[ MUSIC ]
RICHARD NIXON: My fellow Americans, I come before you tonight as a man who's honesty
and integrity has been questioned.
MICHAEL A. COHEN: In 1952 Dick Nixon is selected to be Vice President of the United States
by Dwight Eisenhower.
Story breaks that he had access to this fund that had been put together by some wealthy
business men out in California and that it was a personal fund for Nixon.
ROBERT LEHRMAN: It was so sensational that Eisenhower was thinking about dropping him
from the ticket.
Nixon felt his entire career was threatened.
NIXON: The best and only answer to a smear or to an honest misunderstanding of the facts
is to tell the truth.
CHARLTON MCILWAIN: In this speech, Nixon is aided by television.
He's sitted down in what appears to be his own living room.
His wife is sitting right off camera.
He's able to connect with people in a real authentic way.
NIXON: I want to tell you my side of the case.
ROBERT: He did exactly what Aristotle recommended.
He said there are three ways you pursued people.
Logos, pathos, ethos.
Ethos really doesn't mean ethics, it means the personality of the speaker.
If you like the guy, you're going to be persuaded by him.
NIXON: I don't believe that I ought to quit.
Because I am not a quitter.
And incidentally, Pat's not a quitter after all, her name was Patricia Ryan and she was
born on St. Patrick's Day.
And you know the Irish never quit.
ADAM FRANKEL: Part of what makes the speech so effective is how personal it is.
He goes into such detail, explaining his own finances.
NIXON: Everything I've earned, everything I've spent, everything I owe.
ADAM: He starts talking about information that is almost shocking.
MICHAEL A. COHEN: Today it's sort of, no one's really surprised by it, but it would have
been unheard of in 1952.
NIXON: We've got a house in Washington which cost 41 thousand dollars, and on which we
owe 21 thousand dollars.
Our family was one of modest circumstances, and Pat doesn't have a mink coat.
But she does have a respectable, Republican cloth coat.
And I always tell her, that she'd look good in anything.
ROBERT: Logos, logic - reasoning.
He builds a lawyerly like case for his having done nothing wrong.
NIXON: The question is, was it morally wrong.
And I say that it was morally wrong if any of the contributors got special favors.
Not one of them has ever asked me for a special favor.
ROBERT: And then Pathos, you move people - emotion.
And that's why the speech is called "checkers."
MICHAEL A. COHEN: As part of this fund that Nixon had been receiving he'd gotten some
gifts, and one of them was a dog.
NIXON: And our little girl Tricia named it Checkers.
The kids love the dog, and I just want to say that regardless of what they say about
it, we're going to keep him.
CHARLTON: At the very end of the speech he is able to make a plea saying, look I could
resign, some people say I should.
NIXON: And I'm going to ask you to help them decide.
Wire and write the Republican National Committee with whether I should stay on, or whether
I should get off.
And whatever there decision is, I will abide by it.
MICHAEL A. COHEN: The reaction to it was overwhelming.
Telegrams streamed in to the RNC for months afterwards, praising Nixon, saying you should
keep this guy on the ticket.
And of course he stayed, and he ended up becoming Vice President and eventually President one
day.
But it's maybe the first example I think of how a politician can use television as a means
of humanizing themselves.
NIXON: Regardless of what happens, I'm going to continue this fight, I'm going to campaign
up and down in America until we drive the crooks and the Communists and those that defend
them out of Washington.
And remember folks, a vote for Eisenhower is a vote for what's good for America.
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