The Wreck of the Richard M. Nixon

The 50th anniversary of Richard Nixon's resignation is next week. Although I've revisited cartoons from that historical moment before, the 1970's were a golden age of editorial cartooning; so there are plenty more whence those cartoons came.

"No One Is Above the Law" by Ranan Lurie, ca. July 29, 1974

At the end of July, the Supreme Court issued its ruling in U.S. v. Nixon, rejecting President Nixon's claim that "executive privilege" gave him the right to ignore subpoenas from the courts and Congress to turn over the White House tapes. Even with three Nixon appointees on the Court, the ruling against Nixon was 8-0, Justice William Rehnquist recusing himself.

Such a ruling has proven impossible under today's right-wing Court, stacked with grand old partisans who pretend to profess that the Founding Fathers intended for a president to have executive privilege entitling him to commit crimes, cover them up, and quash any investigation into them.

As long as he's a Republican, of course.

"The Last Bullet" by Walter "Trog" Fawkes in London Observer, August 4, 1974

Complying with the ruling, the White House surrendered the tapes, and investigators soon found the "smoking gun" they were looking for.

Six days after security guard Frank Mills discovered the Watergate break-in, and contrary to the President's claims that he wasn't involved, Richard Nixon and White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman decided that the CIA should instruct the FBI to drop its investigation on the grounds that it would expose covert operations related to the Bay of Pigs invasion.

"I Didn't Know It Was Loaded" by Pat Oliphant in Denver Post, August, 1974

I've posted Pat Oliphant's cartoon before, but it's too good not to rerun it again. I'll probably rerun it every time I ever refer back to the final days of Nixon's presidency.

"Wait, fellers..." by Gene Basset for United Feature Syndicate, Aug. 8, 1974

Support from congressional Republicans instantly evaporated. Party leaders Barry Goldwater, Hugh Scott, and John Rhodes came to the White House with advice for Nixon to start packing his bags.

by Don Wright in Miami News, August 7, 1974

On the way out, they suggested to Gerald Ford that if he hadn't yet moved into the brand new Vice President's residence at #1 Observatory Circle — he hadn't — he needn't bother.

by Bill Mauldin in Chicago Sun Times, ca. August 7, 1974

The House Judiciary Committee had already voted to send articles of impeachment to the full House. A few Republicans had voted with the majority Democrats. Now even Nixon's Republican defenders were urging him to resign before the House would have the opportunity to vote.

"Pay" by Jacob Burck in Chicago Sun-Times, August 9, 1974

The only question left was how steep a price Nixon would have to pay.

by Les Gabbard in The Guardian, London, August 8, 1974

Congress would happily drop its impeachment proceedings; but how much longer would the President of the United States remain an unindicted co-conspirator?

by Kenneth Mahood, Punch, London, August, 1974

President Nixon announced his resignation in an address to the nation on Thursday evening, August 8, 1974. Without admitting culpability for the Watergate break-in or the subsequent cover-up, he acknowledged that although "I have never been a quitter," he had lost all support to continue in office.

by Hugh Haynie in Louisville Courier-Journal, August 9, 1974

Unlike his "You Won't Have Richard Nixon to Kick Around Any More" speech in 1962, his address didn't wallow in self-pity. He didn't blame his political enemies for his fate. He didn't argue that his discussion about obstructing an FBI investigation was "perfect."

"The System Works" by Clifford "Baldy" Baldowski in Atlanta Constitution, August 8, 1974

And he definitely didn't call upon an unruly mob to march on the Capitol and fight, fight, fight or they wouldn't have a country any more.

by Frank Interlandi in Los Angeles Times, August 9, 1974

I had intended to close out today's post with the above cartoon by Frank Interlandi (which didn't foresee the ink spent on cartoons drawn after Ford's pardon of Nixon a month later, and Nixon's interview with David Frost in 1977); but in light of the passing this week of Tom Engelhardt at 93, I'll let him have the last word instead.

"The End" by Tom Engelhardt in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 9, 1974

Pursuit of the Naked Truth

If you've been following these Graphical History Tours of mine since the centennial of World War I, you know that most of my posts are about whatever was in the news 100 years earlier. But every once in a while, I like to come forward a bit to discuss some of the major news events from fifty years ago that I can actually remember: the Vietnam War... the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy... Apollo 11 landing on the Moon and Apollo 13 making it back to Earth... the Watergate break-in... the Six-Day War...

So let's take a look at this monumental, life-changing news story from March, 1974:

"The Nudity Crisis" by Cyrus Hungerford in Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, March 9, 1974

Streaking.

Spring was just around the corner, so college students naturally shed their winter parkas and started running around au naturel, as one is wont to do. 

And news media loved it. Catching snapshots of studly students and comely co-eds dashing through the quad in their birthday suits was a welcome break from reporting the news of rising oil prices, a looming recession, and the criminal indictment of seven of President Nixon's closest aides.

"They Say Streaking Is a Phenomenon Directly Related to the Pressures and Frustrations of Our Society. Was That Who I Thought It Was?" by Don Wright in Miami News, March 5, 1974

I remember the Chicago Tribune, Time, and Newsweek devoting entire pages to streaker photos. (I recall a large photo in the Tribune spread of a guy with one leg in a cast streaking on crutches!) Television had to be a bit more careful about what got caught on camera, but bare all they did. Which begat more streaking, which begat more photo spreads, which begat more streaking... The fad was seemingly everywhere … even on stage at the Oscars!

"The Object of 'Streaking'..." by Paul Conrad in Los Angeles Times, March 8, 1974

Certainly the nation's editorial cartoonists were eager to join in the fun.

"Again Eluding the Congress and the Courts..." by Hugh Haynie in Louisville Courier-Journal, March 6, 1974

We editorial cartoonists fancy ourselves to be serious journalists, speaking truth to power. Distilling important news down to its bare essence! Exposing hypocrisy and corruption! But deep down, we are also the kid in the back of the class drawing pictures of the school principal saying "Poop!" in our notebooks.

(Ask Clay Jones to show you his.)

"Streaking" by Herbert Block in Washington Post, March 6, 1974

Even the great Herblock in the capital's newspaper of record couldn't resist dashing off a cartoon of the President in the altogether.

"Good Grief..." by Jeff MacNelly in Richmond Times-Leader, ca. March 11, 1974

Likewise Jeff MacNelly, then early in his newspaper career. What he got right in this cartoon was that many collegiate streakers protected what was left of their modesty by pulling a balaclava over their face.

Had enough of Nixon in the nude? Yeah, me too.

"Senior Streaker" by Lou Grant for Los Angeles Time Syndicate, ca. March 14, 1974

We can now be grateful to Lou Grant for putting Richard Nixon in a streaking cartoon yet mercifully leaving him fully dressed.

"Streaking through 1974" by Frank Miller in Des Moines Register, March 7, 1974

With the Watergate scandal and economic hardship dominating the news, Republicans were taking a beating in local elections. That included losing the House seat of newly-minted Vice President Gerald Ford.

"We've Been 'Streaking' for Years" by D. Edward Holland in Chicago Tribune, March 16, 1974

For cartoonists (or their editors) who were leery of depicting the President of the United States in the nude, a safer alternative — especially for the dwindling number of Nixon defenders such as Ed Holland — was to draw John Q. Public stripped bare by the Internal Revenue Service.

"Streaking" by Gene Basset for Scripps Howard Newspapers, ca. March 14, 1974

Or one could draw Jane Q. Consumer losing everything to Inflation Bar Sinister.

"Streaker" by Don Hesse in St. Louis Democrat, ca. March 16, 1974

Or heck, why not draw about inflation and taxes? There's no limit to the kinds of major expenses that you could draw stealing the shirt off your back and the pants off your tush.

But you can leave your hat on.

"Like Father Like Son" by Jim Lange in Daily Oklahoman, March 7, 1974

Returning whence the fad began, I'm not sure whether Jim Lange was commenting on the economy in general or college tuition in particular. But I do know that the tuition grant I was awarded a couple years later, a significant amount at the time, would barely cover the cost of one semester's textbooks today.

The average college tuition in 1974 was $1,650/year for a public college, $3,420/year for a private college. Today, adjusted for inflation, that would be $12,155 and  $21,395, respectively. With the proliferation of fees since the '70's, looking at the actual cost of college today is like comparing apples and fruit salad; but the average cost for a four-year public college last year was $21,878, and for a private college, it was $47,961.

"Vulgar Indeed, Miss Finch..." by Clyde Peterson "C.P. Houston" in Houston Chronicle, ca. March 9, 1974

That's enough math and calculus. I'll bring today's NSFW romp to a close with a couple of cartoons that expressed relief that college and university students were blowing off steam in harmless, frivolous ways, in contrast to students of only a few years prior. 

(Side note: I've seen the C.P. Houston cartoon with the word "mirthfully" instead of "joyously"; I do not know which word appeared in the Houston Chronicle. And the Doug Marlette cartoon below must have been drawn for national syndication in place of the local-issue cartoon of his with a streaking theme that appeared in the Charlotte Observer.)

"Once a Campus Revolutionary..." by Doug Marlette for Charlotte Oberver, ca. March 13, 1974

P.S.: If you caught a Joe Cocker earworm a couple paragraphs back and would rather get rid of it, try this one.

Oliphant on Nixon

Streakback Saturday this week falls on the 41st anniversary of the night President Richard Milhous Nixon announced his resignation. Nixon was a caricaturist's dream -- you could put those ski-slope nose, heavy jowls, and widow's peak on anything at all, and it was instantly recognizable as the 37th President of the United States.

By the time he was elected president on his second try in 1968, he had been Vice President for eight years, an ambitious Congressman before that, and a failed gubernatorial candidate in California, so established American cartoonists had pretty much settled upon how to draw him. There is little change in the Nixons drawn by Paul Conrad or Herb Block, for example, other than that famous "free shave" the latter gave the president-elect.

Patrick Oliphant, on the other hand, had come to America from Australia during Nixon's years in the wilderness, and it's interesting to see how his version of Nixon developed over the ensuing decade.

These are tracings I made in ballpoint pen of Oliphant's Nixons back in the distant days of my youth. (I wrote about Oliphant's Ford cartoons back in April.) They are by no means a complete representation of Oliphant's work, but only those cartoons I had in my collection of newspaper and magazine clippings started in 1973.

In Oliphant's cartoons from the 1968 campaign through Nixon's first term (above), all Nixon's major features are there, but the caricatures are on the gentle side. His face is stern in only two of these cartoons (in the December, 1970 one, Nixon himself is a bomber over Hanoi; in the June, 1972 one, he's jealous of Henry Kissinger at a state dinner.) Even dripping wet in February, 1969, he's put out, but not scowling.

It isn't until Nixon's second term that Oliphant's drawings of him start to acquire a monstrous quality.

I've skipped ahead to 1973 with these in order to play up the differences with what came before: the jowls are big enough to hide a muskmelon in each one. His eyes are often hooded, and his mouth almost disappears beneath that (presumably sweaty) upper lip.

The last of these Nixons is from a cartoon in the final week of his presidency, as the most damning evidence from the Nixon tapes convinced even his most ardent defenders that he had to go. In a black shirt and pin-striped suit, Nixon is cast as the hardened mafiosi from a '70's flick, offering one last, improbable defense, that he didn't know the smoking gun in his hand was loaded.

There are a few more Nixons from immediately after his resignation on this sheet, but most of them are from a single cartoon -- unrepresentative of the overall trend -- depicting Nixon as each of the characters at the Mad Hatter's tea party in Alice in Wonderland. Aside from that cartoon, Nixon tends for a while to appear as a forlorn, embittered figure in Oliphant's cartoons, often appearing only from the nose up peering over the wall around his San Clemente estate. Later on, he becomes an evil, shadowy figure offering devilish advocacy to later presidents, or merely as a counter to the eulogies that followed his death in 1994.

Once I started buying Oliphant's books (starting with Oliphant! in 1980), I didn't see much point in ruining them by tracing every caricature of every president in them, so I didn't keep it up. Besides, I eventually had my own cartoons to draw.

Nixon Quitting!

Forty years ago today, I was at band camp at Lakeland College near Sheboygan.

I had been following the House's impeachment proceedings against Richard Nixon very closely, even taping them so I could review portions later. The votes to impeach had already taken place, and the week of August 4-10 wasn't expected to be particularly eventful. After week after week of Watergate, Watergate, Watergate, the cover of Time was of Jack Nicholson.

Thursday night was the night of the camp talent show. I don't remember that I participated in the show, but I remember that I was there and had a good time. And after the show, on my way back to the dormitory, I passed by the student union, where a small crowd was watching Nixon's resignation announcement on TV.

Even given how much Watergate dominated the public square in 1973 and 1974, and even with the Supreme Court's 8-0 ruling against Nixon's claims to executive privilege, having missed the events of the previous three days, Nixon's resignation was a bolt out of the blue. When I left home, he was steadfastly refusing to give an inch to Congressional investigators and had just returned from a trip to Russia.

But the "smoking gun" tape proving that Nixon was in on the cover-up of the Watergate break-in was released on Monday, and his Republican defenders on the House Judiciary Committee and in the Senate withdrew their support. The day before he resigned, Nixon promised his cabinet that he would fight on -- but G.O.P. luminaries such as Barry Goldwater, Nelson Rockefeller and Ronald Reagan were letting it be known whether or not they would agree to be Gerald Ford's Vice President.