Title Card: The Important Thing Is To Win

NARRATOR: Duke Law School was Nixon's next training ground in persistence, success and frustration. His classmates called him "Gloomy Gus." He lived frugally, studied endlessly and never walked away from a classroom confrontation.

LYMAN BROWNFIELD, Duke Classmate: We had a professor of torts, Douglas Maggs who was so intimidating that most people backed down. The first person in our class that I remembered that stood up to him and kind of barked back was Nixon. And he had the ... he'd stand there, kind of flat-footed and you could just see he was dug in. And he was just standing up to Maggs, kind of almost shaking in his shoes, but by gosh, he wasn't going to back down.

NARRATOR: Nixon graduated third in his class, hoping for a job with an East Coast law firm or the FBI, but his applications were rejected. He went back home to Whittier. Nixon's mother helped him get a job in a friend's law office, but small-town law bored him and he was still too young and inexperienced for state politics.

Then, while auditioning for a local play, he fell in love. Pat Ryan was a truck farmer's red-haired daughter, ten months older than he and even more accustomed to hard work and hardship. She had worked her way through college as a switchboard operator, salesgirl and movie extra before taking a teaching job at Whittier High. "Don't laugh," Nixon told her, even before their first date, "but someday I'm going to marry you." He pursued Pat for over two years, even driving her to Los Angeles on weekends when she had dates with other men, then waiting around to take her home again. He married her in June of 1940, but his political ambitions would have to wait five more years. The world was at war.

Eight months after Pearl Harbor, Nixon joined the Navy and as a lieutenant commander, was sent to the Solomon Islands. He was best remembered for his skill at scrounging food and liquor and supplies for the grateful men, who called him "Nick." And he learned to play poker, not just to fill the time, but to make some extra money.

JAMES STEWART, Navy Officer, World War II: He said to me, "Do you think that there's any sure way to win?" And I said, "Well, if you don't think you have the best hand going in, get out. Drop. Don't ante up." I said, "The trouble with that is that you'll probably drop three or four hands out of five and it's very boring and I haven't got the patience to do it." Well, to our intense surprise, he did exactly that. And he won quite ... more frequently than he lost and he sent home to California a fair amount of money, I have no idea exactly how much, but my estimate was between $6,000 and $7,000.

NARRATOR: It was his poker winnings that helped finance Nixon's first political campaign. At war's end, he was approached by a group of Republican bankers and businessmen from Whittier who sought a candidate to unseat the five-term Democratic congressman, Jerry Voorhis. Voorhis, a Yale graduate from a wealthy family, was anathema to Whittier Republicans. He supported labor, opposed big oil and big banking and championed the social welfare programs of the New Deal. Lieutenant Commander Nixon jumped at the opportunity to run against him.

Leading Republicans around Whittier were confident they finally had found the man to defeat Jerry Voorhis. "Nixon comes from good Quaker stock," a local banker wrote, "He is a very aggressive individual." Another partisan said, "This man is saleable merchandise." In his first campaign, Nixon developed an approach that remained remarkably consistent through nearly three decades. The candidate presented himself as a family man from a long tradition of work and service, a firm believer in individual initiative, a champion of the forgotten man. And at the same time, he proved to be a fierce, no-holds-barred combatant, accusing Voorhis of ties to Communist organizations distorting Voorhis' record in Congress.

JERRY VOORHIS: [1971 Interview] Just before the election, a good many people came and told me, "Do you know about the telephone calls that were being made?" and I said no, I didn't. "Well," they said, "I was called on the phone by an unidentified person, who simply said that, "Do you know that Jerry Voorhis is a Communist?" and "You should vote for Mr. Nixon because of this fact."

NARRATOR: The character of Nixon's campaign surprised many of his friends. "Of course, I knew Jerry Voorhis wasn't a Communist," he later told a Voorhis aide, "but I had to win. That's the thing you don't understand. The important thing is to win."

Mr. VOORHIS: All the stops were pulled and Mr. Nixon beat me. He was a good debater, he was a clever debater. I wouldn't deny that at all, but I still feel that there were a good many below-the-belt blows struck in the campaign.

NARRATOR: Nixon was swept into office with 60 percent of the vote, part of a nationwide Republican surge. His boyhood goal to enter politics had been achieved.