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118

Richard Nixon

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:4,000.00 - 5,000.00 USD
Richard Nixon

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Auction Date:2012 Aug 15 @ 18:00 (UTC-5 : EST/CDT)
Location:5 Rt 101A Suite 5, Amherst, New Hampshire, 03031, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
TLS signed “Dick,” one page, 7.25 x 10.25, personal letterhead, February 1, 1966. Letter to Earl Mazo, author of Richard Nixon: A Political and Personal Portrait. In full: “Found your suggestions most stimulating and you will probably see them plagiarized in some of my speeches in the weeks and months ahead, provided of course, they get any news coverage. I was, naturally, most interested in your monograph on Johnson and Nixon, the politicians! I hope some day it may be published. And I also think that some enterprising reporter will, at some time in the future, write a story on the vote frauds of 1960 which might have a great national impact. I suppose, of course, that additional time must expire so that such a work would not appear to cast a reflection on the Kennedy memory. Again, many thanks for giving me the benefit of your suggestions with regard to my upcoming speeches. With my limited staff it helps immensely to pick other people’s brains for good ideas.” In fine condition.

As rumors of serious vote fraud circulated following Nixon’s incredibly narrow loss in the election of 1960, journalist Earl Mazo began an investigation to expose the scandal. Though there was well-documented evidence of fraud, Nixon did not contest the results and stopped Mazo’s story from hitting the stands. He was eclipsed during Camelot's thousand days, the feeling of unimportance bitterly noted in his comment that Mazo would see his words plagiarized in speeches to come “provided of course, they get any news coverage.” Internalizing his anger about the ballot theft in Texas, Illinois, and elsewhere, he was convinced for the rest of his life that he had been ambushed by the Kennedy machine. Even after Kennedy’s assassination, Nixon was haunted by the martyred President’s ghost: “I also think that some enterprising reporter will, at some time in the future, write a story on the vote frauds of 1960 which might have a great national impact. I suppose, of course, that additional time must expire so that such a work would not appear to cast a reflection on the Kennedy memory.”

Succumbing to paranoia even after his election to the presidency in 1968, Nixon conducted covert surveillance and smear campaigns against Ted Kennedy, Kennedy family allies, and other political opponents, a propensity that contributed to his eventual downfall and disgrace. When the “enterprising reporters” he had been waiting for finally appeared to write a story of fraud with “great national impact,” it was not into the election of 1960: it was into his own extensive deceit, exposing his final disgrace. This incredible letter reveals the early signs of a festering bitterness that would later manifest itself in the biggest scandal in American politics, shocking the world and forcing President Nixon out of office.
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