Report of the County Chairman (23 page)

I did not dislike Nixon the man, nor did I ever inveigh against him. I even felt that the worst charges brought against him by the Democrats—his campaigning
against Jerry Voorhees and Helen Gahagan Douglas—were in a sense irrelevant in that the essence of his charges lay within the bounds of conventional political procedure. But for a serious candidate to keep on offering such patent nonsense to the American people as the claim that President Eisenhower never swore in the White House, whereas it was widely known that both he and Nixon had normal, strong vocabularies, which Nixon exercised with sharp profanity after the third debate had ended, that was too much. It exemplified, I thought, the transparent weakness of Mr. Nixon insofar as intellectual capacity was concerned. For him to say what he did was ridiculous, but for him to think of offering it as a reason for voting Republican was horrifying.

I was so agitated by this extraordinary performance that I said, before he finished his sentimental oration, “Five million people right now are going to say, ‘That nonsense reminds me of Checkers.’ ” In the days that followed I met dozens of people who had been on the fence who said, “I was for Nixon up to the time he gave that little sermon on profanity. When he was speaking his sanctimonious little essay, all I could think of was Checkers. And that did it.”

But whenever my intellect is outraged by something I go in to see Miss Omwake and Mrs. Dale, and this time as usual they set me straight.

In the campaigning that our group did, everyone followed our one inviolable rule: no one was allowed even by implication to cast any aspersion on Dwight Eisenhower, because we knew that the American electorate hungered for him as in the past. Since Senator Kennedy had apparently set for himself the same rule, we witnessed the strange spectacle of an election in which the Democrats damned almost all aspects of the last eight years, in which they paraded the dreadful inefficiencies of an incumbency, in which they pinpointed the errors, the oversights, the lack of resolution and the downright frumpiness of an administration without ever identifying the man who was largely to blame. I think that historians will have a great deal to say about this phenomenon.

I cannot speak for the others, but for myself I followed this course because I knew that if I did otherwise I would alienate a good eighty percent of my listeners and I
would lose votes instead of gain them. I could persuade people that our posture overseas was in perilous condition—and I did so persuade them, for many Republicans told me so—but no oratory that I or Cicero possessed could have convinced my listeners that General Eisenhower ought to bear any of the blame for this deterioration.

It is already obvious that the historians of which I just spoke will deal harshly with Dwight D. Eisenhower’s incumbency, for both the concept of the Presidency and the stature of the nation were depreciated in his hands; yet when the last word is written there will remain that incontrovertible spectacle of an engaging man whom the people loved, and whom they were willing to forgive for anything. Even when groups of hard-shell Democrats who knew the facts gathered in the secrecy of their homes, no one dared discuss the overriding fact of the election: if President Eisenhower wanted to, and if he were willing to do the necessary hard work, he could still stampede the voters to Nixon. This was the sword of Damocles that hung over our heads throughout the campaign.

In mid-October I felt, “This is where Ike steps in to knock Jack Kennedy out.” He did not do so. In late October I said, “They were wise to hold him back until the last three weeks. Now we get it.” For some reason which I will never understand, even if it is explained to me, the President made no move. Then he toured the country on his “non-political” tour and instead of looking fiery, he looked transparent. On the first of November I told my helpers, “I think he’s waited too long. I don’t think he can capture the nation now.”

When he finally did speak, he was enormously impressive and I grew apprehensive that perhaps it was not too late after all and that he might still stampede the voters. I wondered how Kennedy would combat the Presidential attack and watched with admiration when the senator ignored everything Mr. Eisenhower had said and directed attention to the ridiculous figure of the little boy Richard Nixon calling in panic for help from his father. To a large extent, the potential force of the Eisenhower thrust was thus neatly diverted. When the strongest gun of the Republican campaign was finally allowed to fire, the shot that should have reverberated around the nation was turned into an anticlimactic pop. What should have been a master stroke was interpreted by the public as panic. And where there should have been the overwhelming force of Presidential dignity there was a gnawing suspicion of insincerity.

Before our Bucks County audiences we praised the Eisenhower speech but lamented the fact that he had been dragged unwillingly into the fight because of Nixon’s last-minute panic over what looked like certain Republican defeat. When Republicans asked, “But didn’t you think Ike made a good speech?” I answered, “It was a great speech, but it should have come three weeks earlier when it could have done some good, not as a last-minute improvisation.” Many agreed.

In these last vital weeks I got little sleep, for although I was generally optimistic about our chances, the gnawing fears that characterize the last days of any campaign were beginning to eat at me. On Sunday evening, following the senator’s tumultuous appearance in Levittown, I
conducted three large parties in the area and at each I said, “If the election were to be held next Tuesday, November first, instead of on the eighth, I’m sure Senator Kennedy would win handsomely. But in the next nine days anything can happen, and I’m scared stiff it will. I was in Korea just before Ike won in 1952 with his dramatic promise of ‘I will go to Korea,’ and I know how phony that whole deal was. I was in North Africa in 1956 when Hungary and the Suez imbroglio helped him win again, and I know how unjust that was. I don’t know what’s going to happen this year, but something will. And there goes the election to Mr. Nixon.”

“What are you worried about, specifically?” someone asked.

“These things,” I said. “First, some Catholic bishop somewhere is going to say something that will infuriate the nation. Second, the Chinese Reds will start shelling Matsu or Quemoy. Third, Castro will try to occupy Guantánamo Bay. Fourth, Nikita Khrushchev will announce that he favors the Democrats. Fifth, Jack Kennedy will say something he didn’t intend to say. Every night when I go to bed I listen to the midnight news to hear which of these things has happened somewhere in the world. And if all’s well, I say to my wife, ‘Thank God we got through another day.’ ”

One of my Republican listeners asked, “Isn’t there anything that could happen which would defeat Nixon?”

“Of course!” I said quickly. “Khrushchev could say that he wants to see the Republicans win. Or the Russians might put a man in space and remind us all that what Kennedy’s been saying is true. Or Nixon might say something
grotesquely wrong. But my experience has been that in the last stages of an election the nation tends to get more and more conservative and looks about wildly for any good reason to vote Republican. So I live from day to day, hoping that we’ll get through this twenty-four hours.”

“You think it’s that close?” a neighbor asked.

“We’re involved in an election that could be decided by any chance event that occurs anywhere,” I replied. “That’s why Kennedy’s comments on international affairs make so much sense to me. Because that’s the ticklish kind of world we live in.”

There were many critics of the campaign who felt that Senator Kennedy was ill advised in letting up as he did during the last week of the election. Such critics are correct in their assumption that the Democratic campaign did in a sense let up, for no new subjects were discussed. But I and many professionals with whom I worked were more than content to have it so. We knew that we were ahead across the nation—at least in the big states like New York and Ohio—and we felt that the only thing that could lick us would be one of the catastrophes that I so desperately feared. If we could only keep from making an error of commission, we could win. So I was well satisfied to see Senator Kennedy let up a little and thus avoid some calamitous error. And each night when I went to bed I whispered again, “Thank God we got through another day.”

One morning after such a prayer, I was waiting in my Doylestown headquarters for Sam Thompson, who was to show me some new development in the northern end of
the county, when Lester Trauch, the drama expert on our local newspaper, dropped by to see what was going on. I told him I was waiting for that rare old clown, Sam Thompson, and he stepped back. “You’ve got a hell of a nerve to call Sam Thompson an old clown,” he snapped.

“I was speaking of his …”

“Don’t you know who he is?” Trauch interrupted.

“A man with a whiskey named after him,” I replied.

“Well, he was one of the dedicated men in the early experimental theater in the United States,” Trauch explained. “Sam Thompson helped Eugene O’Neill put on his plays with the Provincetown Players. Sam was in the original cast of
The Emperor Jones.
He’s mentioned in books along with Harry Kemp and George Cram Cook and Susan Glaspell and Edna St. Vincent Millay.”

“Sam Thompson?” I gaped.

“Sam Thompson with the little mustache,” Trauch insisted. “In the revival of
Emperor Jones
that he brought to Broadway he gave a beginning actor his first role. Who do you suppose that actor was? Moss Hart. Jim, this man’s a walking monument to artistic integrity. Did you ever hear about the part he played in the Federal Theater Project?”

It seemed so right, what Trauch was saying. It explained Sam’s preposterous sign: “James A. Michener presents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.” It explained his flamboyant fire and his plea to allow the men in the northern end of the county to have one good fling. For Election Night he had already arranged for a parade of one hundred horn-blowing cars.

“How did a man like this ever wind up on a farm in upper Bucks County?” I asked.

“A man has only so much fire,” Trauch replied. “Sam used his in helping Eugene O’Neill burn his way into the American theater. After that he retired to Bucks County and became a minor politician.”

At this point Sam drove up, and as we headed north I said, “You never told me you were one of the Provincetown wild men,” I chided.

He looked at me sideways with a certain pleasure and said, “The first play I was in was with Helen Hayes. We were both ten and we gave
Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp.
Later I was with her on Broadway.”

“How’d you get into politics?” I asked.

“Oh, I’ve always looked at politics as just another road show,” he said grandly. “You need a press agent, a production chief, a star and a master of legerdemain. I got here, actually, after the war. I was in the war, you know.”

“World War I?” I asked thoughtlessly.

“Hell no, World War II. I was too old for active service, of course, but I was sitting in my room one day and the thought came to me, ‘The stewards on those big troop transports must make a killing,’ so I hurried down to the U. S. Lines and filled out an application. I ended the war as chief steward for the lines.”