“Just think how much you’re going to be missing. You won’t have Nixon to kick around any more, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.”
Oh if that were only true.
Richard Nixon spoke those words after incumbent California Governor, Edmund Brown, defeated him in the 1962 gubernatorial race. In reality the real kicking would not start until ten years later with the Watergate scandal.
One of the anomalies about Nixon is that people loved to hate him. And, despite never really being trusted “Tricky Dick” completely swamped George McGovern in the 1972 presidential election carrying 49 states, racking up 502 Electoral votes and getting 60 percent of the popular vote. However, he was not so successful in his first run at the presidency in 1960 losing to John Kennedy.
After that defeat, Nixon would head back to California where he would suffer still another political defeat only to reemerge to win the 1968 presidential election.
Attaching the word “gate” to some sort of scandal may have never happened if in 1960 Nixon had accepted the urgings of the Major League Baseball players to become the Commissioner of Baseball. The legend of Bowie Kuhn fades in memory but the Nixon legacy is still with us; considering he resigned the presidency in 1974 and died in 1994 at the age of 81. And since that original gate scandal, we have had plenty of “gates” since.
One of the first gates following Watergate was “Billygate.” Billy Carter was the youngest brother of President Jimmy Carter. If TV networks at the time would have made a 30 minute sitcom starring Billy, TV Guide would have described him as that zany but lovable peanut farmer from Georgia—and how he drives his older brother crazy. But then NBC was already airing Chico and the Man.
During Jimmy’s presidency, according to RoadsideAmerica.com, Billy could often be found at his filling station attracting reporters on slow news days making “blunt statements about his brother, government oil policies and anything else that came to mind.”
Like many presidential brothers that created Oval Office controversy, Billy became a presidential pain when he took money from Libya and did not register as a foreign agent, hence the “gate.” All of this was going at a time when OPEC had already slapped a couple of oil embargoes on the West that created higher gas prices; long lines; and even-and-odd days with 10 gallon limits at the gas pumps.
Jimmy’s presidency was a rocky one to begin with even if Billy had kept to brewing beer and “barbecuing ribs and catfish behind the gas station.” The big issue brother Jimmy was dealing with was trying to free Americans from Iran after Iranian Revolutionary Guards took over the US Embassy in Tehran.
Foreign machinations, intrigue and buying influence is nothing new. One of the next gates was a bit more complicated than just pumping some cash into the political process. The Iran-Contra Affair or Contragate was more of a menage a trois with various trysting places during Ronald Reagan’s administration. A real quid pro quo.
The US was going to sell arms to Iran to help its war effort against Iraq. Additionally, Iran was supposed to help the US in its efforts to release hostages being held in Lebanon. The money raised from the arms deal would go to fund anti-communist forces in Niagara in their war with Sandinistas. There was a lot of moving parts in this gate. And it did not take long for this swinging gate to unhinge.
President Reagan denied any knowledge of the scheme, despite his Secretary of Defense being indicted along with 13 other government officials. Not to worry, though. President George H.W. Bush later pardon them.
Some gates are quite simple and not political as Deflategate. In a 2015 playoff game where the New England Patriots trashed the Indianapolis Colts 45-7, the Patriots were accused of of deflating footballs. Patriot coach, Bill Belichick, had a post-Reagan/pre-Trumpian comment said: “I really don’t know what to say or know anything about what we’re talking about here.”
The latest proposed gate is Obamagate. Although it has not made it into an official gate yet, there is just enough history flying around to make some of the more shaky claims seem logical. The alleged premise is a deep state conspiracy that has the Obama administration spying on Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
There is no disputing the fact that the FBI, the CIA and Russia’s Federal Security Service (the FSB which took over the duties of the KGB) snoop and follow important and suspicious individuals. So, when Russians start showing up at Trump Tower, it is a good bet it’s not Alan Arkin as Lt. Rozanov in the 1966 movie “The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming.” And when the Russians left Trump Tower I doubt they were walking out of with a signed lease agreement or adoption papers.
It would be easy to say that you cannot make some of this stuff up because there is just enough history and facts floating around that can be cobbled together to make a gate or a great fiction story. A little embellishing here and there and it has all the makings of a Tom Clancy novel without high flying action or Harrison Ford.
But any good story has to have good characters. This cast of characters of deranged mayors, convicted operatives, suspicious Eastern Europeans, family members meeting with slippery generals and foreigners reads more like a day-in-the-life of a Carl Hiaasen novel than Mission Impossible. After all, Mar-a-Lago is in South Florida. Now if we could only choreograph all this to music we might have another Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup.
The real question is what will be the next “gate.” With the election coming up and legions of lawyers prowling state capitals in search of election irregularities we may well find us in a voting Verdun. An Electoral legal trench warfare that might last four years and not be settled until the next election.
Say what you will about Richard Nixon, he lost the 1960 election, one of the closest presidential elections in history, by 84 Electoral votes, 303-219, and the popular vote by less than 120,000 votes. But he knew enough to realize he lost, no matter what the margin of defeat was. Victory might be projected on Election Night; but as in baseball, they play all nine innings no matter how long it takes to see who wins.
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