Nationally televised speech delivered by Republican vice
presidential candidate Richard Nixon.
During the 1952 presidential election campaign, in which
he ran as Dwight D. Eisenhower’s vice presidential candidate,
Richard Nixon appeared on national television in response to
Democratic charges that he had accepted payments for political expenses from a secret fund managed by a group of dubious businesspeople. The fund and the transactions associated
with it were legal and commonplace, but the publicity generated by the charges threatened Nixon’s place on the
Republican ticket and his long-term political plans. Nixon
gave a masterful performance. He disclosed his financial situation to the television audience, assuring millions of viewers that he was not a wealthy man and that he had never
profited from public service. He also boasted that his wife Pat,
in contrast to the mink-coated wives of officials in President
Harry S Truman’s administration, wore a “respectable
Republican cloth coat.” The speech received its name because
of Nixon’s admission that his family did plan to keep one
political contribution—a black and white cocker spaniel that
his young daughter Tricia named Checkers. The televised
appearance was a great success for Nixon. He remained on
the Republican ticket and served as vice president under
President Dwight D. Eisenhower for eight years. Throughout
the rest of Nixon’s political career, his detractors would recall
the performance as a brazen exercise in manipulation.
—Ben Wynne
References
Ambrose, Stephen E. The Education of a Politician. Vol. 1,
Nixon. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987–1991.