-Caveat Lector-
November 13, 2000
Who Should Concede?
The Secret History of Modern U.S. Politics
By Robert Parry
Op-ed columns in major American newspapers are calling for Vice
President Al
Gore to accept defeat and concede, even though he seems to have
won the
nationwide popular vote by about 200,000 and was the apparent
choice of a
plurality of Florida voters though some miscast their votes.
Do the Right Thing, Mr. Gore, read the headline of an article
by former Sen. Bob Dole on
The Washington Posts opinion page on Nov. 11.
It was a close election, but its over, wrote Dole about the
Nov. 7 presidential vote. I urge
Al Gore to put his countrys agenda ahead of his agenda; to put
the peoples interests
before his personal interests.
Dole, the Republican presidential nominee in 1996, cited the
examples of Richard Nixon
conceding defeat in 1960 and Gerald Ford conceding in 1976.
Dole described Ford as
rebuffing calls from aides who felt a few changed votes in a
couple of key states would
have elected Ford.
But the Ford example was not parallel to the present situation.
What Dole left out of the
article was that Jimmy Carter defeated Ford by 1.7 million
votes nationwide. Even if Ford
could have reversed enough votes in a few states to get the
Electoral College, he would
have won by defying the popular will.
The same was true of Nixon, though the national news media
seems clueless about the real
history.
On Nov. 10, The New York Times highlighted on its op-ed page
the supposed example of
Nixons gracious acceptance of defeat in 1960, despite
questions of voting irregularities by
John F. Kennedy's campaign in Illinois and Texas.
Whatever else he was, Nixon was a patriot, wrote author
Richard Reeves. He understood
what recounts and lawsuits and depositions carried out over
months even years would
do to the nation.
Though the stories of Nixons graceful exit have taken on the
color of history from constant
retelling, they do not comport with the facts either.
Indeed, contrary to the image of Republicans meekly accepting
the 1960 results, the GOP
sought recounts in 11 states and mounted aggressive legal
challenges in some. The
Eisenhower administration even launched criminal
investigations, though without much
result.
[For details, see two articles about the myth of Nixons
graceful exit at Slate and Salon.com]
Yet, beyond Nixons Electoral College loss, he too was the
loser in the popular vote which
Kennedy won by about 118,000 ballots.
While these cherished tales of political statesmanship by Nixon
and Ford may seem
innocuous enough, they are feeding todays resentment by
Republicans who are
demanding that Al Gore step aside and let Texas Gov. George W.
Bush win.
The thinking goes that its the Democrats turn to do whats
right for the country.
Beyond the faulty history of graceful exits and the GOP grudges
that the myths have
nurtured, the major news media is missing an even larger and
more important reality.
For the past four decades, the Republicans have built a record
of dirty tricks and October
Surprises in presidential contests. And typically, it is the
Democrats who stay silent after
learning of the schemes to avert constitutional crises and
avoid public disillusionment with
the political process.
Nixon's Role
Nixon appears to have been the modern-day father of the October
Surprise strategy, the
manipulation of some major event in the campaigns waning days
to stampede voters in one
direction or another.
In 1960, then-Vice President Nixon saw communist Cuba as both a
threat to his election
and a possible boon. He hoped that the CIA could overthrow or
assassinate Cuban
leader Fidel Castro in the weeks before the election.
The agency called the scheme Operation Pluto, after the Roman
god of the dead, wrote
Anthony Summers in his new biography of Nixon, The Arrogance of
Power. To Nixon,
Pluto was a potential stepping-stone to the goal that motivated
him more than the overthrow
of any Caribbean dictator, the presidency.
"Thomas McCoy, a CIA man offered an assignment on the project,
was told there was
substantial
