Tricky Dick Nixon, Walter Cronkite, and CBS Television 7
a persona that would whitewash his transgressions in the eyes of the electorate.
Accused of taking $18,000 in campaign funds for his personal use, then vice
presidential nominee Nixon delivered his (in)famous “Checkers Speech” in
September 1952 to tell his side of the story to the people. Using “Checkers,” a
cocker spaniel he had received as a gift and whom he could not return because
his daughters loved him so, Nixon milked the TV audience for their sympathy
and support by painting a picture of himself and his family as anything but
corrupt and wealthy. His wife Pat, for instance, wore no furs, only “a respectable
Republican cloth coat,” and accepting “Checkers,” Nixon pleaded, hardly
constituted a crime that enriched the Nixons. Tricky Dick invoked “family
values” to keep his spot on the Republican presidential ticket for 1952. But
' Nixon also used his “Checkers Speech” to besmirch his foes for the very crime
for which he was accused.
Nixon’s strategy of beating his opponents down in any and every way
possible clearly relates to the tone and tenor of Williams’s letter to CBS for
allowing the “lingering” camera shot of the “pitiably exhausted McGoverns.”
Here follows the previously unpublished letter oozing with Williams’s
indignation.
Hotel Elysee
60 EAST 54th STREET
NEW YORK, N.Y. 10022
Oct. 3, 1972
Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc.
Attention of Mr. Walter Cronkite and Associates
Dear Sirs:
Knowing how little it probably means to you, I feel
obliged, however, to protest the subtly and sometimes
not so subtly negative fashion in which you are
following the campaign of McGovern for the
Presidency.
Last night, for instance, the camera shots of the
Senator, and more particularly of his wife, could
hardly have been accidentally so unfavorable. Mrs.
McGovern was pitiably exhausted: the camera lingered
unkindly on her tired face, on two unnecessary
occasions.
Then the shot of the two of them on the hotel sofa in