A respectable Republican cloth coat

I had occasion today to read Nixon's famous "Checkers speech" in which he humbly -- or humiliatingly, depending on your point of view -- went on television to defend himself from charges of using secret slush funds. (Now that's something that hasn't changed, but leave it be.) In the speech he goes over amazingly personal aspects of his family's finances and household management. The details are utterly quaint from today's perspective.

First of all, we've got a house in Washington, which cost $41,000 and on which we owe $20,000. We have a house in Whittier, California which cost $13,000 and on which we owe $3,000. My folks are living there at the present time. I have just $4,000 in life insurance, plus my GI policy which I have never been able to convert, and which will run out in two years. I have no life insurance whatever on Pat. I have no life insurance on our two youngsters Patricia and Julie.

I own a 1950 Oldsmobile car. We have our furniture. we have no stocks and bonds of any type. We have no interest, direct or indirect, in any business.

Now that is what we have. What do we owe?

Well, in addition to the mortgages, the $20,000 mortgage on the house in Washington and the $10,000 mortgage on the house in Whittier, I owe $4,000 to the Riggs Bank in Washington, D.C. with an interest at 4 percent. I owe $3,500 to my parents, and the interest on that loan, which I pay regularly, because it is a part of the savings they made through the years they were working so hard -- I pay regularly 4 percent interest. And then I have a $500 loan, which I have on my life insurance.

Well, that's about it. That's what we have. And that's what we owe. It isn't very much. But Pat and I have the satisfaction that every dime that we have got is honestly ours.

I should say this, that Pat doesn't have a mink coat. But she does have a respectable Republican cloth coat, and I always tell her she would look good in anything.

Thus Nixon established a pattern that would work very well during his presidency, which began 16 years later: He went straight to the public and gave them what sounded like a no-nonsense, no-frills, pants-down view of himself and his motives. He did the same thing in 1974:

Speaking to John Dean, I said: "Tell the truth. That is the thing I have told everybody around here." ...

In giving you these records -- blemishes and all -- I am placing my trust in the basic fairness of the American people. I know in my own heart that through the long, painful, and difficult process revealed in these transcripts, I was trying in that period to discover what was right and to do what was right. I hope and I trust that when you have seen the evidence in its entirety, you will see the truth of that statement.

And it worked -- for some people. I remember watching that broadcast with my mother. When it ended, she said, "Ya know, I believe him! I think people should give him a chance. He really just wanted to do the right thing."

She was, and is, the perfect Republican.