Nixon’s White Cat

It was the winter of 1956. The Vice President of the United States, Richard Nixon, was trying to convince voters that he would be a wise choice in the upcoming Presidential primaries.

His advisers had a big problem, however.

How could they help craft a man who was widely called “Tricky Dicky” into a reliable persona?

They decided to divide their efforts into segments.

One part of of the electorate would get personal appearances, press releases, glossy brochures. Another would get different material.

I was targeted as part of a neglected segment. Youth. Specifically, educated youth, who were thought to be opinion leaders. And the places from which those leaders purportedly led included student newspapers.

And so, one fine day I got a Special Delivery letter. addressed to the Editor of the Yale Daily News. An exciting invitation to question the Vice President of the United States!

A few days later a follow up phone call came. The opportunity was going to be in upstate New York, at Cornell University. All other Ivy League editors had also been invited to what was supposed to be a no-holds-barred on-stage event. Would I be there, the caller from the White House press room asked?

Hell, yes!

But how to get from New Haven to Ithaca, 250 miles by car at a time when there were no wide, interstate highways?

Trains!

Three of them. New Haven-New York-Albany-Ihaca. Mostly on tracks reserved for freight, while passengers were “sidetracked.” A 12-plus hour odyssey.

I got there the night before the Big Day. In time for us Ivy editors to meet. We discussed what each would ask if called upon. All the questions were good, well-researched, brief.

And so there we were, on stage behind Nixon, who strode out firmly (though clumsily), flashing his silly grin and the “V” for victory sign, a symbol from WW2.

The front rows of the auditorium, where the college Republicans were strategically seated, cheered. Few in the rest of the audience did. And none of us journalists demonstrated emotions, of course.

After some forgettable opening remarks, including thanks to his wife Pat, Nixon called on the first editor.

Before that editor could stand and speak, however, another editor leaped to his feet, and began asking a question. It wasn’t one we had discussed the night before. Nixon took two more, these from people who raised their hands. Then it was over, Nixon and Pat signed autographed pictures, and were gone.

For me, the event had just begun.

I quickly stifled my anger at the editor (Adam Clymer of the Harvard Crimson) who had made us immediately seem like another mob similar to reporters at a White House press briefing, which we definitely weren’t.

In haste, I yelled towards him, something like, “What the fuck did you think you were doing?” And then the post autograph crowd bore us in different directions. He towards a much-praised 40-plus year career as New York Times White House Correspondent and National Affairs Columnist.

Me towards a room where I could use my portable Olivetti typewriter and a phone.

I called the Yale Daily News, with the assistance of operators — long distance calls were an adventure then, no dialing, no area codes.

And I dictated to a rewrite man something like:

“By Lawrence M. Bensky

Managing Editor

ITHACA N.Y. — Vice President Richard Nixon brought his Presidential campaign to the Cornell campus today…”

And I went on to as many of Nixon’s words, and to the Cornell campus atmosphere as I could fit into the time and space I had available.

By the time I got back to New Haven two days later the article had appeared. One sentence in it was, “Nixon praised his white cat for his success in politics.”

My phone rang off the proverbial hook. So did Nixon’s, I was told. Everyone wanted to know the same thing: what’s that about a cat? What’s its name ? Was it a stray adopted from a shelter?

In fact, what happened was that my rewrite man had misunderstood me. I had said “wife Pat,” he had heard “white cat.”

The sleepy backwater New Haven office of the then (as now) venerable Associated Press routinely sent out Yale Daily News stories with wider implications. They had sent out this one .

(Larry Bensky can be reached at: Lbensky@igc.org.)