Nixon, greatness and decadence

An overwhelming victory, a state scandal, a stranger who is doing well ... The presidential elections of 1972 and 1976 were marked by several unexpected twists and turns. In the seventh episode of the podcast Mister President by Europe 1 Studio, Olivier Duhamel tells you how the Republicans triumphed before sinking. He also returns to the rise of Jimmy Carter, the democrat that no one expected. 

This podcast is produced in partnership with the Institut Montaigne

Want to listen to the other episodes of this podcast?

>> Find them on our Europe1.fr site, on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, SoundCloud or your usual listening platforms.

In 1972, the re-election of Republican Nixon was hardly in doubt. And the pre-election certainties were confirmed. The campaign nonetheless experienced some unforeseen episodes that deserve to be reported. Among the Democrats, Edward Kennedy, the younger brother of John and Robert, having given up running, the favorite becomes Edmund Muskie, the austere senator from Maine, candidate for the vice-presidency of the Democrats in 1968. But he will explode in theft, for an unfortunate phrase stolen and reported.

Low blows ...

Time 1. "The Cannuck letter". Cannuck, a slang term to denigrate French Canadians. On February 24, 1972, two weeks before the important New Hampshire primary, a newspaper, The Manchester union leader, publishes a letter which tells that during a meeting of the Muskie campaign team, a participant asked the candidate how he would understand the problems of African-Americans when there are so few blacks in his state, Maine. One of the staff members would have replied "We have many Cannuks". And Muskie would have laughed. Apparently nothing too bad, except that New Hampshire has a lot of descendants of French Canadians.

Time 2. Two days later, Muskie went to the headquarters of the newspaper and, during his speech protesting against the lies of this letter, he would have cried. Thrice. The press then mocks "the Crying speech", the tearful speech. Muskie replied that it was only a broken voice, and that the alleged tears were only traces of snow. What does it matter! The damage is done. Muskie was to triumph in New Hampshire, he only narrowly prevails over the pacifist candidate George McGovern. McGovern is the grandson of an alcoholic Irish immigrant, and the son of a Methodist minister. George McGovern is a WWII hero who became a history teacher and then entered politics. He succeeded in 1956 in being elected in South Dakota to everyone's surprise. Beaten when he appeared in the Senate in 1960, Kennedy appointed him director of the humanitarian program Food for peace, "food for peace". In 1962, he returned to active politics and this time won the election to the Senate. And ten years later, he is launched in the race for the White House.

Muskie is a favorite in New Hampshire. But McGovern, the man of unexpected electoral success, is close behind. Muskie sees mounting the pacifist movement which will carry its rival. He has to give up. A few months later, an FBI investigation will reveal that the stroke of the letter was mounted by members of the Republican Committee for the re-election of Nixon. Muskie never said that. The "Cannuck letter" remains in the history of the presidential elections as a model of "dirty tricks", literally dirty tricks, low blows therefore.

 ... and a drama among the Democrats!

The campaign for the democratic nomination is then marked by a drama. The governor of Alabama, the segregationist George Wallace, returned to the Democrats and obtained significant results in several primaries. He was shot on May 15 by an imbalanced quest for notoriety who had tried unsuccessfully to assassinate Nixon. Long hospitalized, then in a wheelchair, Wallace can no longer progress.

McGovern, supported by the student movement to stop the Vietnam War, won the Democratic primaries. Following the clashes with the 1968 Convention, the rules were changed, it was the delegates during the primaries who prevail. The Convention gathered on July 10 in Miami Beach designates McGovern in the first round. She ends up choosing a relative unknown, Thomas Eagleton, senator from Missouri, as candidate for the vice-presidency. A few days later, the press revealed that he had suffered from depression, suffered an electric shock, and that he would drink more than he should. McGovern supports him. The democratic apparatus takes down it. He was eventually replaced in disaster by Sargent Shriver, former ambassador to France, and, above all, the husband of Eunice Kennedy, John's sister.

The appointment of McGovern allows Nixon to triumph, leading in 49 out of 50 states and obtaining 60.7% of the vote. Less than two years later, the Watergate affair forced him to resign. What is a democracy? A system of government in which the people choose their leaders, and in which the authorities must respect fundamental rights. The first principle made Nixon triumph. The violation of the second lost him.

Lesson 7: A set-up, true or false, can kill an application if it is not nipped in the bud. Democratic favorite Muskie paid the price. For many on the right, Fillon was the victim of a coup in 2017. 

Lesson 8: A candidate's medical history can re-emerge and force them to give up. Eagleton had to give up his place as vice-presidential candidate. In France, François Mitterrand knew how to avoid it by hiding his illness for a long time.

Thanks to the 1972 campaign, Nixon was easily returned to the White House. Because of the 1972 campaign, and a burglary of the then-hidden Democratic seat, Nixon will have to leave the White House.

1976: Carter the unexpected candidate

August 1974: Nixon resigned to avoid being dismissed. The Senate would have resigned, he preferred to anticipate. His vice-president, Gerald Ford, succeeds him at the White House. Ford was not elected, but appointed by Nixon after Vice President Spiro Agnew was forced to resign in October 1973 for tax evasion. Its designation as a candidate is not self-evident. It is mainly contested by the former governor of California, you remember, the ex-actor of cinema Ronald Reagan, who had already tried to be designated in 1968 and 1970. The primaries are very disputed. Ford came out with a short lead, however short of the majority of the delegates needed to beat Reagan. The two candidates are actively courting the well over 100 unaffiliated delegates, mainly those from Illinois and Mississippi. Ford was finally chosen with a majority of 117 delegates. He chose Robert Dole, a senator from Kansas, as the candidate for the vice-president.

But who should he oppose in the Democrats? The candidates are jostling. None is required a priori. A stranger then appears. Former peanut producer, Governor of Georgia, James Carter, known as Jimmy Carter, campaigned actively during the first moment of the nomination campaign, the traditional Iowa caucus. He wins. And soon after, the scenario repeats itself during the first, always first, primary, that of New Hampshire. Then, like Horace against the Curiaces, he eliminates his rivals one by one, primary after primary. An ABC campaign "Anybody But Carter" was launched by the caciques of the Democratic party, but too late. In mid-July, the Democratic Convention gathered in New York chose it in the first round.

Ford's blunder

Building on this success, Carter became a favorite for the election itself, leading widely in the polls. But little by little, Ford is closing the gap. He plays on his institutional position, receives, in front of the cameras, Queen Elisabeth II and Prince Philip at the White House and develops a campaign that the Americans call Rose garden, when a president candidate for his re-election uses his function and shows himself permanently in the White House rose garden. From the first televised debate, he is doing well. On the second, the fatal quack arises. On October 6, in front of 64 million viewers, he dropped this sentence: "There is no Soviet domination in Eastern Europe, and there will not be any under a Ford administration". And he even adds that he does not "think that the Poles consider themselves dominated by the Soviet Union". Insane phrase which definitively stops its progression.

The result of the election, very close, is not given until half past three in the morning. Carter 50%, Ford 48%, which will give a lead of 53 major voters. The stranger from Georgia becomes president of the United States. What lessons can be learned from the 1976 election?

Lesson # 9: An unknown candidate can emerge in the campaign and then win the nomination and election. Almost no one knew Jimmy Carter outside of Georgia. How many French people knew Emmanuel Macron two years before the 2017 election?

Lesson 10: A blunder in a debate can help you lose the election. Gérald Ford showed it. Marine Le Pen paid dearly for her fiasco during the 2017 debate.

Carter President, is the Democrats' lasting return to the White House? Or is it just a parenthesis? It is played out, as always in the United States, four years later. It's our next episode.

"Mister President by Europe 1 Studio" is a podcast imagined by Olivier Duhamel

Preparation: Capucine Patouillet
Production: Christophe Daviaud (with Matthieu Blaise)

Editorial project manager: Fannie Rascle
Distribution and editing: Clémence Olivier
Graphic design: Mikaël Reichardt
Archives: European sound heritage 1 with interview with Pierre Salinger by André Arnaud (July 18, 1972)