December 9, 1970: Nixon Writes Fake Letters to Editors

After spending the afternoon and evening preparing for his historic outreach to the Communist government of mainland China, President Nixon stays up late penning letters to various newspaper editors, letters purportedly from average citizens, and asks chief of staff H. R. Haldeman to find ordinary people to sign and send them. One letter, to columnist John Osborne of the New Republic, should be signed by a graduate student from Yale or Georgetown Universities, Nixon suggests. It reads in part, “Your scathing attacks on President Nixon have delighted me beyond belief…. I don’t know when I looked forward more to a television program than the press conference…. I thought this was really the time the press would get to this S.O.B.… It was a shocking disappointment. Can’t you do something to get smarter people in the press corps?” Another letter, to be sent to Washington Star reporter James Doyle, begins, “I write this letter, not in any sense of anger but simply out of sorrow… that you and your colleagues had utterly struck out when you tried to take the president on in his press conference.” [Reeves, 2001, pp. 285]