this is our panel on politics. considering that president nixon -- considering president nixon's long career as a politician and his reputation as a fierce political competitor, this is obviously an essential project. as a political scientist at cal state fullerton teaching courses on the presidency and media politics and american government, i have the -- the honor of introducing a panel of three historians to talk about politics. after our -- i give a short introduction to all of our panelists, each panelist will follow speaking for about ten minutes. then we'll open it up to you to ask questions and to get a good conversation going about politics during the nixon presidency and before. so these are three projects that

tackle disparate and essential aspects of the nixon era politics, electoral politics, particularly the 1960 election. nixon's relationship with the media. and the vice president agnew. justin coughy is an social professor of history at quincy university in quincy, illinois. he earned his p. hd at the university of illinois at chicago. his specialty is recent american political history. recent american history with a concentration on the ideological battles of the 1960s. and he's currently at work on a by i don't gofy of the former vice president, spiro agnew. and he's published in a number of different journals including maryland historical magazine and reviews in american history. after justin will be tim kiska

will take the -- will go. and he's an associate professor of communications at the university of michigan deerborn where he teaches journalism and journalism history. he joined the faculty there after working for more than three decades as a journalist first with the detroit free press from 1970 to '87 and then later at the detroit news from '87 to 2002. he's the author of -- and most recently in 2009 a newscast for the masses. the history of detroit television journalism. kiska also works as a producer and a reporter for a cbs-owned all news radio station, wwjam. where he specializes in exit polls and election analysis. finally, professor william rorabaugh is a professor of history at the university of

washington in seattle. professor rorabaugh is an expert on the 1960s. he's the author most recently of "the real making of the president: kennedy/nixon in the 1960 election." published just in 2009. he's also written another book about kennedy "kennedy and the promise of the 1960s," 2002. he's also written a very interesting study of berkeley at war, the 1960s. so we'll begin with professor coffey. >> thank you. thank you, scott. i'm going to begin by using a word that we heard frequently in the last session. the topic for my chapter in the companion to richard nixon was on the relationship between richard nixon and spiro agnew.

the word that i used in the first sentence was "complicated." i wrote very simply that richard nixon and spiro agnew had a complicated relationship. i went on to write that nixon had a complicated relationship with virtually everyone in his life, so it was no surprise with agnew. now, i teach history, and my students have never heard of spiro agnew. when i talk to people, say, above 50, i always get two responses. a smile, and then i hear something about natterring nabobs of negatism or no lo contendre. the story of spiro agnew and

richard nixon is a strange tale. we heard the last talk about nixon and eisenhower and nixon having been vice president and having gone through the rigors of presidential campaigns. did not strangely in 1968 give much or really any thought to who his vice president might be. which was rather odd, because nixon had spent the past six years or since losing in 1962, trying to figure out how he could get elected president. in 1968 he eventually settled on spiro agnew who was then the governor of maryland. agnew had a reputation. in his early political career of being a fairly liberal republican. he was not really that id logically liberal. what he was not, however, was a

conservative. what changed with alnew or seemingly changed, although i argue there wasn't really much of a change, mostly in perception, was that when he was elected governor in 1966 he ran against an opportunist, george mahoney, who r mahoney,. in 1967 and 1968 there were race riots in cambridge. and then later in baltimore in april fallowing the assassination in martin luther king. agnew came down very hard on the protesters and caught the attention of some of nixon's men, particularly john mitchell and pat buchanan. nixon famously apparently said, although some nixon scholars question whether or not he ever

actually said, that a vice president -- vice presidential running mate cannot help you, can only hurt you. in 1968, he just did not place all that much attention to it. and by the late spring of 1968 and into the early summer before the convention in miami, nixon began to sigh, well, i have to choose someone. he met with agnew several times. came away apparently impressed. although i have found actually in my research something that i found very interesting. in march of 1968, milton eisenhower wrote agnew a letter saying although dick nixon is one of my best friends, we need to do everything we can to make sure nixon doesn't get the republican nomination. agnew wrote back saying, i'm

very interested in talking to you about this. if nixon had ever learned that agnew had done this, we can be sure that agnew never would have been the running mate. but nixon never performed any sort of background check on spiro agnew. i think this is absolutely fascinating. today, vice presidential running mates are subjected, before they are picked, to background checks by the fbi. nixon never did anything. never asked agnew any questions. never asked anyone in maryland about agnew. perhaps he should have thought about that before he chose him, but he didn't. he eventually chose agnew. the choice was, to put it mildly, controversial. and agnew would become one of the most controversial vice

presidents in the country's history. after they were elected, nixon and agnew never developed any sort of working relationship whatsoever. agnew was never part of the inner circle. although he was the first vice president, briefly, to have an office in the west wing, he very rarely saw nixon. nixon never consulted him on any substantive issue, from the war in vietnam to any domestic issues. particularly on foreign policy, agnew was out of the loop. he had no idea about the initiatives to china. he was not asked about his opinions about the salt negotiations, all of which incidentally he opposed. but nixon simply would not accept that agnew had anything to say.

in fact, in later years, agnew's name came up in an interview nixon granted to michael cramer, who was a journalist. cramer attempted to say something nice about agnew. nixon just waved him away and said agnew was a clown. what they did, however, share during their years in the presidency was a sense, and i think this is very relevant to contemporary politics today, was that the liberal -- what they considered to be the liberal establishment was hostile to them because they were republicans. this idea is still permeating the republican party today. the belief, particularly, that the liberal media is antagonistic to conservatives

and republicans. agnew's famous speeches that he gave beginning in the fall of 1969 about the networks, speaking to the american public, but not speaking for the american public, resonated very strongly within the republican party. because there was this belief, and there still is this belief, and there was plenty of evidence for it, and there still is today, that members of the national media, particularly those who write for the "new york times," "the washington pos post", or "time" or "newsweek" or the network anchors, by and large are to the left of center. nixon and agnew believed that those beliefs shaped coverage of how nixon and agnew and other

republicans recovered in the media. this is the one element that nixon and agnew were able to work together during the presidency. there was a thought at the time when agnew gave these speeches that nixon disapproved of them. my research has shown, actually, no. i've gone to the archives and looked and seen that nixon actually gave his more than tacit approval, was almost egging agnew on. then, of course, there were the scandals. interestingly enough agnew benefited originally when the watergate scandal broke out from not being part of the inner circle. because he was never in the oval office or the eob when nixon was talking about all these things. agnew was completely out of the

when erhlicher resigned, nixon had conversations with ray price and ron zeeger, i'm thinking of resigning. price and zeigler said, god, you cannot do this. do you really want agnew as president? unfortunately, this is the feeling that reverberated through this administration. it's a very odd thing that people are telling nixon in early 1973, you cannot resign because of spiro agnew. and nixon believed that as long as agnew remained as vice president, they're never going to force me out. according to ehrlicmman, nixon said no one will ever

assassinate me to make agnew president. king charles ii said this to his brother james. they'll never kill me, james, and make you president -- or king. then along came agnew's own problems. the state of maryland is nicknamed the easy state. politicians like to call it the free and easy state because of the rampant corruption in that state. in the late 1970s there was a football game at the university of virginia. and they announced a special guest. the governor of maryland who came out running in an orange prison suit. all right? because so many of them went from -- agnew got caught up in this. he got caught upta taking kickbacks. it was the way it was done in maryland. he believed that nixon should come to his defense, but there

was really nothing nixon could or should have done. agnew would resign in october of 1973. they had a last meeting in the oval office. agnew said that nixon was very warm to him, but at the same time, he believed that nixon couldn't wait to get him out of the office. they never spoke again. they did stay in a hotel once in new york, but they didn't speak. agnew would write his memoirs in which he would blame nixon for much of his fall. not a lot has been written about the nixon/agnew relationship i believe mostly because agnew just was not a substantive player in the administration. julius witcover did write a book called "nixon and agnew: very strange bedfellows." the relationship between the two men was complicated, never substantive.

agnew did attend nixon's funeral. but he was never a major player in the administration. of course, when you think about what might have been if agnew was president, we'll never know. thank you. [ applause ] >> following up on what we are talking about, nixon's relationship with the press. coming up as an undergrad, i remember watching all of this unfold. in fact, i was -- let me sound like an old fart for just a second. i was standing over the wire machine when it came out that ap said spiro agnew just resigned. i still have that piece of paper someplace. that relationship between nixon and the media was not always an tast nisic in any way, shape or form.

and it's curious we keep on hearing the word "complex." it was very complicated, and it's even more complicated because if you think about his -- the years of his public life, 1946 through 1974, when he started in 1946, radio news had just recently become a factor in american life. radio news did not become a factor in american life until well into the 1930s. tv had just begun in 1946. and as for newspapers, he caught the very tail end of newspapers using their news pages as a blunt force political instrument. and notably the "l.a. times" and "chicago tribune" worked that side of the street. it began in 1946, he first runs for congress. the fellow he had a busing from is kyle palmer, the political editor of "the l.a. times."

the joke about "the l.a. times" during this period of time was that "the l.a. times" was not the mouthpiece for the republican party. the republican party was the mouthpiece for "the l.a. times." he had a lot of help from kyle palmer. herb klein, who had a lifelong association with richard nixon, covered that 1946 race. describes kyle palmer's work as a symphony conductor. go back on the record, palmer didn't do a lot of writing on that particular race. but he certainly did a lot of behind the scenes kind of work on nixon's behalf, helped him get elected in 1946. when it came to 1950 when he ran against helen douglas, once again "the l.a. times" was very squarely in richard nixon's corner and worked very hard to get him elected. during the alger hiss case -- by the way, nixon was enjoying some fairly decent press coverage. in fact, as he begins the

hiss -- alger hiss investigation, the fellow he chose to work with him on this was a fellow from the press by the name of bert andrews. curious choice. andrews had just won the pulitzer prize for doing a series about how the investigations into communism had ruined the life of ten people in the state department. and nixon chose andrews to work with him on the hiss investigation specifically because he wanted somebody who would kind of cast a jaundiced eye on what he was thinking at that time. so this is hardly -- also, by the way, you might want to look at this cynically and say if you've got bert andrews in your corner, you've got the new york held tribune for coverage, you move forward. bottom line, this does not sound like a guy that was basically antagonistic to the news media in any way, shape or form.

by 1952, obviously things change. "the new york post" does an investigation. almost cost him the vice presidential nomination. maimer in a great moment, and this is the curious thing about nixon going between being a zen master of the news media and having a total tin ear about what was going on, he uses the checker speech to go above and beyond -- go around the republican party leadership, and it was, by the way, an absolute master stroke on what he did. tv a very early medium. nobody knew what this meant, how this was going to work. and i know this guy's work has become -- some people have called it into question but roger morris has an interesting anecdote about the checker speech in that dwight eisenhower, the last u.s. president ironically born in the 19th century, whats in a hotel room with his aides watching nixon on the checkers speech and the aides are laughing and chortling and thinking this is

really funny and they turn around and look at eisenhower and he has a pencil in his hand and he cracks the pencil. they look and they say what's going on? he says you guys don't quite understand what just happened. we can't go against him right now. it was a masterful use of the media. by 1960 he is starting to have a rougher time. herb block notably of the washington post is doing some fairly funny cartoons which could not have been comfortable for richard nixon. at this point -- now, there's an open question of what kind of -- how the news media covered richard nixon. now, in his autobiography, the one in the 1970s that mr. beganon wrote about, mnixon

pretty solidly said everybody was against me in the 1960 race. when you look at six crises which he wrote in 1962, he didn't seem at that point to be so hard-edged. he quotes a letter from a chicago tribune correspondent, willis edwards, saying, look, mr. vice president, i'm really embarrassed to be a reporter at this point because these guys were trying to nail you. nixon, it doesn't quite sign on to this, but i think the big turning point for him was the 1962 gubernatorial race here in california. and this is where a couple things happen. the nature "the l.a. times" which helped create him in the late 1940s and 1950s had undergone a total transformation. brand new publisher, otis chandler of the chandler family takes over in 1960. chandler thought at this point we are not going to be a mouthpiece for the republican party. we're not automatically going to

nail democrats. we're going to cover things fairly. apparently richard nixon didn't get the otis chandler memo and was somewhat surprised when "the l.a. times" started covering him in a somewhat critical fashion. if you look back at his -- the 1970s memoir, what really annoyed him was he had to answer two questions repeatedly and every part of the campaign trail, which is, number one, are you a bircher, are you a john bircher, which by the way must have annoyed the hell out of him because if you think about what the birchers were about, one of the things they did was they thought dwight eisenhower was a stooge of the communist party. i can't imagine nixon -- why anybody would think nixon would sign onto that. the other thing is they kept asking him questions about a loan that his brother had gotten from the hughes tool company, but the fact that he had to ask and answer time and time and time again annoyed the hell out of this guy.

and, of course, there's that famous night when, okay, election night he loses and the famous press conference where he says, you won't have dick nixon to kick around anymore. john writes that this was under the influence of a whole lot of scotch when he made that speech. nixon later also wrote that he never regretted saying that kind of thing, saying that at all because he thought that was partially responsible for him getting more positive press coverage as he moved back up in the political life in through the mid-1960s. by 1968 he once again starts wearing the hat of the zen master. he has figured out probably before anybody else that tv -- that network tv news had changed entirely in the 1960s. i think it started in 1963 was a huge year. cbs, nbc both went from 15-minute to 30-minute newscasts. that meant a lot more than just another 15 minutes.

the nature of what those organizations was about changed as well. also the coverage of the 1963 kennedy assassination totally changed the way people looked at network news. it was being taken very seriously, and he falls in with a fellow by the name of roger ales, now president of fox news who designed a brilliant campaign on nixon's behalf, and basically did an end run around the news media. once again the news media probably didn't get that memo because they were covering this thing as they always covered every campaign, which is, okay, we look at the press releases, we talk to the press spokesman. they didn't realize they had become irrelevant at that point. as for watergate, it's one of these things where he time and time again, i think misread the press. he felt from the very day. in fact, there's a great anecdote about nixon immediating

with all the aides in a motel and basically saying the press is out to get you, out to get me, out to get all of us. he treated the press with basically cool cop temntempt an think after a while as we know the stakes got raised over and over again. nixon among other things, for instance, deciding to go after -- telling people to go after "the washington post" tv licenses. the minute that happened "the post"'s stock just dropped right through the floor. cost "the post" something like a million bucks to challenge these licenses. that's not the action of a guy that's particularly interested in discourse with the press. i think it's at this point becoming a blood feud, and i think at the end of the day, i don't think anybody came out of this very well. as a lifelong reporter, you read a lot of -- from a lot of people like leslie stahl, daniel shore,

this became a great party. leslie writes about the watergate parties they were having every night. and it becomes, i think, the news media and i have been in this for many, many decades, almost breaks their arm patting themselves on the back for bringing this i go down. now, whether he had it coming or not is, of course, another question entirely, but i don't think anybody got out of this unscathed. you mentioned the nattering nabobs of neg tism. that is still definitely part of the national discourse. i don't think fox news or risch limbaugh could get through ten minutes without coming up with something like this. it's part of the national discourse and i think this ushered in an era where reporters and politicians, now, they have always had somewhat of an adversarial relationship, but i think it got uglier and uglier

and uglier during that period, and i think it's remained to this day. personally, i'm not sure this is a healthy thing for the body politic, but i think a lot of the things that got set in motion during the nixon administration we're still living with, and i think to an exponentially, i think it's even gotten worse as time goes on. [ applause ] >> i want to thank the nixon library and also the miller center and tim ni neothy neftal putting on this conference and for arranging this volume that opens up a whole lot of interesting possible projects of scholarship for the future. i'm going to talk about the 1960 election. we still live within the framework that teddy white laid

down in 1961 in his making of the president volume. teddy white's book sold millions of copies and invented a whole form of journalism reporting the presidential campaign in a packaged volume as a book and, of course, white went on to do more volumes, although none as popular as that first one. and only in recent years have a number of people come forward, including myself, to offer correctives to white's cheerleading account really for jfk's victory. one of the first of these was tom carty who re-examined the catholic issue in the 1960 election in a nice way, but maybe not terribly changing the narrative. then dave patrika who offered a