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Richard Nixon, heir to the Throttlebottom dynasty, realized the painfully narrow limits of the job and, in the best vice-presidential tradition, made jokes about it. On Election Day 1952, Candidate Nixon and a friend were tossing a football on Laguna Beach, Calif, with three marines who happened by. Chasing a fumble, Nixon and one marine almost collided. Recognition lit up the marine's face. He exclaimed: "Good God, you're some kind of a celebrity!" Answered Dick Nixon: "No, I'm not a celebrity. I'm running for Vice President."
But Nixon refused to have Throttlebottomness thrust upon him. Now 41 (last week), he is the first Vice President to be born in the 20th century. He is a new kind of politician and, with a fresh approach, he was able to see that the mid-20th century problems and responsibilities of the Government's executive branch created an opportunity for a new kind of Vice President.
The Chief Executive now presides over an enormous bureaucracy of civilian and military experts whose work cannot be closely shaped by the President. Each service tends to go its own way, pursue its own interests and those of the citizen group most directly interested. How can a President maintain unity and cohesion of policy? In recent years, Presidents have had growing staffs of White House aides. But an aide has no authority, little prestige. He cannot really represent the President. And the President cannot spread himself thin over his thousands of responsibilities.
Eisenhower and Nixon are engaged in an effort to strengthen the executive branch at the top, to enlarge the presidential influence in the Congress and the bureaucracy. If it works—and it seems to be working—the new function of the Vice President may help to solve a crisis of modern government: the conflict between the unity of national policy represented by the President and the divisiveness and multiplicity represented by Congressmen, specialized administrators arid their attendant pressure groups.
The Wheel of Fortune. The young man who has undertaken this formidable task was born at Yorba Linda, Calif, to Hannah Milhous and Francis Anthony Nixon. When Dick was 13, his older brother Harold contracted TB. Hannah Nixon took him to Arizona where, on visits, Dick earned money as barker for a wheel of fortune carnival booth. In Whittier, Calif., where the Nixons had moved after their Yorba Linda lemon grove failed, Frank and the boys kept the home, grocery store and filling station going. After five years in Arizona. Harold died* and Hannah returned to Whittier, where she worked 18 hours a day in the store. As the oldest surviving son, Dick had to carry a heavy burden of family responsibility. Recalls his brother Donald: "None of us had too much time to play. Dick had a lot to make him serious."