At the 1952 Republican national convention, young Senator Richard M. Nixon was chosen to be the running mate of presidential candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Nixon had enjoyed a spectacular rise in national politics. Elected to Congress in 1946, he quickly made a name for himself as a militant anti-Communist while serving on the House Un-American Activities Committee. In 1950, at age 38, he was elected to the U.S. Senate and became an outspoken critic of President Truman's conduct of the Korean War, wasteful spending by the Democrats, and also alleged Communists were in the government.

But Nixon's rapid rise in American politics came to a crashing halt after a sensational headline appeared in the New York Post stating, "Secret Rich Men's Trust Fund Keeps Nixon in Style Far Beyond His Salary." The headline appeared just a few days after Eisenhower had chosen him as his running mate. Amid the shock and outrage that followed, many Republicans urged Eisenhower to remove Nixon from the ticket before it was too late.

Nixon, however, in a brilliant political maneuverer, took his case directly to the American people via the new medium of television in a nationwide hookup. With his wife sitting stoically nearby, Nixon offered an apologetic explanation of all of his finances, including the now-famous lines regarding his wife's "respectable Republican cloth coat" and the tale of a little dog named Checkers given as a present to his young daughters. "...I want to say right now that regardless of what they say, we're going to keep it."

He turned the last section of his address into a political attack, making veiled accusations about the finances of his opponents and challenging them to provide the same kind of open explanation.

Although it would forever be known as Nixon's "Checkers Speech," it was actually a political triumph for Nixon at the time it was given. Eisenhower requested Nixon to come to West Virginia where he was campaigning and greeted Nixon at the airport with, "Dick, you're my boy." The Republicans went on to win the election by a landslide.

My Fellow Americans,

I come before you tonight as a candidate for the Vice-presidency and as a man whose honesty and integrity has been questioned.

Now, the usual political thing to do when charges are made against you is to either ignore them or to deny them without giving details. I believe we have had enough of that in the United States, particularly with the present administration in Washington D.C.

To me, the office of the Vice-presidency of the United States is a great office, and I feel that the people have got to have confidence in the integrity of the men who run for that office and who might attain them.

I have a theory, too, that the best and only answer to a smear or an honest misunderstanding of the facts is to tell the truth. And that is why I am here tonight. I want to tell you my side of the case.

I am sure that you have read the charges, and you have heard it, that I, Senator Nixon, took $18,000 from a group of my supporters.

Now, was that wrong? And let me say that it was wrong. I am saying it, incidentally, that it was wrong, just not illegal, because it isn't a question of whether it was legal or illegal, that isn't enough. The question is, was it morally wrong? I say that it was morally wrong if any of that $18,000 went to Senator Nixon, for my personal use. I say that it was morally wrong if it was secretly given and secretly handled.

And I say that it was morally wrong if any of the contributors got special favors for the contributions that they made.

And to answer those questions let me say this--not a cent of the $18,000 or any other money of that type ever went to me for my personal use. Every penny of it was used to pay for political expenses that I did not think should be charged to the taxpayers of the United States.

It was not a secret fund. As a matter of fact, when I was on "Meet the Press"--some of you may have seen it last Sunday--Peter Edson came up to me after the program, and he said, "Dick, what about this fund we hear about?" And I said, "Well, there is no secret about it. Go out and see Dana Smith who was the administrator of the fund," and I gave him his address. And I said you will find that the purpose of the fund simply was to defray political expenses that I did not feel should be charged to the government.

And third, let me point out, and I want to make this particularly clear, that no contributor to this fund, no contributor to any of my campaigns, has ever received any consideration that he would not have received as an ordinary constituent.

I just don't believe in that, and I can say that never, while I have been in the Senate of the United States, as far as the people that contributed to this fund are concerned, have I made a telephone call to an agency, nor have I gone down to an agency on their behalf.

And the records will show that--the records which are in the hands of the administration.

Well, then, some of you will say, and rightly, "Well, what did you use the fund for, Senator? Why did you have to have it?"
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