American Experience

Roger Morris on Nixon's opponents

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There's a real sense that here's someone who's ticketed for something big and his opponents in the Democratic Party and the liberals of Southern California, I think sensed that, if not know it very early on. So there's a great feeling of uneasiness and dismay about how far and how fast he's climbing. But these are because of the combination of smear politics in Southern California and big money and very powerful forces on one side and Nixon as a very effective politician on the other, because of that unique combination, these are bitterly divisive and brutal campaigns that leave a legacy of bitterness and of discontent that lasts for generations. Richard Nixon does not simply defeat Jerry Voorhis for the Congress or defeat Helen Gahagan Douglas for the Senate in 1950, he destroys these people politically and very nearly personally, so that two extraordinarily gifted political figures who might have had very productive careers, beyond that point at which they encountered Richard Nixon, disappear from the American political landscape once and for all, never to be heard from again. Not to be appointed to office by their own party, by Presidents of their own party. Not even to be asked, for the most part, to serve on honorary commissions; simply eradicated, terminated as it were by Richard Nixon. And he does that in such a way, as to leave a great legacy of bitterness among their supporters and even among onlookers. People who were sort of neutral observers on the side. And that begins in 1946. He does not leave neutral fans along the way, does not leave people who are undecided about him.

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