What happens to Richard Nixon if he loses in '68?

I haven't seen this question really asked before, but what happens to Richard Nixon if Hubert Humphrey or somebody else beats him in 1968?

He's not the type of person to slither off and never to be seen again. He loved power and was fairly young at the time (Nixon was younger than Reagan), but after the two defeats for the Presidency and a failed governor's race, I'm sure he felt fairly out of options.

I have a few ideas on where he could go from there:
- Any Republican Presidency would almost certainly appoint Nixon as Secretary of State if he wanted
- IOTL, after the 1970 Senate Election, California had two Democratic Senators and Nixon could be tapped to run against either, and could even win
- Private practice maybe? Would that be a possibility for him? He was a lawyer
 
Nixon loved power, but so many loses can wear down prestige and will. Escpesially when these would be 3 very high profile losses.

My guess is that post 1968, nixon gives up on running for elected office and focuses on angling for a cabinet position. My guess is that the next gop president names him sec state and nixon spends the rest of his career there.
 
I haven't seen this question really asked before, but what happens to Richard Nixon if Hubert Humphrey or somebody else beats him in 1968?

He's not the type of person to slither off and never to be seen again. He loved power and was fairly young at the time (Nixon was younger than Reagan), but after the two defeats for the Presidency and a failed governor's race, I'm sure he felt fairly out of options.

I have a few ideas on where he could go from there:
- Any Republican Presidency would almost certainly appoint Nixon as Secretary of State if he wanted
- IOTL, after the 1970 Senate Election, California had two Democratic Senators and Nixon could be tapped to run against either, and could even win
- Private practice maybe? Would that be a possibility for him? He was a lawyer

Secretary of State is problematic. Few Presidents appoint people who might overshadow them and that would have been an issue with Nixon.

Nixon isn't going to beat George Murphy in the 1970 primary.

Nixon hated practicing law. He found it very unfulfilling.

He'll wind up practicing law in New York and being quite unhappy with life. His first political opening in California is against Alan Cranston in 1974. He might have had an opening in the Senate in New York in 1970 in the OTL Buckley/Goodell/Ottinger race. Depends on how bad the stench of "loser" attached to him.
 
Most likely reason for his losing is revelation of his trying to sabotage peace efforts in Vietnam, good chance he goes to jail?
Well actually, 1968 was a tough win from what I've gathered. Nixon just played his cards very well. An easy way is to have him announce when everyone else did, instead of waiting
 

bguy

Donor
Most likely reason for his losing is revelation of his trying to sabotage peace efforts in Vietnam, good chance he goes to jail?

It would be extremely unlikely that Nixon would ever be prosecuted. The optics of prosecuting the person you just defeated in a presidential campaign are terrible (it would make the Humphrey Administration look like a banana republic.) You would pretty much have to call CIA witnesses to testify at the trial to establish the authenticity of the recordings of the South Vietnamese embassy (which the CIA is really, really going to hate since it will mean exposing their agents and operating methods in an extremely public setting.) It's doubtful you can actually prove Nixon's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. (The embassy recordings just show that Anna Chennault violated the Logan Act, so unless Ms. Chennault herself flips on Nixon you don't have any evidence actually linking him to a crime, and if Ms. Chennault does flip then Nixon's lawyers can claim she got a deal from the prosecutors and is lying to save herself.) Even if you do get a conviction it is very possible it will get overturned on appeal. (Nixon's lawyers would have pretty good grounds to argue malicious prosecution in going after him under the Logan Act since no one has been prosecuted under that law since 1852, and it's also questionable if the Logan Act would survive a First Amendment challenge.) And if you somehow overcome all that then you've created a precedent that will almost certainly be turned on Democrats as soon as the Republicans are back in office.
 
If Nixon loses in 68 there is a good chance and reason for him to run in 70 for the Murphy seat in the Senate.
Sen. George Murphy was diagnosed with throat cancer and had a part of his larynx removed and could not talk above a whisper, that could have led to him to be pressured to step aside and let Nixon run in his place instead.
 
Oh god, the bitterness and anger we got after 1960 and 62 is already legendary. We might be able to fufill our energy needs by harnessing the gravitational pull of black hole of anger that'll exist in Nixon's soul.

More seriously though, I can see a lower key trajectory in the senate or a secretary of state position. I believe Sargeant Hawk did a TL where Nixon becomes a senator in 1980 after watergate. Probably along those lines, but more bitter
 
The most likely course of events is Nixon returns to practicing law in New York, but is then appointed as Secretary of State by whatever Republican wins in 1972 or 1976. I believe Nixon would be the first Secretary of State since John Calhoun to have also served as VP. (Obviously not great company).
 
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Oh god, the bitterness and anger we got after 1960 and 62 is already legendary. We might be able to fufill our energy needs by harnessing the gravitational pull of black hole of anger that'll exist in Nixon's soul.

More seriously though, I can see a lower key trajectory in the senate or a secretary of state position. I believe Sargeant Hawk did a TL where Nixon becomes a senator in 1980 after watergate. Probably along those lines, but more bitter

I mean, yeah. Based off of what I've read, numerous journalists and other thinkers believed that Richard Nixon was the actual devil back then. The hatred and anger he would feel would be noteworthy-- to say the least.

I love that timeline and the idea of Nixon returning to the Senate in the '70s-'80s in general.

The most likely course of events is Nixon returns to practicing law in New York, but is then appointed as Secretary of State by whatever Republican wins in 1968 or '72. I believe Nixon would be the first Secretary of State since John Calhoun to have also served as VP. (Obviously not great company).

That's very interesting. Nixon and Calhoun are an odd pair, but make sense in a weird way.
 
Nixon was 59 when J. Edgar Hoover died in 1972. Assuming the Nixon loss in '68 had no effect upon Hoover's longevity, it's not out of the question that Nixon might be appointed Director of the FBI: consider that if HHH did so, he'd have pulled a master stroke in co-opting Nixon so that he (Nixon) were no longer in contention for the presidency--or any other political office, for that matter. Further, that position would have been in line with Nixon's one-time ambition to be an FBI agent.

So: Humphrey removes an opponent by giving him something useful to do; Nixon's executive talents (and, yes, paranoia) are put to work. Looks like a win-win to me.
 
So: Humphrey removes an opponent by giving him something useful to do; Nixon's executive talents (and, yes, paranoia) are put to work. Looks like a win-win to me.

While I think that idea is interesting, I think that’d be absolutely terrible and, knowing Nixon’s track record on race and his anti-Semitism, homophobia, hatred and fear of the left, activists, and just his overall worldview would probably make Nixon as FBI Director like Hoover MK2. I think that’s terrifying.
 
While I think that idea is interesting, I think that’d be absolutely terrible and, knowing Nixon’s track record on race and his anti-Semitism, homophobia, hatred and fear of the left, activists, and just his overall worldview would probably make Nixon as FBI Director like Hoover MK2. I think that’s terrifying.

And I think after twice running for President, Director of the FBI would be a downgrade in terms of political prestige. If not Secretary of State, then like Tom Dewey Nixon becomes a wealthy New York lawyer and author. He dies a respected man, even if he'd be largely forgotten today outside of historians and political junkies.
 
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