Even though Nixon instigated successful policy change prior to the ’72 campaign for re-election, he never promoted them and favoured his manipulation of the media despite his feud with the free press. Discuss.
President Richard Milhous Nixon is widely recognised as the first American president who utilised the media and used television to address his country on a large scale. Nixon had a volatile relationship with the free press it was clear that he felt great distain for them and believed that they only ever showed one side of the story- and that was never his side. “Nixon's first major clash with the press came in 1952 when he ran as Dwight D. Eisenhower's vice-presidential running mate. On September 18, the New York Post incorrectly reported that wealthy backers had set up a secret fund for Nixon's personal use. Desperate to avoid being dumped by Eisenhower, Nixon turned the media against itself on nationwide television.” (Accessed: 10/01/10 from: http://people.cohums.ohio-state.edu/childs1/NixonandtheMedia.htm)
He later presented what is now known as ‘The Checkers’ Speech’ where he addressed the voters, using a lot of new tricks. He spoke to the voters with eye-contact and even drew on his family and his cocker-spaniel dog to reinforce his humble lifestyle. This did work and he grew in popularity.
What we must remember is that despite his anger against the press he also needed them and used them to his advantage. He was the first President to appoint a spin doctor, Herb Klein and in 1969 President Nixon formed the White House Office of Communications which was to serve as the media centre for his government. This was very clever as now he would control exactly what the media would have access to, and would clearly favour press conferences from his supporters rather than the liberal media.
In 1960, John F Kennedy beat Nixon to presidency and this might have been one of the controlling factors in mobilising his media managing arsenal. He had witnessed how staying cool in front of a camera whilst debating had won popularity for Kennedy during their live debates. Erika Tyner Allen said: “The Great Debates marked television's grand entrance into presidential politics. They afforded the first real opportunity for voters to see their candidates in competition, and the visual contrast was dramatic.... In substance, the candidates were much more evenly matched. Indeed, those who heard the first debate on the radio pronounced Nixon the winner. But the 70 million who watched television saw a candidate still sickly and obviously discomforted by Kennedy's smooth delivery and charisma. Those television viewers focused on what they saw, not what they heard. Studies of the audience indicated that, among television viewers, Kennedy was perceived the winner of the first debate by a very large margin.” (http://www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=kennedy-nixon)
In preparation for Nixon’s 1972 campaign for re-election he sought the help of the November Group. The agency was hired to manage the media for the President as well as his speeches. The agency expertly marketed Nixon as a successful world leader while smiting his opposition. They controlled the campaign posters which included the slogan: “President Nixon. Now. More than ever.” They also used other methods like recording short documentary-style campaign videos which have become popular with later Presidents like Bill Clinton.
The November Group also pioneered other methods like showcasing Nixon as a family man, and would include his wife a lot. He was also shown playing the piano for important figureheads, similar to Clinton’s saxophone showcase. This only proves how effective the group really were because their methods of spin are still being emulated today.
Nixon’s politics are nothing to be ignored. He passed some very important environmental policies and also was the one who withdrew troops from Vietnam. It is however quite curious as to why they were never really the subjects he promoted during his campaign.
Brooks Flippen explores this in his article: “Nixon’s administration’s major environmental accomplishments have been unjustly overlooked by historians as he describes the plethora of environmental issues faced: Overpopulation, off-shore oil drilling, the Alaska oil pipeline, the 70s energy crisis, the supersonic transport, DDT and other pesticides... Water pollution... The creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and reorganisation of federal environmental policy.”
There were quite a few other environmental changes Nixon also implemented, yet Nixon is not known for these. He did present himself as quite the environmentalist from 1969-70 so it does seem strange that he would not draw these policies more into his campaign for re-election.
Scott Dewey (California State University at Los Angeles) argues that: “In 1969-70 Nixon could not have stopped environmental reforms even had he wished to, and he was politically savvy enough to try to capture some credit for the inevitable. Yet, such reaction, poll-watching, and media manipulation were far from the long demonstrated record of environmental leadership of congressional democrats; though Nixon’s environmental advisors clearly deserve credit for their courage and persistence.
“Though Nixon still offered deceptive lip service to environmental goals after 1970, his private statements of hostility toward environmentalists and experimentation with blocking funding or enforcement if environmental programs were a dress rehearsal for the more overt acts of the Reagan administration.”
Dewey presents a very valid point because as we know Nixon to be a ‘tricky’ character it does seem that most of his environmental policies were pragmatic, yet he probably did not agree with them. He is a man of the stage and this was just one of the charades he presented to the public in order to gain more in the way of an electorate, although, it does seem odd that he does not play-up this fact because the 26th Amendment of the constitution enfranchised 18 year-olds with the vote in 1971 and the environment typically is a concern of younger generations.
November 3 1969 Nixon called upon the ‘silent majority’ to support him in his quest for ‘peace with honour’ in Vietnam; he was consequently slated by many news organisations who clearly thought that this was just another ploy from ‘Tricky Dicky’.
This then forced a counter attack from his running mate Vice president Spiro Agnew, who delivered a speech at Des Moines, Iowa. He said: “Every American has the right to disagree with the President of the United States, and to express publically that disagreement.
But the President of the United States has a right to communicate directly with the people that elected him, and the people of this country have the right to make up their own minds and form their own opinions about a Presidential address, without having the President’s words and thoughts characterised through the prejudice of hostile critics before they can even be digested.”
Agnew went further and gave examples as to why the press are unfair and are businesses that are there first and foremost to sell newspapers: “The networks made “hunger” and “black-lung disease” national issues overnight. The TV networks have done what no other medium could have done in terms of dramatising the horrors of war. The networks have tackled our most difficult social problems with a directness and immediacy that is the gift of their medium. They have focused the nation’s attention on its environmental abuses, on pollution in the Great Lakes, and the threatened ecology of the Everglades.”
This strengthened the support for Nixon because Agnew had presented flaws in what other news organisations were saying. It discredited them and actually forced the public to see that there were two sides of the discussion, not just the one presented to them in the press. It is a clever way to spin the events which showed grand misdirection; although, the discussion should have focused on Vietnam and the foreign policies that were being discussed the Nixon Administration had turned it away from what they were actually talking about and concentrated on the media who were portrayed as the controllers of media.
“The audience of seventy-million Americans gathered to hear the President of the United States—was inherited by a small band of network commentators and self-appointed analysts, the majority of whom expressed, in one way or another, their hostility to what he had to say.” (Vice President Agnew)
Patrick Buchanan, writing for the American Conservative in 2005 believes that the Des Moines speech has made its mark in history because it showed the holes in what news corporations showed the viewers. He also believed that it changed how the electorate thought whilst receiving the news. He said:
“What he had done was strip the false flag of neutrality from Big Media and expose it as a co-belligerent in the political wars, no longer entitled to the immunity from attack. Reed Irvine’s Accuracy came in to being to monitor the liberal press.
“Then beginning with The New York Times, newspapers yielded to the attacks on their fairness by adding conservative columns to prove to their readers they were unbiased.”
This is a very clear example of the power of spin and media management, and Nixon definitely knew that. By creating a storm around those papers that opposed him he made them look like the ‘Tricky’ ones and painted himself in as a pious leader.
Nixon not only relied on his spin doctor, the November Group and his running mate, he also had another operation. His Committee to Re-Elect President or CREEP as it was known was another organisation set-up primarily to raise funds for the campaign although they did do a lot more than that.
Buyingthepresident.org claimed that CREEP found a loophole in the law for ‘off the books’ contributions and raised as much as $60 million for the campaign. Other than finding these ‘dirty tricks’ for Nixon they were also sent out to dig up dirt on the opposition campaign. They harassed Muskie among others with prank calls, unwanted pizza deliveries and other cheeky stunts.
It would be quite ignorant not to mention Nixon’s demise, because after all of his clever management of the media we do inevitably see his ‘fall from grace’ in terms of the Watergate scandal.
A safe assumption is that Nixon was a man who as a politician reached great heights because he recognised that television was the best place to address a widespread audience. He also knew that by hiring the best people in PR and appointing himself a spin doctor he would become almost ‘untouchable’ by the media because those working alongside him would have had, even at a basic level the same sorts of training as the journalists who ‘conspired against him’. It was also a very intellectual move because they could always second guess the free media and use what they conceived as their own strengths against them.
Nixon’s manipulation of the media fed in to his ego and eventually fed into his denial as we saw when the news of Watergate actually broke. During his resignation speech which he had staged much like televised speeches which had come before he still seemed as though he still had a captivated audience.
“I have done my very best in all the days since to be true to that pledge. As a result of these efforts, I am confident that the world is a safer place today, not only for the people of America but for the people of all nations, and that all of our children have a better chance than before of living in peace rather than dying in war.
This, more than anything, is what I hoped to achieve when I sought the Presidency. This, more than anything, is what I hope will be my legacy to you, to our country, as I leave the Presidency.
To have served in this office is to have felt a very personal sense of kinship with each and every American. In leaving it, I do so with this prayer: May God's grace be with you in all the days ahead.” (President Richard Nixon - August 8, 1974)
Nixon seems to have been feeding himself his own spin over the years of his presidency and it is transparent throughout his address to the people of the United States.
One thing is definitely certain, the man who used a lot of expletives in private, who was very jaded and cynical certainly tricked a lot of people.
Bibliography
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