I Never Had It Made by Jackie Robinson

Author:Jackie Robinson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2013-02-19T16:00:00+00:00

XI

Campaigning for Nixon

I do not consider my decision to back Richard Nixon over John F. Kennedy for the Presidency in 1960 one of my finer ones. It was a sincere one, however, at the time.

The Richard Nixon I met back in 1960 bore no resemblance to the Richard Nixon as President. As Vice President and as Presiding Officer of the Senate he had a fairly good track record on civil rights. When I first met him, he had just returned from a trip around the world, and he came back saying that America would lose the confidence and trust of the darker nations if she didn’t clear her own backyard of racial prejudice. Mr. Nixon made these statements for the television cameras and other media for all the world to hear.

Richard Nixon is capable of deep personal goodwill and grace in one-to-one relationships and particularly if he believes you can be useful to his goals. His instincts are flawless when he bends himself to win you to his cause. He can meet you today, be introduced, learn through casual conversation that you have a three-year-old daughter with the mumps and—three months later—approach you, call you by your first name, and ask about the state of health of your little girl—the one who had the mumps. This man has the most fantastic photographic memory for newsmen, politicians, or other humans useful to the art of vote getting, and he has always had a superb briefing staff. Whatever you think of the man personally, he is a consummate political animal.

I met the Vice President and several others, including Senator Hugh Scott, in his office in the White House following the 1960 primary elections of both parties. My trip to see him had resulted from some spirited discussions I had with friends, some of whom were for Nixon and others who were for Senator John Kennedy. I had found that there was a great deal of suspicion in the black community about Nixon, primarily because so many black people were disenchanted with the Eisenhower Admin-istration. They felt that Mr. Eisenhower had a nice grin and little or no concern for rapport with blacks. I had campaigned for Senator Hubert Humphrey in the Democratic primaries because I had a strong admiration for his civil rights background as mayor of Minneapolis and as a Senator. I had heard that he was constantly being warned that his outspoken comments on civil rights would curtail his political progress. I had heard him publicly vow that he was pledged to be the living example of a man who would rather be right morally than achieve the Presidency. But since Mr. Humphrey had not been able to defeat Senator Kennedy in the primaries, I found myself faced with a choice between Nixon and Kennedy. Frankly, I didn’t think it was much of a choice but I was impressed with the Nixon record on rights, and when I sat with him in his office in Washington, he certainly said all the right things.

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