I Shook Dick Nixon's Hand
Sixty years of stories about Tricky Dick
I opened a post recently by saying Richard Nixon has haunted my life, and wrote of illegally entering a voting booth with my sister in 1972 to watch her vote for George McGovern.
But I have a longer history with President Nixon. I met him once, and shook his hand! I am trying to figure out exactly when this happened, and it is proving to be trickier than I expected. Yes, Richard Nixon stays tricky to the end.
Here’s what I know for sure. I shook Nixon’s hand at the Ottumwa, Iowa (the fictional Radar O’Reilly’s home town) airport when I was a little kid. I was in a crowd, outside, standing next to my Dad. Everything at the airport looked sleek and modern and new, and the term “space-age” comes to mind, an adjective that was used relentlessly at the time to describe an optimistic, tech-driven future for all of mankind. It’s odd to realize this sleek, space-age vision in my memory was actually a small midwestern airport with only two runways.
I remember the plane taxiing to a stop, and the little wheeled stairway that rolled up to the airplane, and the crowd surrounding the plane. It was not Air Force One, but the plane looked very big and cool to my young eyes anyway. I barely remember the handshake—the plane made a bigger impression—but I do remember the excitement as we approached him.
I’d always assumed the event took place in 1964, when I was six years old, and when Lyndon Johnson was running for President against Goldwater (a fascinating election), and Nixon was campaigning for Johnson. But I can’t find any evidence Nixon visited Ottumwa in 1964. So I’m travelling back in time on the internet, looking for Nixon’s visits to Iowa.
I used to be able to ask my Dad these questions, in his role of family historian. He’d have the answer in a flash. But he’s gone now, I’m the last man standing, and so I am the family historian by default.
This is NOT a picture of me. I wish it was. This is a “Kids For Nixon” rally in 1960, that in no way bears a resemblance to photos of Hitler Youth, in existence a mere twenty years earlier (it amazes me I was born so close to WWII). I know it’s not me because I would have only been two years old, and because it takes place in Des Moines, which was quite a long trip from Ottumwa.
My parents, when I was very young, were Young Republicans in Ottumwa. They were fairly active in the party. Before I was born, they actually met Nixon, and hung out in a motel room with him as he waited for a plane at the Ottumwa airport. They described him as polite and friendly. He even signed an envelope for my sister that said something to the effect of “Best wishes, Jennifer. - Richard Nixon.” That envelope is, sadly, lost to time. I never saw it, so the envelope was more family legend than family heirloom, and I suppose its existence could be apocryphal. But I’m pretty sure that autograph on an envelope existed, sitting in a desk drawer, forgotten, until it was thrown away, mistaken as trash.
Both my parents became Democrats eventually, and were active in the party. My Mom went first, during Lyndon Johnson’s presidency. He was from her part of the country, the rural South, and his vision of The Great Society, his War On Poverty and the Voting Rights Act of 1964 really caught her imagination. He was her favorite President. My Dad turned on the Republican Party with the election of Ronald Reagan, who my Dad (rightly) saw as a joke. He went on to be a Precinct Captain for Obama in 2008. Obama was his favorite President.
Both their defections from the Republican Party left lasting impressions on me.
Above is the picture the internet returns to me most often when I Google “Nixon+Ottumwa.” Nixon visited the Ottumwa Airport in 1971 to dedicate the Rathburn Dam (his speech is here). I would have been 13 years old, much too old to fit my memories. Nixon was president by then, and photos show a pretty high security level; they wouldn’t have let us near the plane.
By 1971 I was already forming a negative opinion of President Nixon anyway. He was knee-deep in the Vietnam War. The Pentagon Papers had just come out. He was carpet-bombing Vietnam, and secretly bombing Cambodia. If I went in 1971 I probably would have protested.
So my handshake with Richard Nixon occurred sometime between these two photos, sometime between 1960 and 1971. I can find no other visits to Ottumwa from Nixon.
I went deeper into the internet, trying to find the exact year I shook his hand. Follow me down the rabbit hole. Wikipedia refers to 1961-1967 as Nixon’s “lost years.” He’d been beaten by JFK in 1960 (in an election JFK might have genuinely stolen). In 1964 he even received a few votes in primaries, but dropped out to lend his support to Barry Goldwater (“Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice!”). When Goldwater got trounced in ‘64 by Johnson, Nixon was back in business, and primed to win the Presidency in 1968.
Those “lost years” are when I must have met him. In 1966, Nixon campaigned for many Republicans, trying to regain seats lost in the LBJ landslide. In Iowa, the Senate race in 1966 was incumbent Republican Jack Miller, running against E. B. Smith (Miller won).
The search for “Richard Nixon+Jack Miller” leads us to…wait for it…Nixon’s secret tapes! The smoking gun that led to his impeachment and resignation. It’s hard to find anything specific in the tapes, but Nixon appears to have met with Jack Miller about the congressional vote that day to halt funding for the SST (the Super-Sonic Transport, which points back to that optimistic, space-age vision of the future I referred to earlier).
Not that Nixon’s tapes have anything to do with that visit in 1966. But in 1973 Nixon appointed Miller to a Federal court, where he remained until he retired. So it’s safe to assume they had a political relationship. And I feel safe to assume that I probably shook Nixon’s hand sometime in 1966, when he was campaigning for Jack Miller.
Whew.
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One more Nixon anecdote, and I will call it quits.
When I first started trying to get my writing published, there was no such thing as the Internet. I had to print them out and send them (with a SASE: self-addressed stamped envelope) to literary magazines via US Mail. It was an annoying, time-consuming process. The Post Office was a full subway stop away.
On April 22, 1994, I had three stories under my arm, with everything stamped and addressed and ready to go. I took the subway from my apartment in Elmhurst, Queens to the Post Office. I got out, and walked to the Post Office door.
It was closed.
Richard Nixon had just died, and as a result all Federal Post Offices were closed, for a National Day of Mourning.
And I thought to myself, “Even in death Richard Nixon finds a way to piss me off.” I got back into the subway and went home.
Peace.