The History Place website summarizes the context of this event:
"At the 1952 Republican national convention, a young Senator from California, Richard M. Nixon, was chosen to be the running mate of presidential candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Nixon had enjoyed a spectacular rise in national politics. Elected to Congress in 1946, he quickly made a name for himself as a militant anti-Communist while serving on the House Un-American Activities Committee. In 1950, at age 38, he was elected to the Senate and became an outspoken critic of President Truman's conduct of the Korean War. He also cited wasteful spending by the Democrats, and alleged that Communists had infiltrated the U.S. government.
But Nixon's rapid rise in American politics nearly came to a crashing halt after a sensational headline appeared in the New York Post stating, "Secret Rich Men's Trust Fund Keeps Nixon in Style Far Beyond His Salary." The headline appeared just a few days after Eisenhower had chosen him as his running mate. Amid the shock and outrage that followed, many Republicans urged Eisenhower to dump Nixon from the ticket before it was too late.
Nixon, however, in a brilliant political maneuver, took his case directly to the American people via the new medium of television. During a nationwide broadcast, with his wife Pat sitting stoically nearby, Nixon offered an apologetic explanation of his finances, including the now-famous lines regarding his wife's "respectable Republican cloth coat." Additionally, he told of a little dog named Checkers that was given as a present to his young daughters. "I want to say right now that regardless of what they say, we're going to keep it."
He turned the last section of his address into a political attack, making veiled accusations about the finances of his political opponents and challenging them to provide the same kind of open explanation.
Although it would forever be known as Nixon's "Checkers Speech," it was actually a political triumph for Nixon at the time it was given. Eisenhower requested Nixon to come to West Virginia where he was campaigning and greeted Nixon at the airport with, "Dick, you're my boy." The Republicans went on to win the election by a landslide."
29 сен 2024
