OOC: Starting my Nixon TL a bit hastily perhaps, but with no significant objections raised in discussion I think she's good to go.
The twilight of the Eisenhower Presidency left the United States in the strongest position she had been in in nearly a generation. With a humming economy, a postwar populace settling back into normalcy, and a temporary if fragile peace in Southeast Asia, there was little reason for pessimism on the road ahead. Indeed, the renowned general had in the estimation of the public acquitted himself as well in peace as in war; to this day, no President has left office on such high approval as the one simply called Ike.
The decade to come would prove one of the most challenging and tumultuous in American history, but for the moment the American people would stay the course, blissfully unaware of the brewing storm of change that lay ahead
-From Happy Days: The 1950s Examined, Simon & Schulster Publishing, 1978
The Convention was a formality really. Always is, when you have the incumbent. Sure, Rockefeller and Goldwater had said their bits but I don't think there was a man in that hall who didn't know in his heart that Dick Nixon was going to get the nomination. No, what we were more concerned with was who would get the Vice Presidential nod.
Now, if I remember right, Nixon wanted to make Ambassador Lodge his VP, but of course that wasn't going to fly. For one, in those days you practically needed a Yankee and a Southerner on your ticket or you'd never get anywhere. Someone suggested Goldwater, but that was out; his mouth had a nasty habit of running off at exactly the wrong time, God forbid that man ever got within spitting distance of the Oval Office. After some time we were at a bit of a deadlock; we needed somebody in the South, or at least Southern enough in their stances to give us a shot down there. At the same time, a lot of those present knew that the likelihood of finding a Southerner acceptable to our nominee, and vice versa, was slim to none.
In the end, we decided to take another route: instead of looking for a Southerner, we'd look for an ally. There were some big states that we figured could go either way, New York and Illinois especially, and the line of thought ran that having a VP from there could only be a good thing. By the fourth ballot we were down to Governor Rockefeller of New York and Senator Dirksen of Illinois. In the end we got Dirksen in a squeaker. I'll admit I didn't understand this at first, but in the end everything worked out.
-Former Nixon Chief of Staff Leonard Hall, quoted in For the Future: The Unauthorized Biography of Richard M. Nixon by David Gilbert.
"My fellow Americans, I will not pretend that the world in which we live is not fraught with danger. Indeed, our world is as a volcano lying dormant: impressive to gaze upon, seemingly benign, but capable of terrible destruction. We have known the destructive capabilities of our world; the blood shed twice over in Europe within our lifetimes, the terrible fury of the atomic bomb, the naked aggression of the forces of international communism.
"My friends, ours is not a world in which men of our caliber are allowed time to acclimate before getting down to business. There is no training period for the office of the President of these United States. The situation at hand demands experience, proven leadership ability, and a willingness to do what is necessary to ensure the continuity of freedom in our world. These are the qualities I, Richard Milhous Nixon, bring to this table and to the American table. As your President, I will lead our nation out from the shadows of war, of strife and of uncertainty, and into a new and golden dawn. Thank you, and may God bless America."
-Excerpt from nomination speech of Richard M. Nixon
The twilight of the Eisenhower Presidency left the United States in the strongest position she had been in in nearly a generation. With a humming economy, a postwar populace settling back into normalcy, and a temporary if fragile peace in Southeast Asia, there was little reason for pessimism on the road ahead. Indeed, the renowned general had in the estimation of the public acquitted himself as well in peace as in war; to this day, no President has left office on such high approval as the one simply called Ike.
The decade to come would prove one of the most challenging and tumultuous in American history, but for the moment the American people would stay the course, blissfully unaware of the brewing storm of change that lay ahead
-From Happy Days: The 1950s Examined, Simon & Schulster Publishing, 1978
The Convention was a formality really. Always is, when you have the incumbent. Sure, Rockefeller and Goldwater had said their bits but I don't think there was a man in that hall who didn't know in his heart that Dick Nixon was going to get the nomination. No, what we were more concerned with was who would get the Vice Presidential nod.
Now, if I remember right, Nixon wanted to make Ambassador Lodge his VP, but of course that wasn't going to fly. For one, in those days you practically needed a Yankee and a Southerner on your ticket or you'd never get anywhere. Someone suggested Goldwater, but that was out; his mouth had a nasty habit of running off at exactly the wrong time, God forbid that man ever got within spitting distance of the Oval Office. After some time we were at a bit of a deadlock; we needed somebody in the South, or at least Southern enough in their stances to give us a shot down there. At the same time, a lot of those present knew that the likelihood of finding a Southerner acceptable to our nominee, and vice versa, was slim to none.
In the end, we decided to take another route: instead of looking for a Southerner, we'd look for an ally. There were some big states that we figured could go either way, New York and Illinois especially, and the line of thought ran that having a VP from there could only be a good thing. By the fourth ballot we were down to Governor Rockefeller of New York and Senator Dirksen of Illinois. In the end we got Dirksen in a squeaker. I'll admit I didn't understand this at first, but in the end everything worked out.
-Former Nixon Chief of Staff Leonard Hall, quoted in For the Future: The Unauthorized Biography of Richard M. Nixon by David Gilbert.
"My fellow Americans, I will not pretend that the world in which we live is not fraught with danger. Indeed, our world is as a volcano lying dormant: impressive to gaze upon, seemingly benign, but capable of terrible destruction. We have known the destructive capabilities of our world; the blood shed twice over in Europe within our lifetimes, the terrible fury of the atomic bomb, the naked aggression of the forces of international communism.
"My friends, ours is not a world in which men of our caliber are allowed time to acclimate before getting down to business. There is no training period for the office of the President of these United States. The situation at hand demands experience, proven leadership ability, and a willingness to do what is necessary to ensure the continuity of freedom in our world. These are the qualities I, Richard Milhous Nixon, bring to this table and to the American table. As your President, I will lead our nation out from the shadows of war, of strife and of uncertainty, and into a new and golden dawn. Thank you, and may God bless America."
-Excerpt from nomination speech of Richard M. Nixon