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IS THERE A PRESIDENT IN THE HOUSE? (PART VIII)

© John S. Cooper

Richard Nixon served in Congress for less than six years. His short career there made him a national figure and catapulted him into national leadership roles. He was twice elected Vice President of the United States and twice elected President of the United states, the second time carrying 49 states.

Richard Nixon was a young lawyer who served in the Navy during World War II, and was discharged as a lieutenant commander in 1946. That same year, he ran for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives from California’s 12th Congressional District as a Republican. His opponent was five term Democratic veteran Representative Jerry Voorhis. The Republicans couldn’t find anyone to run against Voorhis, and placed an ad in the local newspaper. Nixon answered the ad and won the nomination.

Nixon upset Voorhis, winning by a vote of 65,586-49,994, and was re-elected two years later without opposition. Nixon served in the House of Representatives from January 3, 1947 until November 30, 1950. He served on the House Education and Labor Committee where he helped draft the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947. As a member of the House Un-American Activities Committee, he co-sponsored the Mundt-Nixon bill requiring the registration of Communist-front organizations and making it a crime to “aid the immediate or ultimate objectives of the world Communist movement.” The bill passed the House but not the Senate. The provisions of the Mundt-Nixon bill were incorporated into the McCarran Internal Security Act of 1950, which did pass.

Nixon gained national attention as the chairman of the House Un-American Activities Special Subcommittee that investigated charges by Time Magazine editor Whittaker Chambers that government officials had been Communist spies in the 1930s. One of those accused was Alger Hiss, who was eventually convicted of perjury for his testimony before Nixon’s committee. The affair made Nixon a national figure.

In spite of Nixon’s criticism of the Truman administration, Nixon voted for the Marshall Plan, aid to Greece and Turkey, and reciprocal trade agreements. He also voted for a peacetime military draft, lower taxes and an end to the discriminatory poll tax. Nixon declined to run for re-election to his House seat in 1950. Instead, he ran for the U.S. Senate.

Nixon ran against Democratic Representative Helen Gahagan Douglas for the seat being vacated by retiring Senator Sheridan Downey. It was a particularly nasty campaign. Nixon flooded the state with over 500,000 “pink sheets” linking Mrs. Douglas’ voting record in the House with the goals of the International Communist Party. Nixon referred to her as “the Pink Lady.” Actually, her record was every bit as anti-Communist as Nixon’s, but she never managed to counter the damage done to her image by Nixon’s tactics. In response to Nixon’s tactics, a small newspaper in southern California, the Independent Review, dubbed Nixon with the epithet “Tricky Dick” which stuck to Nixon for the rest of his political career.

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