A Note From Bob
Fifty-two years ago tonight
Saturday morning. On this date in 1974, at nine o'clock in the evening, Richard Nixon sat down in the Oval Office in front of a television camera and told the country he would leave the presidency the next day. No American president had ever done it. None has since.
Today's featured quiz is the man himself, the whole arc: the Navy lieutenant, the young congressman who made his name on the Hiss case, the vice president, the narrow loss in 1960, the comeback in 1968, the opening to China, and the fall. Below it sits a much longer quiz on Watergate, 30 questions on how the thing actually unfolded, month by month.
Two quizzes, one man, and a date that earned both. Pour the coffee.
Trivia Question of the Day
In September 1952, a young vice presidential nominee saved his place on the Republican ticket with a televised speech that America remembered by the name of his family's cocker spaniel. What was the dog's name?
The answer is at the bottom of this email.
Today's Featured Quiz
Richard Nixon
Fifteen questions across one of the most consequential and most argued-about careers in American politics. The Hiss case, the Checkers speech, the 1960 debates, the wilderness years after 1962, the opening to China, detente with Moscow, and the resignation that ended it all. He was not a simple man, and this is not a simple quiz. See how much you remember.
The Answer
Checkers
The dog was a black and white cocker spaniel, sent by a supporter in Texas, and the Nixon girls named him Checkers. In September 1952, with the Republican ticket under pressure over a private campaign fund, Nixon went on live television, laid out his family finances down to his wife's cloth coat, and said that whatever anyone made of it, the children were keeping the dog. Roughly sixty million Americans watched. Eisenhower kept him on the ticket. It was the first time television rescued Richard Nixon's career. Twenty-two years later, television was where he ended it.
On This Day
On this day in 1974, Richard Nixon spoke to the country from the Oval Office and announced that he would leave office at noon the following day. Three days earlier, the White House had been forced to release a recording from June 23, 1972, six days after the Watergate break-in, in which the president approved a plan to use the CIA to slow the FBI's investigation. What remained of his support in Congress collapsed within hours. Gerald Ford was sworn in the next afternoon. How the country traveled from a clumsy burglary to that broadcast is a longer story than most of us remember. Thirty questions on it, below.
Stay
Curious.
Bob
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