCR, Reel 5. The Los Angeles Times columnist Paul Coates: “Prayers and Work,” LAT, March 17, 1966.&edition=&startpage=3&desc=Prayers+and+Work)
71 At his announcement: “Reagan Enters Gubernatorial Race in California,” NYT, January 5, 1966. California governor’s race: “Watts Riot Stirs Political Battle,” NYT, March 18, 1966. 71 He was the primary front-runner: “Christopher Matches Reagan Before Coast G.O.P. Committee,” NYT, February 28, 1966. “You know, a tree is a tree”: Gerard J. De Groot, “Ronald Reagan and Student Unrest in California, 1966–1970,” Pacific Historical Review 65, no. 1 (1996).
72 More or less, Brown was doing: “Reagan Called Brown Choice for Nomination,” LAT, January 4, 1966. “‘Bring him on’”: Bill Boyarsky, The Rise of Ronald Reagan (New York: Random House, 1968), 113. A young assistant was sent: Ibid., 112.
72 Pat was not the most inspiring: Lou Cannon, Governor Reagan: His Rise to Power (New York: PublicAffairs, 2003; Jack Langguth, “Political Fun and Games in California,” NYTM, October 16, 1966. 72 Reagan punditry fixated: David Broder and Stephen Hess, The Republican Establishment: The Present and Future of the GOP (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), 246. An editorial cartoon depicted Goldwater: Ibid., 276. Elizabeth Taylor, Borax Boy: Ibid., 246. Lassie, Liberace: “Ronald Reagan to the Rescue!” Esquire, February, 1966.
73 LSD: David Farber, “The Intoxicated State/Illegal Nation: Drugs in the Sixties Counterculture,” in Peter Braunstein and Michael Doyle, eds., Imagine Nation: The American Counterculture of the 1960s and ’70s (New York: Routledge, 2001), 17–40; Jay Stevens, Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream (New York: Grove Press, 1998), 272–78; Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shlain, Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD (New York: Grove Press, 1994), 150–51; “LSD Parley Called Here to Stem Increase in Use,” NYT, April 13, 1966; “LSD: The Exploding Threat of the Mind Drug That Got out of Control,” Life, March 25, 1966.
73 A group called the California League: “California’s Dirty Book Caper,” Nation, April 18, 1966. Other activists went to war on a textbook: “Schools on Coast Embattled Anew,” NYT, May 15, 1966; “The California Textbook Fight,” Atlantic Monthly, November 1967. The L.A. County Board of Supervisors: “Art Show to Open with Heavy Guard,” LAT, May 30, 1966.
73 The head of the nation’s leading association: “Student Morals Worry Educators,” NYT, March 3, 1966. A psychiatry professor, for instance: Raleigh Observer, May 1, 1966 (AP dispatch). A writer in the Nation asserted: Review of The Dignity of Youth and Other Atavisms, Nation, March 28, 1966.
74 In San Diego, a terrorist tossed: LAT, March 8, 1966. In Pacific Palisades: “50 Longhairs Protest Clipping Order,” LAT, March 8, 1966&edition=&startpage=A1&desc=50+%27Longhairs%27+Protest+Clipping+Order---Until+Grid+Team+Throws+Them+for+a+Loss). “This congregation is a travesty”: “Detroit Rabbi Shot Before 1,000 in Synagogue,” NYT, February 13, 1966. 74 W.E.B. Du Bois Club: “U.S. Asks to Have Du Bois Clubs Registered as Communist Front,” NYT, March 5, 1966; “Du Bois Members Beaten by Crowd,” NYT, March 6, 1966; “Explosion Wrecks Du Bois Headquarters in San Francisco,” NYT, March 7, 1966; “Du Bois ‘Duplicity’ Decried by Nixon,” NYT, March 9, 1966. 74 “Time’s story is biased”: Letters, Time, April 29, 1966. An Oklahoma minister: Chicago Sun-Times, May 28, 1966.
74 “All the most vociferous”: Champaign-Urbana Courier, in PDP, Box 1118/A (Youth: Stud. Protest).
75 Reagan and Brown in Norwalk: Boyarsky, Rise of Ronald Reagan, 132–34.
75 In 1956, Eleanor Roosevelt: Mike Royko, Boss: Richard J. Daley of Chicago (New York: New American Library, 1971), 134. “I’d like to be an Alabama trooper”: “Confrontation in Chicago: Mayor Daley Meets the Movement,” Nation, August 30, 1965.
75 King had once believed impoverished: Saturday Review, November 13, 1965. King moves to Lawndale: Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor, American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley: His Battle for Chicago and the Nation (Boston: Little, Brown, 2000), 360. He simply announced, “All of us”: Roger Biles, Richard J. Daley: Politics, Race, and the Governing of Chicago (De Kalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1995), 119; Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, “King’s Chicago Pillow,” WP, August 29, 1966. Forthwith, the commissioner was fired: Nicholas Lemann, The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America (New York: Vintage, 1992), 196.
76 “The principle that a man’s home”: “White Castles,” WSJ, June 22, 1966. The eighty-three-thousand-member National: “Realty Board Is Leading Drive Against Housing Ban,” NYT, May 24, 1966.
76 And if a man leaves his castle: Clark MacGregor, House debate, August 3, 1966, Congressional Record 112, pt. 14, 18,915. “Employment often depends”: Emanuel Celler, May 4, 1966, opening speech, United States Congress, Civil Rights, 1966: Hearings Before Subcommittee No. 5, Eighty-ninth Congress, Second Session (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1966), 1. Chairman of Time Inc.: “Statement of Andrew Heiskell,” Ibid., 1538. Whitney Young: Ibid., 1429. Social science: Nicholas Katzenbach testimony, Ibid., exhibits 1–8. President Eisenhower’s Civil Rights Commission: James L. Sunquist, Politics and Policy: The Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson Years (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1968), 275. Real estate tycoon James W. Rouse: Civil Rights, 1966, May 24 testimony. Attorney General Katzenbach thundered: Ibid., 1049–75; “Katzenbach Asks Housing Bias Ban,” NYT, May 5, 1966.
77 “as long as they have breath”: Raleigh Observer, May 1, 1966.
77 Aggrieved constituents began flooding: PDP722, James F. Nelson to Douglas, June 16, 1966; unsigned, March 11, 1966. 77 “the only thing that counts”: Dan T. Carter, The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origin of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1996), 339. One sweltering day late in April: “Wallace Orders New Segregation,” NYT, April 28, 1966.
78 “If every politician is an actor”: Norman Mailer, St. George and the Godfather (New York: New American Library, 1972), 15. “I’m gonna draw the water”: Carter, Politics of Rage, 273. Behind the scenes, an acquaintance: Ibid.
78 Civil rights groups flooded the state: Ibid., 252. “There is no more civil rights”: Charles Silberman in Fortune, November 1965, in LBJCR, Reel 2. Alabama’s primary, under Justice Department: Jason J. Battle, “Racial Politics and the 1966 Alabama Gubernatorial Election," Alabama Review 49:2 (1996). Carl Elliott, the favorite of the Yankee: Carter, Politics of Rage, 285. Richmond Flowers and Confederate flag: Battle, “Racial Politics.”
78 Wallace campaign scenes: Carter, Politics of Rage, 281–84; Stephen Lesher, George Wallace: American Populist (New York: Addison-Wesley, 1994), 260–64.
79 “An Alabaman would make as good”: Ibid., 263. The pundits’ darling, Carl Elliott: Carter, Politics of Rage, 285. Carl Elliott billboards: Battle, “Racial Politics.” Richmond Flowers ran his campaign into a ditch: Carter, Politics of Rage, 286. “It was at Selma”: Ibid., 287.
80 “God forbid,” his liberal Republican: “Conservative G.O.P. ’68 Seen by Goldwater,” NYT, May 16, 1966.
80 In October 1965, one hundred thousand citizens: David Farber, Chicago ’68 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 65. The theologian Reinhold Niebuhr: Gary Dorrien, Imperial Designs: Neoconservatism and the New Pax Americana (New York: Routledge, 2004), 21. In February, Senator William J. Fulbright: Tom Wells, The War Within: America’s Battle over Vietnam (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 68–69; A. J. Langguth, Our Vietnam: The War, 1954–1975 (New York: Touchstone, 2000), 703; Paul Cowan, The Making of an Un-American (New York: Viking, 1970), 116. 80 “The Whole Thing Was a Lie!”: Peter B. Levy, ed., America in the Sixties—Left, Right, and Center: A Documentary History (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1998), 143. “in the direction of treason”: Wells, War Within, 57.
80 Draft and class rank: Christian Appy, Working Class War: American Combat Soldiers and Vietnam (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993), 35. At the Universities of Wisconsin and Chicago: “Chicago U. Protesters Apologize to Office Staff,” NYT, May 15, 1966; Chicago Sun-Times, May 18 and 19, 1966. SDS alternative draft exam: Wells, War Within, 82–84; Jesse Lemisch interview.
81 When New York suffered a huge blackout: A. M. Rosenthal, ed., The Night the Lights Went Out (New York: New American Library, 1965), 14.
81 The first antiwar teach-in: Wells, War Within, 25. In Berkeley in October 1965: Ibid., 57. “The Ballad of the Green Berets”: J. Hoberman, The Dream Life: Movies, Media, and the Mythology of the Sixties (New York: New Press, 2003), 147. Bill to outlaw antiwar demonstrations: Jack Newfield, The Prophetic Minority (New York: Dutton, 1966).
81 A week later, in Richmond: Richmond News Leader, May 21, 22, 23, 27, 1966. March 26: marchers: Jerry Lembcke, The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam (New York: NYU Press, 1998), 32–33. April: the headquarters: “4 Fire Bombs Flung at Leftists’ Office,” NYT, September 30, 1966. On the afternoon of May 16: “One Slain, 2 Wounded in Detroit at Socialist Workers Party Office,” NYT, May 17, 1966.
81 The barn of a pacifist communal farm: “Pacifists’ Barn Burns; Arson Evidence Sought,” NYT, October 16, 1966. A Unitarian church in Denver: Editorial, Nation, October 17, 1966. At Boston College, forty-five hundred students: “Boston Students Chide Humphrey,” NYT, October 14, 1966. “You are in the sights”: Paul Buhle, “Radical Madison,” Baffler 13. In Queens, the DA seized: “20 Minutemen, Arsenal Seized in Plot,” WP, October 31, 1966.
82 Sargent Shriver, the Office of Economic Opportunity: “$40 Billion Could End Poverty, Shriver Says,” LAT, July 4, 1966&edition=&startpage=11&desc=%2440+Billion+Could+End+Poverty%2C+Shriver+Says). intellectuals preached a cybernetic: Wilbert Ellis Moore and Robert M. Cook, eds., Readings on Social Change (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1967), 143[(http://books.google.com/books?lr=&ei=TXAWSLnyD5f0iwHPueTZBQ&id=ie8eAAAAMAAJ&dq=Readings+on+Social+Change&q=%22potentially+unlimited+output%22&pgis=1); Acid gurus: [Farber, “Intoxicated State.” “Our problems are many”: “Reagan Enters Gubernatorial Race in California,” NYT, January 5, 1966.
82 A social studies: Marc Pilisuk and Robert Perrucci, eds., The Triple Revolution: Social Problems in Depth (Boston: Little, Brown, 1968). 82 The hottest novel: Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49 (New York: Harper & Row, 1966). A new book: Edward J. Epstein, Inquest: The Warren Commission and the Establishment of Truth (New York: Viking, 1966. Another, Mark Lane’s: Mark Lane, Rush to Judgment: A Critique of the Warren Commission’s Inquiry into the Murders of President John F. Kennedy, Officer J. D. Tippit, and Lee Harvey Oswald (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1966).
82 “alienation index”: For questions see “Nixon Given Edge in Alienation Vote,” WP, September 1, 1972; for 1966 origins see http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll
/index.asp?PID=136. “We suddenly found ourselves seriously”: Lewis Chester, Bruce Page, and Godfrey Hodgson, American Melodrama: The Presidential Campaign of 1968 (New York: Viking, 1969), 52.
83 “‘Great Society’ or Nation in Crisis”: See Nation, March 14, 1966, and July 25, 1966.
83 Ronald Reagan put on a rally: “Reagan Demands Inquiry,” NYT, May 14, 1966; “Hand Inquires Why UC Report Went to Reagan,” LAT, May 13, 1966&edition=&startpage=26&desc=Hand+Inquires+Why+UC+Report+Went+to+Reagan); San Francisco Chronicle, June 9, 2002.
83 Governor Pat Brown spent the evening: “Brown Labels Yorty Rightist Fright Peddler,” LAT, May 13, 1966.&edition=&startpage=26&desc=Brown+Labels+Yorty+Rightist+Fright+Peddler)
84 “Pat had the grays”: De Groot, “Ronald Reagan and Student Unrest in California.”) The next day, Yorty: “Yorty Charge Hit,” LAT, May 14, 1966&edition=&startpage=17&desc=Yorty+Charge+Hit). The state’s most reliable poll: Totton J. Anderson and Eugene C. Lee, “The 1966 Election in California,” Western Political Quarterly 20 (June 1967).
84 Nixon and Pat Buchanan: Jules Witcover, The Resurrection of Richard Nixon (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1970), 122; Pat Buchanan, Right from the Beginning (Boston: Little, Brown, 1988), 320–22.
84 Safire’s plaid coats: Leonard Garment, Crazy Rhythm: From Brooklyn and Jazz to Nixon’s White House, Watergate, and Beyond (New York: Crown, 1997), 106. Early Nixon organization: Ibid., 99–105; Witcover, Resurrection of Richard Nixon, 113. Nixon even hired Paul Keyes: Broder and Hess, Republican Establishment, 153.
85 Thus the most important member: Maurice Stans, One of the President’s Men: Twenty Years with Eisenhower and Nixon (Washington: Brassey’s, 1995), 127–30; Witcover, Resurrection of Richard Nixon, 121.
85 Donors: Ibid., 123.
85 “Dear (Insert Name Here)”: RNLB, PPS 501/18, July 22, 1966. He hit up the Republican National Committee: Stephen Ambrose, Nixon, Vol. 2: The Triumph of a Politician, 1962–1972 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989), 83.
85 The crusade began in January: “Nixon Rips Johnson, Sees G.O.P. Victory,” NYT, January 30, 1966. “I will not go and talk”: Fawn Brodie, Richard Nixon: The Shaping of His Character (New York: W. W. Norton, 1981), 235. The next day, he appeared: “Nixon Says ‘Appeasement Line’ Will Be G.O.P. Target in Vote,” NYT, January 31, 1966.
86 His usual round of Lincoln’s-birthday: David Broder, “Nixon Campaigns at Tiring Pace for Republican Candidates,” NYT, February 10, 1966; Witcover, Resurrection of Richard Nixon, 124; Broder and Hess, Republican Establishment, 148.
86 “Day after day,” he wrote: Garment, Crazy Rhythm, 100.
86 In Seattle, the local paper: Seattle Post-Intelligencer, February 13, 1966. Then he sat for a televised Q&A: Seattle Times, February 9, 1966.
86 In his memoir, Leonard Garment: Garment, Crazy Rhythm, 86.
87 inflation, Evans and Novak: “What Inflation?” WP, March 16, 1966. As Nixon noted in an oral history: Brodie, Richard Nixon, 320, 540.
87 The New Yorker’s “Talk of the Town”: “Notes and Comment,” New Yorker, March 19, 1966. Garment thought the boss had just: Garment, Crazy Rhythm, 112. In the Gallup Poll: D. Duane Angel, Romney: A Political Biography (New York: Exposition Press, 1967), 22.
87 On April 10 a Boston University: Wells, War Within, 72. On April 15, five thousand antiwar: Ibid., 71. The next day Nixon spoke at Tulane: “Nixon Backs War Drive,” NYT, April 17, 1966.
87 “We feel segregation of the races”: United States Commission on Human Rights, Political Participation (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1968), 146. “trying to take the remnants”: “Romney Relaxes Pace in Contest with Nixon for ’68 Nomination,” NYT, February 14, 1966.
88 “I will go to any state”: “Nixon in the South, Bids GOP Drop Race Issue,” NYT, May 7, 1966.
88 At a party dinner that night: “Nixon Building Solid Southern Base of Support for President Nomination Bid in ’68,” NYT, May 8, 1966.
89 He learned that the beloved Dent: Witcover, Resurrection of Richard Nixon, 310.
89 “Strom is no racist”: Carter, Politics of Rage, 328. 89 “If I had to practice law”: Witcover, Resurrection of Richard Nixon, 127. 89 Deadwyler case: Johnnie Cochran, A Lawyer’s Life (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2002), 24–28; Terry Anzur interview; David Moberg interview; NYT, May 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 26, 27, 28, 29, 31, 1966; UPI ticker, May 31, 1966, LBJCR, Reel 6; Califano to LBJ, May 18, 1966, LBJCR, Reel 6; Marvin Watson to LBJ, May 31, 1966, LBJCR, Reel 6.
90 In Bakersfield, two thousand Negroes: “Negroes on Coast Stone School Bus and Fire a Shack,” NYT, May 24, 1966.
90 On Memorial Day weekend: “Reagan Shuns Image of Goldwater in Coast Race,” NYT, June 1, 1966; Boyarsky, Rise of Ronald Reagan, 136.
91 Milk conviction controversy: Cannon, Governor Reagan, 146; “Scurrilous Attacks Sent Through Mail, Christopher Claims,” LAT, June 2, 1966&edition=&startpage=3&desc=Scurrilous+Attacks+Sent+Through+Mail%2C+Christopher+Claims); “Reagan Nominated in California,” NYT, June 8, 1966; “Brown Tells Christopher of Regret for Pearson’s Attack,” LAT, June 30, 1966&edition=&startpage=3&desc=Brown+Tells+Christopher+of+Regret+for+Pearson%27s+Attack). “Wanted” poster: Anderson and Lee, “1966 Election in California.”
91 Christopher fought back with theatrics: “Christopher Puts 7 Queries to Reagan,” NYT, June 3, 1966.
91 “Thou shalt not speak ill”: Cannon, Governor Reagan, 145–47.
92 At a rally in San Francisco’s: “Brown Ends Northern Drive, Likens Reagan to Goldwater,” LAT, June 3, 1966.&edition=&startpage=3&desc=Brown+Ends+Northern+Drive%2C+Likens+Reagan+to+Goldwater) LSD ban: Richmond News Leader, May 30, 1966.
92 In the California Poll: Anderson and Lee, “1966 Election in California.” He used phrases like “basic”: NYT, May 15, June 1, July 3, 1966. He called “the one overriding”: “Another Opinion; Reagan States His Case,” NYT, October 30, 1966.
92 The leftists of the California Democratic Council: CQ Political Notes, October 1, 1965; Anderson and Lee, “1966 Election in California”; Boyarsky, Rise of Ronald Reagan, 125. One of the president’s favorite congressmen: Wells, War Within, 81; “‘New Left’ Parley on Coast Denounces Brown and Backs Black Power,” NYT, October 3, 1966. Johnson’s poverty czar: Maurice Isserman and Michael Kazin, America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 194.
92 Watts hospital bond issue: “Watts Area County Hospital Approved; Supervisors OK Bond Issue on June 7 Ballot,” LAT, March 9, 1966&edition=&startpage=3&desc=Watts+Area+County+Hospital+Approved); “Reagan Victory Aids GOP Right,” NYT, June 9, 1969; Nation, June 26, 1966.
92 “against all counsels of common sense”: “California Primaries,” NYT, June 9, 1966.
93 Nixon briefed Senator George Murphy: “RMN Call Sandy Quinn,” June 16, 1966, RNLB, 501.1.
93 Reagan dashed off a note: Reagan to Nixon, June 14, RNLB(, 501.1. Eisenhower and Scaife meetings: “Eisenhower Meets Reagan and Backs Him for Governor,” NYT, June 16, 1966.
93 Reagan Washington trip: Broder and Hess, Republican Establishment, 243–44; “Reagan Attacks the Great Society,” NYT, June 17, 1966; Sandy Quinn to Rose Mary Woods, RNLB, 501.1–10.
94 Nixon Rochester controversy: “Rochester Degree for Nixon Opposed,” NYT, April 15, 1966; “Nixon Offers View on Degree Protest,” April 16, 1966. “If we are to defend academic”: William Safire, Before the Fall: An Inside View of the Pre-Watergate White House (New York: Ballantine, 1977), 24–25.
94 Harold Howe II speech: USNWR, July 4, 1966. 94 Louise Day Hicks speech: Charles Sumner Brown, “Negro Protest and White Power Structure: The Boston School Controversy, 1963–1966” (Boston University theology Ph.D. dissertation, 1973).
94 Sargent Shriver speech: “Shriver in Plea for Rights,” NYT, June 6, 1966.
94 Arthur Schlesinger speech: “McCarthyism Is Feared,” NYT, June 6, 1966.
94 John Steinbeck pronounced himself: “What’s Happening to America,” Saturday Evening Post, July 2, 1966. Horrified also was the advertising agency: NYT, June 28, 1966, 92.